Inspections Wednesday took U.N. teams to a gas laboratory and a grain storage area in al-Taji, a huge complex that has attracted U.N. attention in the past. The International Atomic Energy Agency has linked al-Taji to Iraq's nuclear weapons program.
Iraqi officials said teams from the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) and the U.N. Monitoring, Verification and Inspection Commission (UNMOVIC) began the inspection of at least five sites in central and southern Iraq. Sites visited Wednesday also included the Ibn Al-Haitham Company, identified in a British dossier on Iraq as a chemical weapons site.
Other teams were heading to two undisclosed locations south and west of Baghdad, they said. Around two dozen experts who had spent the night in the southern port city of Basra also headed to undisclosed locations in and around the city. One of those teams inspected a paper plant in Basra.
Meanwhile, the US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) approached three senior Iraqi military officers when they were in New York last June and offered them money to defect, an Arabic newspaper reported Wednesday.
General Amer al-Saadi, President Saddam Hussein's science advisor; Jaafar Zia, head of the former Iraqi nuclear program and an expert named Mehdi Labidi were discussing with the United Nations a resumption of arms inspections in Iraq, said the Saudi-owned Asharq al-Awsat daily.
During their stay at a New York hotel, the CIA approached them many times, with one saying he had been showed a "suitcase full of dollars," the newspaper said.
The report, quoting sources close to the Iraqi delegation, said the Iraqi government had informed the United Nations about the incident, claiming "harrassment." (Albawaba.com)
© 2002 Al Bawaba (www.albawaba.com)
