UN Inspectors Focus on the Iraqi Missile Programme Monday

On Monday, for the second day in succession, the weapons inspectors of the United Nations chiefly focused on the Iraqi missile programme. As the press-release issued in Baghdad by the representative of UNMOVIC and the IAEA in Iraq, Hiro Ueki, says, five groups of missile experts from UNMOVIC on Monday inspected six Iraqi facilities which in some way or another are connected with the missile programme. Two enterprises, among them, have to do with the production of a missile engine which uses liquid propellant, three enterprises are connected with the production of missile engines and missile components, and also an aerodrome on which an Iraqi unmanned plane is being tested.

The experts also controlled the process of the elimination of the mustard gas which is extracted from shells in the proving-ground, and took some samples.

Inspections were also carried out on Monday at the chemical plant some 30 kilometres north of Baghdad, a grain processing factory in the district of Kirkuk (225 kilometres north of the Iraqi capital), several plants from the system of the Iraqi military industrial corporation), and also military warehouses in the area of the town of Mosul (400 kilometres north of Baghdad) where the main attention of the experts was attracted by artillery small-calibre shells.