Iraqi paper warns of US 'spies'

The UN has admitted some inspectors may be spies

An official newspaper in Baghdad has accused the Americans of trying to undermine the UN weapons inspection mission in Iraq and turn its experts into spies.

(Washington) will continue its illegitimate interference and go on issuing threats to Iraq

Ath-Thawra

"It is clear from current US behaviour that Washington will not be satisfied with just monitoring the work of inspection teams," said Ath-Thawra, a newspaper controlled by the ruling Baath Party.

The UN weapons inspectors have visited a number of sites in the Baghdad area since they resumed their work on Wednesday.

In the days ahead, they are expected to spread out over Iraq in search of mobile laboratories, underground factories and other signs of banned Iraqi weapons production.

Washington "will continue its illegitimate interference and go on issuing threats to Iraq," Ath-Thawra said.

Experts are having a close look at Iraqi facilities

The US "will poke its nose in the inspectors' mission and will contrive (crises) to derail their work, especially after they, and the whole world, start finding out that Iraq is free of mass destruction weapons" the paper added.

Baghdad has accused members of the previous inspection mission - known as Unscom - of being full of Western spies.

The accusation has been supported by Scott Ritter, a former weapons inspector who is now a prominent critic of Washington's stance on Iraq.

Warnings

Earlier this month United Nations chief weapons inspector Hans Blix acknowledged that the charges had undermined the Unscom's work.

"Unscom lost its legitimacy by being too closely associated with intelligence and with Western states," he said at the time.

Inspectors' remit and task

Unrestricted inspection rights

Can report any obstruction to the UN

First task to assess infrastructure left behind in 1998

They will set up monitoring equipment

Are able to take witnesses out of Iraq

Click here to read Q&A on inspections

Mr Blix added that he could not rule out the presence of spies in his team - but added that any intelligence agents will be ordered off the group.

After the inspections resumed on Wednesday, the experts said they had been given full co-operation by the Iraqis.

But US Deputy Defence Secretary Paul Wolfowitz said there had to be a genuine change of heart by Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein for the programme to succeed.

Mr Wolfowitz warned that if Baghdad continued to maintain that it had no weapons of mass destruction, then that would be a fairly strong sign of non co-operation.

The inspectors are using state-of-the-art technology to try to find out whether Iraq has any weapons of mass destruction.

Their findings could determine whether the US carries out its threat to lead a military assault on Iraq.