With threats of war escalating in Washington, the chief UN inspector said today that Iraq would have to provide "convincing" evidence if it wanted the world to believe it no longer had any weapons of mass destruction.
Mr Hans Blix, just back from a trip to Baghdad, told the UNSecurity Council that four years had passed since the lastinspections and that many governments believed dangerous armsprograms remained in Iraq.
United Nations weapons inspectors arrived in Iraq today at the start of a crucial mission, and UN chief Mr Kofi Annan warned Baghdad the only way to avoid war was to co-operate with them.
The group of 17 inspectors were due on Wednesday to start their first search for four years in President Saddam Hussein's Iraq, looking for nuclear, biological or chemical weapons.
"I hope the government of Iraq will fully cooperate with the inspectors and respect its obligations unreservedly. That is the only way to avoid conflict in the region," Mr Annan, the United Nations secretary-general, told a news conference in Paris.
Shortly before the inspectors' plane touched down, British Prime Minister Mr Tony Blair warned Saddam not to play a game of "hide and seek" in the hunt for illicit armaments.
The Iraqi leadership denies it has weapons of mass destruction and must make a formal declaration by December 8th.
"We have no doubt that he does have weapons of mass destruction," Mr Blair told a news conference in London. "So let's wait and see what he actually says. But I've made it clear throughout, this has got to be a situation in which there is an honest declaration by Saddam."
Mr Blair said a false declaration would constitute a "material breach" of Resolution 1441 - widely understood as a trigger for U.S.-led military action - but that it was up to the weapons inspectors to pass judgement.
In another incident today that the United States says could be such a breach of the resolution, an Iraqi military spokesman said anti-aircraft batteries opened fire at US and British planes over the south of the country.
Most of the international community disagrees with the tough US stance about the Iraqi firing on Western warplanes patrolling "no-fly" zones set up after the 1991 Gulf War.
An advance team of UN logistics experts has been in Iraq since last week, preparing the ground for the new mission. UN inspectors left Iraq in 1998, accusing Baghdad of failing to cooperate. The United States then mounted punitive air strikes.