Inspectors of UN special commission continue working in Iraq

UNMOVIC inspectors have not discovered in the Iraqi centre for the development of missiles equipment marked by inspectors of the UN Special Commission and several monitoring cameras, says a press release by Hiro Ueki, spokesman for UNMOVIC and IAEA in Baghdad.

On Monday the group of UNMOVIC inspectors visited the Al'Karama (Dignity) general company situated in the Al-Wiziria district of Baghdad which is one of Iraq's main missile development centres, where work to create the Al-Sumud (Staunchness) liquid fuel missile was conducted in the past few years.

The press-release states that equipment marked by the inspectors of the UN Special Commission and several monitoring cameras were at the facility in 1998, whereas now they were not found there.

The explanation of the Iraqi side was that they were partially destroyed during the bombings in December 1998, and partly transferred to other facilities.

On Monday, IAEA inspectors, notes the statement, also inspected three "small industrial facilities," which UN observers have never visited before. These facilities -- alcohol producing factories -- are situated about 20 km to the North of Baghdad.

The inspectors were immediately admitted to the facilities and "they concluded their work in keeping with the plan and with the assistance of the Iraqi side," says the press-release.

Thus, for the first time since the inspections were resumed in Iraq on November 27th, facilities not examined before were subjected to a check.