Iraq Arms Probe To End Saturday

The first U.N. inspections of Saddam Hussein's palace compounds will be over Saturday, the chief of the arms inspection team in Baghdad said Tuesday.

The team will leave Iraq on Sunday, American Charles Duelfer said.

By Monday night, the U.N. arms experts had visited six of the eight palace compounds that Iraq opened up under a Feb. 23 accord, said Jayantha Dhanapala, the Sri Lankan who heads a diplomatic group monitoring the searches.

The inspectors are searching for information on Iraq's weapons of mass destruction, including banned warheads and missiles and chemical and biological weapons.

Iraq, which had always kept Saddam's palace compounds off-limits on grounds of national sovereignty, opened them under the Feb. 23 U.N. accord that mandated a group of 20 diplomatic observers accompany the inspectors to safeguard the country's dignity.

Until the inspectors certify that Iraq is bereft of all illegal weapons and is unable to make any more, the U.N. Security Council will not lift the economic sanctions imposed after Iraq's 1990 invasion of Kuwait.

The current inspections are only preliminary surveys and the accord gives the inspectors the right to go into the palaces any time they want in the future.

Only two more palaces in Baghdad—the vast Republican Palace compound and the smaller Sijood palace—have yet to be inspected, Dhanapala said.

No inspections took place Tuesday, but some experts went back to Basra palace, which was inspected Monday, to "tie some loose ends," Duelfer said, without elaborating.

Jayantha Dhanapala, head of the diplomatic corps that is accompanying the inspectors, characterized Iraq's cooperation as "positive" on Monday but gave few details about what was seen.

Asked to comment on Iraq's spirit of cooperation, Dhanapala said Monday: "There is goodwill on all sides, and we discuss issues and settle them on the field. There have been no major problems whatsoever."

Iraqi Deputy Prime Minister Tariq Aziz has been present during the inspections, indicating the seriousness of the Iraqi side to cooperate, Dhanapala said.

U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan said Monday Iraq had so far showed willingness to fulful the U.N. accord.

"I hope that this cooperation will continue into the future and for the longer run," Annan said.

©1998, CBS Worldwide Inc., All Rights Reserved. The Associated Press and Reuters contributed to this report