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This story reproduced below was published shortly after the speech of Hans Blix at the UN Security Council. It has since then moved into Yahoo's archives (4 hours later) to be replaced by a number of other stories which contradict the initial report of the Associated Press, and which deliberately downgrade the significance of the Inspectors Report.
While the initial report was removed, the following reports were posted by the Associated Press:
Major Powers Want More Arms Hunts in Iraq
UNITED NATIONS (AP) -- The U.N.'s chief weapons inspector is telling the Security Council that conditions have improved for weapons inspectors in Iraq.
Hans Blix says their ability to travel has improved, and there are fewer Iraqi officials keeping tabs on the inspectors.
Blix also says his inspectors have so far not found any weapons of mass destruction.
Blix says more than 200 samples of potential chemical or biological weapons material have been taken -- and about three-quarters of those samples have been screened. And so far, he says, the results have been consistent with what the Iraqis have said.
Blix tells the council the inspectors have "good knowledge" of Iraq's "industrial and scientific landscape," and of its missile capabilities.
But he says they haven't seen every "cave and corner" of Iraq.
Blix says there are a lot of prohibited materials that Iraq still has not accounted for.
Blix says "one must not jump to the conclusion" that those prohibited weapons exist. But he says, "that possibility is also not excluded."
He says inspectors have so far turned up a "small number of empty chemical munitions" -- which he says should have been declared and destroyed.
Blix told the council that if the prohibited weapons don't exist, Iraq needs to present credible evidence of that.
Copyright The Associated Press. 2003. For fair use only/ pour usage �quitable seulement .