
                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: TUESDAY, March 24, 1992                   TAG: 9203240105
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL                    PAGE: A-10   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: Associated Press
DATELINE: MANAMA, BAHRAIN                                LENGTH: Medium

IRAQ SHOWS U.N. DESTROYED WEAPONS

U.N. ballistic-missile experts have confirmed that Iraq destroyed and buried a number of Scud missiles and other terror weapons, team leader Derek Boothby said Monday.

Boothby said there are more than one of the "graveyard sites," which could contain some of the weaponry Baghdad has been suspected of hiding from U.N. inspection teams. "There are quite a few places," he said.

Bowing to world pressure after a showdown at the Security Council, Deputy Premier Tariq Aziz, Iraq's delegate to the United Nations, on Friday said substantial quantities of weapons of mass destruction were destroyed in June.

Boothby's 35-member team went to Baghdad on Saturday to verify the Iraqi statements, which have forestalled possible military intervention from the United States and Britain. The U.S.-led allies forced Iraq from Kuwait in 1991 in the Gulf War, and Iraq's weapons must be destroyed under the cease-fire agreement.

Boothby said he visited one site south of Baghdad on Sunday, and two north of Baghdad on Monday. He said there was "no consistency" as to where the Iraqis had buried the destroyed missiles. "One of the sites was in the countryside, in the middle of trees, and one in an open, sandy, gravel area."

He would not specify the numbers of the long-range missiles that he hopes to count in the wreckage. Nor would he discuss the numbers Iraq reported to the U.N. Special Commission in charge of eliminating the country's nuclear, chemical and biological warfare capability, as well as its stock of missiles with a range of 100 miles or more.

"I am under strict instructions not to get into numbers," he said. "The Iraqis are still in the process of showing us wreckage. They've shown us some and will be showing some more."

Douglas Englund, the New York-based director of operations for the commission, noted "press reports" said Iraq had reported 89 Scuds in the wreckage.

Sixty-one missiles were destroyed under the supervision of an inspection team last year, but U.S. officials claim Iraq has hundreds of Scuds still hidden.

In Washington, President Bush said Iraq has "moved in the right direction."

Boothby was awaiting instructions from his regional headquarters in Bahrain on whether to accept Iraqi proposals for the destruction of missile-making and repair equipment, another part of his mission.

by CNB