A team of United Nations nuclear inspectors has arrived in Baghdad to investigate the looting of material from Iraq's main nuclear facility.
The two-week mission by the International Atomic Energy Agency will be limited because the US has imposed restrictions on the inspectors.
The IAEA director, Mohamed El Baradei, has said there could be danger of a radiological emergency after looters at the Tuwaitha research facility left piles of uranium and other spilled radioactive materials.
The mission follows criticism by chief weapons inspector, Hans Blix, of the quality of intelligence given to him by the US and Britain about Iraq's alleged weapons of mass destruction.
In response to Dr Blix's criticism, the US Defence Secretary, Donald Rumsfeld, insisted that United States intelligence on Iraq's weapons of mass destruction before the war was accurate.
He has told reporters that he believed that the Bush administration's case presented to the United Nations Security Council, in advance of the conflict, would be proved to have been correct.
