"The IAEA is the sole body with legal authority to verify Iraq's nuclear disarmament," the head of the International Atomic Energy AgencyMohamed ElBaradei said in a statement.

"The world has learned over three decades that only through impartial, international inspections can credibility be generated. Iraq is no exception to that requirement."

ElBaradei's comments came after the Washington Post said Washington had set up special military units to seek out the weapons of mass destruction it accuses Iraq of developing.

"The Bush administration is determined to conduct the weapons hunt without the UN agencies that hold Security Council mandates for the job. Administration officials distrust the United Nations Monitoring, Verification and Inspection Commission (UNMOVIC) and the IAEA," the paper said, quoting "disarmament planners" who are also "negotiating contracts with private companies for some of the work".

"White House officials have backed Defense Department efforts to create a substitute organization for UNMOVIC and the Vienna-based IAEA," the report continued, adding that the US State Department feared their moves would be opposed by other members of the UN Security Council.

Hans Blix, the head of the UN inspection team responsible for verifying whether Iraq possesses any banned chemical and biological arms, said on Saturday that the US and London were trying to recruit his inspectors to work on a unilateral weapons search programme.

"They have turned to some people who currently work for us and asked them to come down and help. These are our people who come from countries that are engaged in the conflict down there," Blix said.

The inspection teams led by ElBaradei and Blix were evacuated from Iraq two days before the US-British invasion of Iraq, less than four months into the verification mission the United Nations Security Council had asked them to undertake.

ElBaradei -- who on March 7 said UN experts had found no sign of any prohibited nuclear activity at any inspected site in Iraq -- said on Tuesday the weapons teams hoped to continue their work once the war was over.

"The IAEA mandate in Iraq is still valid and has not changed," he said. "Our operation is interrupted because of hostilities.

"We expect to go back with full authority after the cessation of hostilities, to resume our inspection activities in Iraq pursuant to the mandate given to us both by the Security Council and by the fact that Iraq is a party to the NPT (nuclear non-proliferation treaty).

"Impartial and independent verification is at the core of international efforts over the last 30 years to underpin the non-proliferation of nuclear weapons," he continued, adding that IAEA inspectors had not yet been approached by Washington to work for the United States.

Relations between Washington and the IAEA took a turn for the worse after ElBaradei told the Security Council on March 7 that documents allegedly proving that Iraq was seeking to procure uranium from Niger were forgeries. US Vice President Dick Cheney responded by saying that he thought ElBaradei was wrong in his conclusions.

While IAEA inspectors were able to dismantle Iraq's secret nuclear weapons programme following the first Gulf war in 1991, US officials have pointed out that IAEA inspectors failed to uncover the Iraqi programme before the war.

"We had made good progress since resuming inspections in Iraq in November and we stand ready, subject to Security Council guidance, to resume our work after the war and to provide the ongoing assurances sought by the Security Council that Iraq has no nuclear weapons programme."

The IAEA was for a long time one of the few UN agencies firmly supported by Washington, and one whose budget the US Congress did not attempt to cut.

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