Iraqi presidential sites yield no weapons

The special UN group authorized to inspect Iraqi presidential sites concluded its first tour around Iraq presidential palaces.

Today the inspectors said they had not found any evidence in the palaces of any banned weapons, and that the group of UNSCOM experts, along with 20 diplomats, has inspected eight presidential palaces since last Thursday. The last sites were the Segoud site in Baghdad and the presidential palace in the Iraqi capital.

Meanwhile, Iraq said the amount the United Nations is willing to allow it to spend to repair oil-pumping machinery is less than the amount it needs to complete the task.

Mohamed Mahdi Saleh, the Iraqi minister of trade, said the UN group involved in assessing oil industry infrastructure requirements, which recently visited Iraq, suggested amounts that do not satisfy the needs of the petroleum sector for spare parts so that Iraq can regain its export capability as allowed under the oil-for-food deal that recently had its dollar limit doubled.

Iraq has been unable to take full advantage of the increased amount of oil it is allowed to sell because of the bad conditions of its oil machinery.