June 10, 2004. Copyright, 2004, Graphic News. All rights reserved

UN uncovers banned weapons

LONDON, June 10, Graphic News: UN weapons experts have found engines used in IraqÕs banned al-Samoud 2 missiles in a scrapyard in Jordan, along with other equipment which could be used to produce weapons of mass destruction, the acting chief of the UNÕs weapons inspectors reported Wednesday.

ÒWe found a few more engines and a few other items in Jordan,Ó said Demetrius Perricos. ÒIt is getting bad. Too many things are coming out.Ó

The UN Monitoring, Verification and Inspections Commission, using photographs and serial numbers, previously reported discovering SA-2 engines among scrap in the Dutch port city of Rotterdam.

The motors found in Jordan were also SA-2 engines Òand that is why we were interested,Ó Perricos said.

UNMOVIC experts examined one missile engine in Jordan and discovered from the serial number that it had been tagged by UN weapons inspectors in Iraq. 

Representatives at the scrap yard indicated that up to a dozen similar engines were seen there in January and February, and that more could have passed through the yard unnoticed. 

UN inspectors were pulled from Iraq just before the war began in March 2003, and the United States has refused to allow them to return, instead deploying its own teams to search for weapons of mass destruction. 

ÒIt is possible that some of the materials may have been removed from Iraq by looters of sites and sold as scrap,Ó UNMOVIC said in its quarterly report to the UN Security Council.

The only controls at the borders are for the weight of the scrap metal, and to check whether there are any explosive or radioactive materials within the scrap, UNMOVIC reported.

Perricos told reporters that up to 1,000 tonnes of scrap metal was leaving Iraq every day. He suggested that the interim Iraqi government -- which will assume sovereignty on June 30 -- may want to reconsider Òthe whole policy for the continued export of metal scrapÓ which apparently started in mid-2003 and is regulated by the U.S.-led coalition.
/ENDS

Sources: Associated Press, Reuters