United Nations weapons experts conducted their longest search yet at the Karama ballistic design plant in Baghdad today (Monday). Afterwards a spokesman said several pieces of equipment tagged by inspectors in 1998 were missing.
The spokesman said the Iraqis claimed that some of the equipment was destroyed in U-S air attacks and some had been transferred. The U-N monitors plan to verify the claim.
Meanwhile President Bush says signs are not encouraging that Iraq will comply with the U-N disarmament resolution. As evidence Mr. Bush cited recent Iraqi firing on British and U-S planes enforcing no-fly zones over northern and southern Iraq.
However, U-N Secretary General Kofi Annan has said (two weeks ago) that he does not consider Iraq's firing on allied planes a material breach of the new U-N disarmament resolution.
Mr. Bush said Mr. Hussein has until Sunday's deadline to declare any weaponry to show he is serious about disarmament.
The president spoke to reporters at the Pentagon after signing legislation that tells the Defense Department how to spend a 355-billion dollar defense budget for 2003.
Earlier Monday, U-S and British warplanes patrolling Iraq's "no-fly zones" struck military sites near Mosul in the northern part of the country in response to fire from Iraqi forces.
On Sunday, residents in southern Iraq said at least four people died in Basra during a raid by coalition warplanes. Foreign Minister Naji Sabri -- in a letter to U.N. Secretary-General Annan -- described Sunday's raid as part of a what he termed "barbaric terrorist aggression" against Iraq.