BAGHDAD, Iraq - An inspection team searching bunkers in southern Iraq yesterday found 11 empty chemical warheads that Iraqi officials had not declared to the United Nations, a U.N. spokesman said. Iraq insisted that it had reported the rockets, which it said were old and never used for chemical weapons.
Also yesterday, inspectors searched the homes of two Iraqi scientists in Baghdad for the first time. One of the them, a physicist, left with inspectors, but it was unclear if there was any connection between the home search and the discovery of the munitions.
Debate immediately began about whether the warheads constituted a material breach under U.N. Resolution 1441.
The Bush administration said again yesterday that the inspections should not go on indefinitely, charging Iraq has refused to provide full weapons disclosure.
"There's no point in continuing forever, going on, if Iraq is not cooperating," said State Department spokesman Richard Boucher.
U.S. officials, speaking on the condition of anonymity, said the discovery may not amount to a "smoking gun" unless some sort of chemical agent is also detected.
Key questions about the find are whether any chemical weapons were ever loaded into the ordnance, and, if so, when, officials said. Serial numbers on the rockets should tell inspectors where and when they were made.
The 122 mm warheads were found in bunkers built in the late 1990s at the Ukhaider Ammunition Storage Area, 75 miles south of Baghdad, Hiro Ueki, the inspectors' spokesman in Baghdad, said in a statement. The team examined one of the warheads with X-ray equipment and took samples for chemical testing, the statement added.
Ueki said the shells were not accounted for in Iraq's declaration. "It was a discovery. They were not declared." He also said a 12th warhead was found and needed further evaluation.
But Lt. Gen. Hossam Mohammed Amin, the chief Iraqi liaison officer to the inspection teams, said they were short-range shells imported in 1988 and mentioned in Iraq's report. He expressed "astonishment" over what he called "no more than a storm in a teacup."
Amin said the inspectors found the munitions in a sealed box that had never been opened and was covered by dust and bird droppings.
"When these boxes were opened, they found 122 mm rockets with empty warheads. No chemical or biological warheads. Just empty rockets which are expired and imported in 1988," Amin told reporters, adding that similar ordnance was found by U.N. inspectors in 1997.
The homes searched yesterday were those of physicist Faleh Hassan and his neighbor, nuclear scientist Shaker el-Jibouri, in the Baghdad neighborhood of al-Ghazalia.
It was the first time the inspectors have searched private homes since they resumed their work. The team searched the homes for six hours, with experts seen going through documents at a table set up near Hassan's front door and having an animated discussion with Iraqi liaison officials.
Afterward, Hassan - who is director of al-Razi, a military installation that specializes in laser development - drove with the inspectors and Iraqi officials about 10 miles west of Baghdad to an agricultural area known as al-Salamiyat. There, Hassan, two inspectors and a liaison officer walked to a bare field and examined a mound of earth for about five minutes.
Inspectors did not speak to journalists and it was not clear why they were interested in the mound. An Iraqi official later said the field was a farm that Hassan sold in 1996.
After the visit, a visibly angry el-Jibouri told reporters the inspectors spent two hours in his home - and cordoned it off for much longer - looking into everything, "including beds and clothes."
"This is a provocative operation," he said. "They did not take away any documents but they looked at personal research papers."
The United States, which has begun a heavy military buildup in the Persian Gulf, has threatened war on Iraq if it is found to be hiding banned weapons programs. The Iraqi government says it no longer has any chemical, biological or nuclear weapons and submitted a 12,000-page declaration to the United Nations last month that it said proved its case.
Chief inspectors Hans Blix and Mohamed ElBaradei complained again yesterday that Baghdad has failed to provide evidence of action it says it took to destroy stocks of banned weapons known to have been in Iraq's possession in the 1990s.
"Iraq should understand that if we continue to report that there are open questions and that we cannot exclude the possibility that they still have some weapons of mass destruction, that will not satisfy the Security Council," ElBaradei said.
Otherwise, he said, the alternative is "the other avenue ... we have seen taking shape in the form of military action."
U.N. weapons and nuclear inspectors in Iraq are required to give the Security Council a status report on Jan. 27, but ElBaradei and Blix say that their fact-finding teams will need longer to search for evidence of weapons of mass destruction.
Although the White House says it has not made a decision to go to war in Iraq, Bush has expressed growing impatience with the process and has vowed not to allow Iraq to evade the U.N. demand that it disarm. Bush repeated yesterday that "time is running out" for Saddam Hussein.
White House spokesman Ari Fleischer called Jan. 27 "an important date." He added: "Beyond that, events will dictate timetables."
Also yesterday, inspectors searched the homes of two Iraqi scientists in Baghdad for the first time. One of the them, a physicist, left with inspectors, but it was unclear if there was any connection between the home search and the discovery of the munitions.
Debate immediately began about whether the warheads constituted a material breach under U.N. Resolution 1441.
The Bush administration said again yesterday that the inspections should not go on indefinitely, charging Iraq has refused to provide full weapons disclosure.
"There's no point in continuing forever, going on, if Iraq is not cooperating," said State Department spokesman Richard Boucher.
U.S. officials, speaking on the condition of anonymity, said the discovery may not amount to a "smoking gun" unless some sort of chemical agent is also detected.
Key questions about the find are whether any chemical weapons were ever loaded into the ordnance, and, if so, when, officials said. Serial numbers on the rockets should tell inspectors where and when they were made.
The 122 mm warheads were found in bunkers built in the late 1990s at the Ukhaider Ammunition Storage Area, 75 miles south of Baghdad, Hiro Ueki, the inspectors' spokesman in Baghdad, said in a statement. The team examined one of the warheads with X-ray equipment and took samples for chemical testing, the statement added.
Ueki said the shells were not accounted for in Iraq's declaration. "It was a discovery. They were not declared." He also said a 12th warhead was found and needed further evaluation.
But Lt. Gen. Hossam Mohammed Amin, the chief Iraqi liaison officer to the inspection teams, said they were short-range shells imported in 1988 and mentioned in Iraq's report. He expressed "astonishment" over what he called "no more than a storm in a teacup."
Amin said the inspectors found the munitions in a sealed box that had never been opened and was covered by dust and bird droppings.
"When these boxes were opened, they found 122 mm rockets with empty warheads. No chemical or biological warheads. Just empty rockets which are expired and imported in 1988," Amin told reporters, adding that similar ordnance was found by U.N. inspectors in 1997.
The homes searched yesterday were those of physicist Faleh Hassan and his neighbor, nuclear scientist Shaker el-Jibouri, in the Baghdad neighborhood of al-Ghazalia.
It was the first time the inspectors have searched private homes since they resumed their work. The team searched the homes for six hours, with experts seen going through documents at a table set up near Hassan's front door and having an animated discussion with Iraqi liaison officials.
Afterward, Hassan - who is director of al-Razi, a military installation that specializes in laser development - drove with the inspectors and Iraqi officials about 10 miles west of Baghdad to an agricultural area known as al-Salamiyat. There, Hassan, two inspectors and a liaison officer walked to a bare field and examined a mound of earth for about five minutes.
Inspectors did not speak to journalists and it was not clear why they were interested in the mound. An Iraqi official later said the field was a farm that Hassan sold in 1996.
After the visit, a visibly angry el-Jibouri told reporters the inspectors spent two hours in his home - and cordoned it off for much longer - looking into everything, "including beds and clothes."
"This is a provocative operation," he said. "They did not take away any documents but they looked at personal research papers."
The United States, which has begun a heavy military buildup in the Persian Gulf, has threatened war on Iraq if it is found to be hiding banned weapons programs. The Iraqi government says it no longer has any chemical, biological or nuclear weapons and submitted a 12,000-page declaration to the United Nations last month that it said proved its case.
Chief inspectors Hans Blix and Mohamed ElBaradei complained again yesterday that Baghdad has failed to provide evidence of action it says it took to destroy stocks of banned weapons known to have been in Iraq's possession in the 1990s.
"Iraq should understand that if we continue to report that there are open questions and that we cannot exclude the possibility that they still have some weapons of mass destruction, that will not satisfy the Security Council," ElBaradei said.
Otherwise, he said, the alternative is "the other avenue ... we have seen taking shape in the form of military action."
U.N. weapons and nuclear inspectors in Iraq are required to give the Security Council a status report on Jan. 27, but ElBaradei and Blix say that their fact-finding teams will need longer to search for evidence of weapons of mass destruction.
Although the White House says it has not made a decision to go to war in Iraq, Bush has expressed growing impatience with the process and has vowed not to allow Iraq to evade the U.N. demand that it disarm. Bush repeated yesterday that "time is running out" for Saddam Hussein.
White House spokesman Ari Fleischer called Jan. 27 "an important date." He added: "Beyond that, events will dictate timetables."