Inspectors face a daunting task if they are allowed in

United Nations weapons inspectors, if they do return to Iraq in the coming weeks, will head for the same tightly guarded palaces and ministries from which they were barred in previous years, raising the prospect of more stand-offs with the Iraqis.

The first task of the inspectors, of whom 130 could be in Iraq at any one time, will be to visit known weapons sites and reinstall their monitoring equipment before officially starting work. But they will also have current intelligence information to act on.

UN resolutions provide for a 60-day period to establish the "base line" – draw up an inventory of what needs to be inspected. This is a period generally considered to be insufficient by former weapons inspectors, given that experts have not been inside Iraq for almost four years. They were withdrawn in December 1998 because of Iraq's continued defiance of the UN.

The former leader of a UN germ warfare team to Iraq said: "You've got to account for the past four years, and that takes time. How does the situation compare with 1998? That question applies to all the sites."

The inspectors' targets will be the production facilities for chemical and germ agents and the design centres and plants where weapons parts are suspected of being manufactured.

So-called dual purpose plants have both a civilian and military usage, such as those involved in the drugs industry or vaccine production. The dairy industry may also be inspected, "or anything which has a large tin in which you can ferment something" as one expert joked yesterday.

The other main part of the inspectors' mission will be to obtain relevant documents and interview those involved in Iraqi weapons of mass destruction programmes to build up a complete picture of the Iraqi capability.

The aim is to establish with documentary proof whether Iraq can be trusted when it says all biological and chemical weapons and long-range missiles have been destroyed. The inspectors say Iraqi claims about missing documents cannot be believed: "After all, they were well trained by the British," commented one.

In the past, some of the most dangerous stand-offs between the unarmed inspectors and Iraqi soldiers came at government ministries suspected of holding vital information about banned weaponry, and as the inspectors followed the weapons trail to the security organisations of Saddam Hussein. Other so-called "sensitive sites" such as palaces have been declared off-limits to the inspectors.

Whether President Saddam's offer of inspections "without conditions" will apply to the full range of sites this time round remains to be seen. During the inspectors' seven years of disarmament work in Iraq, many stand-offs occurred when sites were declared "sensitive" just as the UN vehicles rolled up at the gates.

The weapons experts pointed to the Iraqi leader's insistence in his letter on the need to "respect the sovereignty" of Iraq as an bad sign. "Sovereignty as interpreted by Iraq may not be as interpreted by the rest of the world," said one.

Before the inspectors set foot in Iraq, practical arrangements will have to be negotiated with the Iraqis. Ewen Buchanan, the spokesman for the chief UN inspector, Hans Blix, said yesterday that the arrangements would include such issues as where the inspectors would stay, where they would park their helicopters, whether they would be able to use their own communications equipment and whether Iraq would provide escorts for the teams.

The International Atomic Energy Agency inspectors, who work with the New York-based experts, are also ready to depart at a moment's notice when authorised by the Security Council. Their task is less complicated than that of the others, because of the difficulties in concealing nuclear-related activities.

More than 200 experts provided by 44 countries have gone through the UN training. But the first to go into Iraq will be experts from the core staff in New York.

Former inspectors expressed scepticism about what the inspections would achieve. One said: "If Iraq's letting them in, by the time they get there, there won't be anything there." Another went further: "If we don't have access or Iraq doesn't co-operate, then we have a problem. In fact, if they don't meet Blix off the plane and say, 'This is the full story', then we have a problem."

Who leads the UN team?

Hans Blix

Mr Blix is a Swedish diplomat who was director-general of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) for 16 years before he took over as head of the UN weapons inspectors attempting to account for Iraq's chemical and biological weapons and long-range missiles. The inspectorate is now known as the UN Monitoring, Verification and Inspection Commission (UNMovic) and will have 300 inspectors to draw from.

Mohamed El-Baradei

Mr Baradei's Vienna-based International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) works with UNMovic to carry out the UN Security Council's resolutions on dismantling Iraqi weapons of mass destruction. The IAEA concentrates on controlling nuclear aspects of the Iraqi programme through its 15-person "Iraq action team", led by a Frenchman, Jacques Baute. Mr Baradei is an Egyptian diplomat who worked his way up the IAEA ladder from 1984.