Iraq lays down new challenge to UN inspectors

An advance party of international inspectors will fly to Baghdad on Monday to begin preparing for an urgent resumption of their mission to search for weapons of mass destruction and to challenge the claim, reiterated yesterday, that Iraq is "clean" and has no such arsenal.

The team, headed by Hans Blix, chief UN weapons inspector, and by Mohammed al-Baradei, director of the International Atomic Energy Agency, will leave for a base in Cyprus tomorrow and flyto Baghdad after the weekend. The team will about 25-strong.

Iraq said last night it was unconditionally accepting a UN resolution passed on Friday giving it a final chance to disarm and giving Mr Blix 45 days to resume inspections.

By that date, Mr Blix will have about 100 inspectors on the ground. The task for the advance team will be to reopen and re-equip offices for the inspectors in Baghdad that were abandoned four years ago when the previous UN inspectors pulled out.

There was some cheer at UN headquarters that Iraq had bowed to the resolution two days before a deadline imposed last week, and done so without setting conditions. But there was alarm that the Iraqi ambassador in New York, Mohammed al-Douri, simultaneously insisted that Iraq retained no banned weapons.

Under the terms of the resolution, Iraq must submit within 30 days – by 8 December – a declaration laying out for inspectors the true extent of its weapons programmes. Washington and London are unlikely to accept any contention by Iraq that it is uninvolved in any such programmes.

The American and British governments insist they have ample evidence to the contrary. A long report issued by Britain two months ago argues that Iraq has been striving to rebuild its arsenal of biological and chemical weapons and is also working to develop nuclear warheads.

The stage may be set, officials warned, for a crisis on 8 December, therefore, even before the inspections proper have got under way.

What would follow in the event of a flat-out denial by Iraq was expected to dominate discussions between President George Bush and Kofi Annan, the UN secretary general, at the White House last night. The United Nations remains anxious lest Mr Bush decides to act unilaterally at the first sign of Iraqi non-co–operation. An empty declaration on 8 December could be the trigger.

Terry Taylor, a former weapons inspector, said: "The next red flag will be the declaration that Iraq is required to make. If the declaration is a nil declaration, I am not certain that Washington will accept that as credible."

The question at the UN is this: who will be the judge of the validity of Iraq's declaration on 8 December, and, further along the line, of the sincerity of Iraq's co-operation with inspectors? Will it be Mr Blix, as countries such as Russia and France desire, or Mr Bush and Tony Blair?

Mr Blix, meanwhile, has indicated that he will begin inspections before the 45-day deadline if he can. But there is much to do beforehand. While the inspectors will regain their old HQ in the Canal Hotel building on the outskirts of Baghdad, they must fill it with new computers. Jeeps still parked outside must be fired up and helicopters have to be flown in. A large volume of state-of-the-art detection technology acquired by the UN over recent months – which, officials hope, should make inspections far more penetrative than in the past – must be delivered to Iraq. This includes monitors to uncover suspicious substances, sophisticated laser sensors, cameras and telecommunication kits.