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Politics : Attack Iraq? -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: calgal who wrote (3156)	12/16/2002 5:02:14 PM
From: calgal	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 8683

Weapons Inspectors Make Way Through Iraqi Nuclear Complex URL: foxnews.com Monday, December 16, 2002 BAGHDAD, Iraq — U.N. weapons inspectors searched a sprawling complex where Iraqi scientists once worked on a nuclear bomb, one of at least six sites they visited Monday morning. Meanwhile, experts at the U.N. nuclear watchdog prepared to begin testing samples gathered from sites in Iraq for any unusual radioactivity that might point to a clandestine Iraqi nuclear weapons program. The first samples collected since inspections began last month arrived Monday at the U.N. labs outside Vienna. A day earlier, Hollywood star Sean Penn spoke out in Baghdad in support of the Iraqi people caught up in an international crisis, and the U.S. military reported U.S. and British warplanes on routine patrols over Iraq fired on two installations after coming under fire. Monday was the third consecutive day U.N. inspectors were at al-Qa'qaa, near the town of al-Tuwaitha, about 15 miles southeast of Baghdad. The site had been under U.N. scrutiny in the 1990s and was involved in the final design of a nuclear bomb before Iraq's nuclear program was destroyed by U.N. teams after the 1991 Gulf War. The United Nations offered few details about Monday's inspection at al-Qa'qaa. During their Sunday visit to al-Qa'qaa, inspectors said a chemical team updated information about a sulfuric acid plant, an explosives production plant and storage areas. Sunday's inspection also focused on a production unit built between 1998 and 2002. Eight samples arrived Monday at labs of the International Atomic Energy Agency for testing, and another 20 samples were expected by the weekend, IAEA spokesman Mark Gwozdecky told The Associated Press. Gwozdecky would not say where in Iraq the samples were taken or say if the initial materials were air, soil, dust or water samples. Using electron microscopes, gamma and thermal ionization spectrometers and other tools, scientists at the lab will test for radioactive residue of the sort left by a nuclear weapons program. The IAEA has said it hopes to have results from the screening of the first two dozen or so samples by the time agency director Mohamed ElBaradei reports back to the U.N. Security Council on Jan. 27. Also for the third day in a row, inspectors visited Hatteen, a complex some 40 miles south of Baghdad. Hatteen houses a number of government factories that produce everything from cars to ammunition. "We do not have prohibited weapons at this site and all our activities are normal," Hussein Mohammed Khaled, Hatteen's director, told reporters after Monday's inspection. He said the inspectors took samples of aluminum bars from the facility and that the visit went smoothly. Inspectors also visited an electronics and a heavy machinery factory in Baghdad, the Biological Technologies Institute at Baghdad University, and what Iraqi officials described as a small boat factory 20 miles north of Baghdad. The inspectors are working in Iraq under a U.N. resolution passed last month that threatens serious consequences if Iraq fails to prove it has surrendered all its banned weapons. The United States has threatened to attack Iraq — alone if it deems it necessary — and says it has proof Iraqi President Saddam Hussein is hiding weapons of mass destruction. Iraq says it has no such weapons. In Washington on Monday, White House spokesman Ari Fleischer said American officials were still studying a voluminous Iraqi declaration to the United Nations on Dec. 8 that reiterated Baghdad's contention it has no banned weapons. Asked whether Iraq would have a chance to make good on any omissions that U.N. or U.S. officials find, Fleischer said it was made "abundantly clear from the U.N. that this was Iraq's last chance to inform the world in an accurate, complete and full way what weapons of mass destruction they possess." At a news conference in the Iraqi capital Sunday, Penn called for restraint and reflection. "Simply put, if there is a war or continued sanctions against Iraq, the blood of Americans and Iraqis alike will be on our (American) hands," the actor said at the end of a three-day visit to Iraq. The visit was organized by the Institute for Public Accuracy, a research organization based in San Francisco. "I did not come here to criticize any government or president," Penn said, but he called on Washington to make public the evidence it claims it has that Iraq is stockpiling banned weapons. He said more information was needed in order for the "right thing to happen." Penn, who left Baghdad later Sunday, is among scores of celebrities who have spoken out, but the first to travel to Iraq to express his concerns. Earlier this month, Martin Sheen and Academy Award winners Kim Basinger, Helen Hunt, Olympia Dukakis, Susan Sarandon and director Jonathan Demme were among more than 100 entertainers who signed a letter urging President Bush to avoid a war on Iraq. Other Americans, some describing themselves as "human shields," are also trying to stop a war. Earlier this month, the Chicago-based Iraq advocacy group Voices in the Wilderness, organized a small peace demonstration in front of U.N. offices in Baghdad.