U.N. Weapons Inspectors (standard nuke treaty inspection) Bound for Iraq

[papau]

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=540&ncid=716&e=3&u=/ap/20040720/ap_on_re_mi_ea/iraq_weapons_inspectors

U.N. Weapons Inspectors Bound for Iraq

CAIRO, Egypt - <snip>"The return of U.N. inspectors to Iraq is an urgent necessity; not to search for weapons of mass destruction but to write the final report about the nonexistence of (such) weapons ... in Iraq, which will enable the lifting of sanctions," Mohamed ElBaradei, director-general of the International Atomic Energy Agency, told reporters in Cairo. <snip>

The inspectors, (request by the new Iraq government and )who will continue their work to ensure that Iraq adheres with the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty, will return as soon as safety arrangements have been made, agency spokeswoman Melissa Fleming said from the IAEA headquarters in Vienna, Austria.

The inspectors would go to Tuwaitha nuclear complex, 12 miles south of Baghdad, U.N. officials said Wednesday. The will conduct "an inventory verification on the nuclear material remaining in Iraq," Fleming added.

Besides safeguards inspectors, the agency also had weapons inspectors in Iraq who searched for nuclear weapons under a mandate from the U.N. Security Council. Those inspectors left just before the beginning of the U.S.-led invasion in March 2003. <snip>

He said the new inspection is part of a regular IAEA program (and not to be confused with UNMOVIC, the prewar special regime that applied to Iraq) that involves all countries which have had safeguard agreements with the agency. <snip>