Saddam blocks IAEA team inspecting nuclear sites

LONDON — The International Atomic Energy Agency faces difficulties in its current inspection of suspected Iraqi nuclear installations.

The IAEA inspection began on Friday and is scheduled to end on Wednesday. The four-member team is headed by Ahmad Abu Zahra of Egypt. Officials said Iraq is not providing the full access demanded by the Vienna-based international group. They said the regime of President Saddam Hussein is limiting the inspection to an accounting of nuclear material stocks.

Iraq signed the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty in 1972.

Officials said the current inspection is the first since last year and does not answer questions whether Baghdad is secretly restoring its nuclear capability. In last year's inspection, Iraq allowed the IAEA to check Baghdad's nuclear inventory.

A real inspection of Iraqi facilities hasn't been conducted since 1998, when Baghdad expelled international weapons inspectors.

Iraqi Foreign Minister Mohammed Sahaf plans to meet United Nations secretary-general Kofi Annan on Feb. 26 to discuss the UN demand for the return of inspectors to Baghdad. The meetings were to have begun this month but were postoned by Iraq.

U.S. officials said they are concerned that Iraq has resumed nonconventional weapons programs. Their concern focuses on three factories that had produced chemical weapons before the 1991 Gulf war. The concern was first addressed in a Pentagon report issued earlier this month.

"The president expects Saddam Hussein to live up to the agreements that he's made with the United Nations, especially regarding the elimination of weapons of mass destruction," White House spokesman Ari Fleischer said.