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Inspectors visit sites after missile reportExperts say missile program broke U.N. distance limits
BAGHDAD, Iraq (CNN) -- A day after experts determined that some Iraqi missiles can fly farther than allowed under U.N. resolutions, weapons inspectors, including two missile teams, headed to at least eight sites Thursday in Iraq. A report delivered Wednesday to chief weapons inspector Hans Blix said Iraq's Al Samoud 2 missile "went beyond" the 93 miles (150 kilometers) allowed by the United Nations. Arriving in Italy to meet the pope, Iraq's Deputy Prime Minister Tariq Aziz on Thursday said Iraq's missile program is not in "serious violation" of U.N. resolutions. The missile in question, he said, has no guidance system. "When a missile doesn't have a guidance system, it goes five or 10 or 15 kilometers beyond" its range, Aziz told reporters in Rome. "We are still within the limits that has been decided by the United Nations." The U.N. Monitoring, Verification and Inspection Commission previously said 13 out of 40 recent tests of the Al Samoud missile went beyond the permitted range. UNMOVIC told Iraq to stop testing two missile systems, including Al Samoud, until the U.N. analysis was completed. Experts from France, Germany, Britain, the United States, China and Ukraine delivered the missile report to Blix after two days of meetings. Meanwhile, U.N. inspectors continued their hunt for an illicit weapons of mass destruction program, according to the Iraqi Ministry of Information. A team of missile inspectors went to Badr Co. in Yousifiya, about 15 miles (25 kilometers) south of Baghdad. Another missile inspection team searched Al Fida Co. in Baghdad. Elsewhere in and around Baghdad and in Mosul, teams of chemical, biological and nuclear inspectors were visiting various sites, the ministry of information said. According to a Security Council diplomat, Blix will refer to the missile analysis when he addresses the council Friday with a second interim report from U.N. weapons inspectors about the status of their work in Iraq. Russia, China, France and Germany -- four countries opposed to immediate U.S. military action in Iraq -- will send their foreign ministers to New York for the Security Council briefing. U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell also will be there, U.S. officials said. Diplomats said British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw will attend, too. Meanwhile, in Brussels, Belgium, emergency talks at NATO headquarters are expected to resume for a fourth day on Thursday over how to break the impasse on when to start making plans to protect Turkey should there be war against Iraq. (Full story) For more on late developments in the Iraq story, see CNN.com's Iraq Tracker.
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