Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMD)

DATE=1/18/2003

TYPE=CORRESPONDENT REPORT

TITLE=IRAQ/INSPECTORS (L-ONLY)

NUMBER=2-298524

BYLINE=TETIANA ANDERSON

DATELINE=CAIRO

CONTENT=

VOICED AT:

INTRO: United Nations arms inspectors in Iraq visited seven more sites Saturday in their search for banned weapons of mass destruction. Tetiana Anderson has more from V-O-A's Middle East Bureau in Cairo.

TEXT: A team including senior expert Dimitri Perricos scoured the state-run Company for Food Testing outside the capital, Baghdad, on Saturday, as well as trucks and trailers parked on company grounds.

During a three-hour search, inspectors took samples for more testing from the vehicles. One company employee said the vehicles were mobile laboratories for checking food imports.

Inspectors also visited Baghdad University, two other state-run companies and a college outside the capital. A team also revisited a munitions facility, where nearly a dozen empty warheads capable of delivering chemical weapons were discovered Thursday, the Reuters news agency reported.

Iraqi officials claim the warheads are too old to be usable and had been simply forgotten about. Washington has called the find 'troubling and serious.'

The U-N's chief inspector, Hans Blix, and Mohamed ElBaradei of the Vienna-based International Atomic Energy Agency, are due to arrive in Iraq Sunday for brief talks, in an efforts to urge more cooperation from Iraq, and seek verification about the empty warheads.

The weapons inspections are now in their eighth week, and the inspectors are to submit a report of their findings to the U-N Security Council on January 27. (Signed)

NEB/TA/ALW/TW