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Robertson: U.N. says equipment moved
BAGHDAD, Iraq (CNN) -- U.N. weapons inspectors Monday went to the heart of Baghdad to examine a former Scud missile factory for changes since they were last inspected. CNN senior international correspondent Nic Robertson spoke to CNN anchor Martin Savidge from Baghdad. ROBERTSON: Earlier on, we were reporting that the inspection at that site was the longest the inspectors have put in at one site so far, over six hours. Now, perhaps, we're beginning to get an idea of why the U.N. has released this statement [that said] some of the tagged equipment -- equipment that previous weapons inspection teams in the 1990s had marked at that site -- some of that had gone, was not there. Also, some of the monitoring cameras the U.N. team had put in back in the 1990s ... weren't there. The U.N. inspectors asked the Iraqi officials at the site what had happened to that equipment [and were told] some of it was damaged in bombing in 1998. The deputy director of the site told us [the] factory had been hit by 18 missiles in that short period of bombing toward the end of December 1998. The Iraqis [also said] some items of equipment had been removed and taken to another site. ... It appears as if the U.N. inspectors will be going out on another day to follow up, find out where this equipment is, track down what it is the Iraqis have been telling them, where it's gone, make sure it's there, cross it off their documentation list. SAVIDGE: Nic, let me see if I got this right. If the equipment is tagged and then moved by the Iraqis, that is some sort of a violation? ROBERTSON: If the U.N. teams had been here, if the Iraqis had wanted to move anything, they would have had to tell the U.N. teams. Now, with the U.N. not being here for four years, [that period is] something the Iraqis will be accounting for in this declaration on December 8. So, likely the U.N. should be expecting to see details about all those movements of all of that monitored equipment. Perhaps the U.N. teams [are] getting a little bit ahead of the game here, because that declaration hasn't been made. Certainly under the previous inspection regime the U.N. would have had to have been notified every time a piece of marked, tagged equipment had been moved. Now, it appears that all the U.N. teams want to do is follow up and check up where it is now, make sure that what they're being told by Iraqi officials can be verified by these teams.
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