Iraq Criticizes Makeup Of U.N. Inspection Team Too Many Americans, Britons In Group, Baghdad Claims

Iraq criticized a U.N. weapons inspection team that arrived Sunday in Baghdad, saying it is dominated by Americans and Britons.

The team, headed by Scott Ritter, an American whom Iraq repeatedly has accused of being an American spy, includes nine Americans, five Britons, a Russian and an Australian, the official Iraqi News Agency said.

The agency quoted an unnamed “official Iraqi source” as saying that Iraq has complained to the United Nations that the teams are “not balanced.”

“We have said that the Americans and the British make up most of the teams, … and the participants in the present team are solid evidence for what we have been saying,” the source added.

Alan Dacey, a spokesman of the U.N. Special Commission that oversees the inspections, confirmed that a weapons inspection team had arrived Sunday but said he would not disclose the nationalities of the team members.