UN teams descend on Iraqi airfield
( 2002-12-02 09:05 ) (7 )

A UN inspections team conducts a search for weapons of mass destruction at an agricultural facility near Baghdad December 1 ,2002. UN weapons inspectors visited an agricultural facility near Baghdad, the fourth day of inspections in a hunt for Iraqi weapons of mass destruction. [Reuters]

U.N. disarmament teams inspected a shabby, seldom-used airfield in corn country north of Baghdad on Sunday, a place where Iraqi experts engineered devices for bombarding an enemy from the air with sprays of killer microbes.

The U.N. inspectors checked on equipment sealed and tagged by U.N. teams in the 1990s, and pored over paper and computer files, the airfield's director said. But they apparently found none of the advanced spray systems, unaccounted for since the Gulf War.

"We showed them everything," said the director, Montadhar Radeef Mohammed.

The inspectors, as usual, kept their findings confidential, pending later formal reports.

In their first week of inspections, the U.N. monitors paid unannounced visits to a dozen Iraqi sites with a wide variety of specialties and links to weapons programs in the 1980s.

Those ranged from an animal vaccine plant that brewed lethal toxins for bombs, to an industrial complex planned to house hundreds of gas centrifuges producing enriched uranium for Iraqi nuclear weapons.

In both those cases, and dozens of others, the earlier inspectors destroyed the critical equipment, and put other gear under seal, video surveillance or other forms of control. They also destroyed many tons of chemical and biological agents for weapons.

That inspection regime collapsed in 1998, however, as the Baghdad government and U.N. officials clashed over access to Iraqi sites and the alleged presence of U.S. spies in the U.N. operation. Those inspectors believed they never found all of Iraq's weapons of mass destruction.

The inspections have resumed under a U.N. Security Council mandate for Iraq, 11 years after its Gulf War defeat, to finally give up any remaining chemical, biological or nuclear weapons programs, or face "serious consequences." The United States threatens war against Iraq, with or without U.N. support, if the new inspections don't strip Baghdad of such weapons.

The U.S. threats have touched off anti-war protests worldwide. In the latest round, thousands rallied in Istanbul, Turkey, on Sunday to demand that their government not assist a U.S. war against their southern neighbor Iraq. "We will not be America's soldiers!" demonstrators chanted.

More than 18,000 anti-war protesters also demonstrated in Australian cities over the weekend.

Iraqi-U.S. tensions exploded again Sunday in the no-fly zone declared by Washington in southern Iraq to protect Shiite Muslims. Iraqi officials said three U.S.-British airstrikes left four civilians dead and 27 others wounded. The U.S. military said the planes attacked Iraqi air defenses after being fired on.

Important sites from the 1990s inspections have been alerted by Iraqi authorities to expect the new U.N. teams anytime. When five carloads of inspectors pulled up to Khan Bani Sa'ad Airport's front gate, 20 miles northeast of Baghdad, they were let in without delay, accompanied by Iraqi government escorts who aren't told their destination beforehand.

Installation director Mohammed apparently was caught unaware, however, and off base. Because the U.N. team "froze" the site, allowing no movement in or out, Mohammed needed special clearance to enter and deal with the inspectors.

The Aviation Division of the national Agriculture Ministry operates the airfield as a base for spraying Iraqi fields with pesticides. Today, nine operable crop-dusting helicopters fly regularly from the field, and 16 others sit in disrepair on the tarmac.

The inspectors "opened all the doors," Mohammed said. "We showed them all the rooms."

Iraqi television video, obtained by Associated Press Television News, showed inspectors downloading files from office computers, verifying tags placed by earlier inspectors on pesticide tanks and other equipment, checking on contents in casks and tanks. One wore a face mask as he perused materials on shelves.

The U.N. experts found no prohibited material, he said. In the 1980s, however, the isolated airfield was a center for secretive activities.

The U.N. inspection agency's 1999 wrap-up report noted succinctly of the airfield: "Biological warfare weapons development — Zubaidy device."

The "Zubaidy" was a device for generating and dispersing an aerosol of lethal microbes, biowarfare agents, from a helicopter. In 1988, the Iraqis — apparently from Khan Bani Sa'ad helipads — successfully flight-tested the Zubaidy device, spraying bacteria, the agency reported.

"Experts assess this device as a most effective biological warfare munition," it said.

But although Iraq subsequently turned over developmental models for destruction, the earlier U.N. inspectors were never given at least 12 finished versions of the Zubaidy that were produced. "These remain unaccounted for," the U.N. report said.

Mohammed, who took over as director in 1998, told reporters he was unfamiliar with the Zubaidy devices. He said Sunday's inspectors did not question him about them.

A second U.N. team, meanwhile, inspected an aircraft engine repair and testing facility 10 miles north of Baghdad.

If the new round of inspections eventually finds full cooperation by the Iraqis in the disarmament effort, U.N. resolutions call for the Security Council to consider lifting international economic sanctions imposed on this country when it invaded Kuwait in 1990.