UN Inspects Key Palace

April 2, 1998 / 12:29 PM EST / CBS/AP

U.N. arms experts are conducting a "very comprehensive" inspection of Saddam Hussein's main presidential palace, which serves as the seat of the Iraqi government, a senior diplomat said today.

The experts, searching for information on Iraq's banned weapons of mass destruction, searched the Republican Palace in Baghdad for a second day Thursday.

Seventy-one inspectors and 20 diplomats went into the palace, a complex covering roughly one square mile and containing Saddam's main office, said Janet Sullivan, the spokeswoman for U.N. arms monitors.

Jayantha Dhanapala, head of the diplomatic corps monitoring the inspections, said the search of the Republican Palace will go on for days.

"It is the most important site because of the fact that it is very much the seat of the government," Dhanapala said.

"The visit is going to be very comprehensive. It has been so yesterday and it will continue to be so," he said.

The compound houses the offices of the Special Security Forces, which protect the ruling elite, and the Republican Guard, a well-trained, well-equipped military force loyal to Saddam.

It is among the eight presidential palaces that Iraq opened to inspectors under a Feb. 23 agreement with U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan.

The agreement averted threatened military strikes by the United States and Britain, which along with the United Nations rejected Iraq's argument that the palaces are symbols of national sovereignty and hence off-limits. The agreement set up a 20-member diplomatic team that is required to accompany the arms experts during all presidential visits, addressing, in part, Iraq's concerns.

Dhanapala said the arms experts, who work for the U.N. Special Commission, and other nuclear weapons experts also visited the smaller Sijood palace in Baghdad. They were to visit it again later today. The experts have finished inspecting the other palaces.

The initial visits have been described as survey missions to lay the groundwork for any subsequent inspections the experts deem necessary. The diplomatic observers are scheduled to leave Iraq by the weekend, and leave UNSCOM with its work at other, less sensitive sites.

UNSCOM is charged with ensuring that Iraq has destroyed or is dismantling its nuclear weapons program and its arsenal of chemical and biological weapons and long-range missiles.

Until then, the Security Council will not lift the economic sanctions imposed after Iraq's 1990 invasion of Kuwait.

Dhanapala, a former Sri Lankan ambassador to Washington, said UNSCOM and Iraqi officials have worked well together at the palaces.

"Up to the point of today, we have been impressed by the spirit of mutual cooperation and the accommodation and the willinness to settle small issues," he said.