U.N. inspection teams find Iraqi welcome and open gates

BAGHDAD, Iraq -- On the ground and able to peer "under the roofs" of suspected weapons storage sites once visible only in satellite photos, U.N. weapons inspectors have gone to work with brisk efficiency and found the Iraqis opening doors for them.

The true test of Iraq's cooperation will come, however, when the disarmament teams begin to dig for answers to what they call the "open question" -- whether Iraq still has weapons of mass destruction.

It was just two months ago that Iraq reversed itself and said it would welcome inspectors back after a four-year absence. Last Monday, the first working group landed, under a new mandate from the U.N. Security Council to search for any Iraqi chemical, biological or nuclear weapons, or the programs to make them.

The United States warns it will wage war on Iraq if it isn't stripped of weapons of mass destruction. That threat has had an impact.

Easy access to facilities

In the first two days of renewed inspections, the international teams found easy access to key installations tied to Iraq's past weapons production. Even at a shuttered lab complex where biological warfare weapons once were made, caretakers whisked the U.N. experts inside, having been told by the Baghdad government to expect unannounced inspections at any time.

At the White House, officials took a wait-and-see approach, saying they saw nothing particularly alarming or promising in the first two days of inspections.

"This is the beginning of a process," White House spokesman Sean McCormack said.

"There can be no peaceful disarmament without the willingness of Saddam Hussein's regime to cooperate in that process and every day is an indication of the regime's willingness to cooperate," McCormack said. "But, if the regime is not disarmed through peaceful means, it will be disarmed of its weapons of mass destruction by force."

The arms monitors visited seven sites Wednesday and Thursday, among them a graphite factory, a machine-tool shop and a missile test station. They resume the field missions Saturday after devoting Friday, the Muslim sabbath, to office work.

Inspections were suspended in 1998 amid disputes over access and Iraqi complaints of U.S. spying from within the U.N. monitoring agency.