By Judy Aita
Washington File United Nations Correspondent

United Nations -- U.N. weapons inspectors have begun poring over the thousands of pages of information on Iraq's weapons of mass destruction turned over to them by the Iraqi government one day before a Security Council deadline.

The 12,000 pages of what Iraq says is a complete declaration of all its weapons of mass destruction were turned over to officials of the U.N. Monitoring, Verification, and Inspection Commission (UNMOVIC) and the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) in Baghdad December 7. UNMOVIC officials brought the files on Iraq's chemical, and biological weapons and ballistic missiles and delivery systems to their offices in New York while the IAEA took the section on nuclear weapons to its headquarters in Vienna.

A complete set of the files also was taken to U.N. headquarters in New York by UNMOVIC for the Security Council.

According to resolution 1441, passed on November 8, Iraq must give UNMOVIC and IAEA a current, full, complete and accurate declaration of all aspects of its chemical, biological and nuclear weapons programs, and ballistic missiles systems, as well as information on other chemical, biological, and nuclear programs which are supposed to be for civilian purposes by December 8. The resolution also requires the weapons inspectors to brief the council on their progress in verifying the data by January 27.

"Experts from both UNMOVIC and the IAEA have started going through the material," U.N. spokesman Fred Eckhard said December 9.

At the request of the United States and other permanent members of the council, President Alfonso Valdivieso of Columbia held private consultations over the weekend on how the report was to be given to the Security Council. He decided that as soon as copies could be made, unedited versions would be given to the five permanent members of the council -- China, France, Russia, United Kingdom, and the United States -- which are also nuclear powers and therefore would have the expertise to assess the risks of proliferation and other sensitive information contained in the files.

Dissemination of the declaration to the remaining council members will be after any sections that could potentially foster arms proliferation or would be in contravention of arms conventions such as the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), the Chemical Weapons Convention, and the Biological Weapons Convention are edited, the council president and UNMOVIC officials said.

"This is a sensitive issue," Valdivieso told journalists December 9. "We cannot assume risks of proliferation, and the way to avoid that is to provide [copies] to the [council] members that have that expertise."

Experts from China, France, Russia, the United Kingdom, and the United States are going to make recommendation to UNMOVIC and IAEA about what should be included in the working version of the declaration that will be presented to the entire council, Valdivieso said.

He said U.N. weapons experts hope to have the edited document to the council in about one week.

U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan also noted December 9 that UNMOVIC Executive Chairman Hans Blix has said that he would appreciate governments' sharing of intelligence and other information with him and the inspectors, particularly with regard to sites where they may find hidden material.

Meanwhile UNMOVIC and IAEA continued inspections of facilities in Iraq. An additional 25 inspectors -- 21 from the IAEA and 4 from UNMOVIC -- have arrived in the country, bringing the total number of U.N. weapons inspectors currently in Iraq to 42. Another 25 to 30 UNMOVIC inspectors are expected to arrive in Baghdad on December 10.