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Blix: Inspectors won't decide war or peaceOfficials pleased after first day of resumed inspections
BAGHDAD, Iraq (CNN) -- The first day of resumed U.N. weapons inspections in Iraq went smoothly, the chief inspector told CNN, but he warned "there is a very strong power behind us" if Iraqi officials obstruct search efforts. Hans Blix, head of the U.N. Monitoring, Verification and Inspections Commission, said denying inspectors access to any site would indicate Iraq was hiding something. "Denying us access would then be like smoke. It's not finding a smoking gun, but finding the smoke. And that would be a very serious matter. If they deny us access we'll report it to the Security Council," Blix told CNN from the United Nations in New York. Two teams set out at 8:30 a.m., arriving unannounced at locations in two different sections of Baghdad, as inspections resumed for the first time in four years. "We were welcomed in a polite and professional manner and were able to do the job," said Demetrius Perricos, a U.N. weapons inspection team leader. Blix said the job of UNMOVIC was to be factual and objective in its report to the U.N. Security Council. "We are not the ones who decide war and peace," he said. "It's the Iraqis, their behavior on the one hand, and the Security Council and its members on the other hand to decide peace and war." The U.N. Security Council has told Iraq it must comply with resolutions demanding it give up any nuclear, chemical or biological weapons efforts or face serious consequences, and President Bush has said the United States will act to disarm Iraq if diplomatic efforts fail. Inspectors focusing on chemical weapons, biological weapons and missiles visited two facilities at a military missile-testing site in southwestern Baghdad. Inspectors from the International Atomic Energy Agency, which is checking for nuclear capability, stopped at an industrial complex in the eastern outskirts of the city. Blix said inspectors will insist on access to any site they want to examine -- including Iraqi presidential sites and "sensitive" locations such as government ministries. "We will be correct all the way through and professional all the way through, but there is a very strong power behind us," Blix told CNN. The inspectors said they saw no indication they were expected at the sites Wednesday . Unannounced stops will continue Thursday. "We managed to do all the things we planned to do," Perricos told reporters. "We got the activities and the data that we wanted to get in order to be able to assess further the capabilities of the site." Jacques Baute, the IAEA team leader, told reporters the team was able to conduct its planned inspection work "with the cooperation of the Iraqi side." "We had access to what we wanted to see. We hope that the Iraqi response today reflects the future pattern of cooperation," he said. "We conducted in good conditions what we had to do." The site his team checked is one that had been observed in the past and a few changes were observed, Baute said. CNN followed the IAEA team as it stopped for three hours at the Tahadi industrial complex in eastern Baghdad. The team seemed to get lost on the road but soon found its way and arrived at the site at 9 a.m. Teams are not asking citizens for directions so the government won't be tipped off to their destinations. The inspection site was a compound about one mile square containing about a half-dozen warehouse-type buildings behind razor-wire walls under armed guard. The six-person inspection team was accompanied by Iraqi officials. The inspectors took photographs, walked through buildings and spoke to employees. In the one building CNN was allowed to visit, workers were building heavy industrial motors. It was unclear which buildings the inspectors visited. The plant's director-general, speaking to reporters afterward, said no weapons of mass destruction were being made there and that members of the team were pleased when they left. Such access to journalists is rare in Iraq, but the government claims it doesn't have weapons of mass destruction and wants to show the world it has nothing to hide. Nothing was removed from the plant, which was among the ones visited in the 1990s, but inspectors don't necessarily need to take anything because they are using high-tech, isotope-detecting equipment to take readings. Inspectors will 'freeze' sites
A short time after the initial inspections began, air raid sirens sounded in the Iraqi capital and a vapor trail was seen. The all-clear was given about 10 minutes later. After the alert, U.S., British and U.N. officials denied any of their aircraft had been over Baghdad. Inspectors said each time they go to a site they will "freeze" it -- meaning no one will be allowed in or out. Inspectors believe that in previous inspections Iraqi officials may have smuggled documents or evidence out of the buildings as inspectors went in. The high-tech equipment they are using includes devices that allow for rapid detection of the presence of chemical, biological or nuclear substances that may indicate a facility has been used for developing weapons capability. Inspectors said they will take air samples and "swipes" of objects within a site, as well as other types of samples, and examine them for things such as radioactive isotopes. They will also seal some objects. Information collected will be cross-referenced against the inspectors' computer files showing what substances should be present, given a site's official purpose. Inspectors will take photographs and videotapes at various sites. Some information will be sent immediately to U.N. and IAEA headquarters in New York and Vienna over secure communications networks, they said. CNN correspondents Christiane Amanpour and Nic Robertson contributed to this report.
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