United Nations: United Nations weapons inspectors began scrutinising the massive Iraqi declaration detailing Baghdad's chemical, biological and nuclear programmes within hours of the dossier's arrival at the world body's headquarters.

Head of the weapons inspection agency, known as UNMOVIC, Hans Blix said they would start looking at the almost 10,000 page declaration immediately as he received two sealed black suitcases from an aide, Surya Sinha, as he entered the headquarters at 20:40 local time (07:10 IST on Monday).

"Here are the documents. We will immediately take a look at that and get an overview of how many pages are printed and how much do we get in CD-ROMS, and tomorrow we will get copies made of the declaration and we will start to work," Blix said.

He is expected to give his first reaction to the Council members on December 10 when he attends Secretary General Kofi Annan's monthly lunch with the Council members. He might also brief them at the closed door meeting. But it could be days before the Council members get their actual first look at the report.

The nuclear component of the new declaration arrived earlier on December 8 in Vienna where the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) is based.

IAEA director general Mohamed el Baradei said in Vienna that the experts would cross check the declaration with data from past and intelligence reports from other nations. He expects to give the Council a preliminary report within 10 days and a detailed analysis by January end.

The inspectors are to edit out parts of the report that might provide recipe for producing nuclear, biological or chemical weapons and ballistic missiles before circulating it among the 15 members of the Security Council, including the US.

Sources at the world body say the process could take several days before the Council members are given the copies of the report.

The complete declaration, in Arabic and English with an 80-page summary, is contained in at least a dozen bound volumes accompanied by computer disks. It covers such subjects as the 1990s UN weapons inspection regime in Iraq, when several arms and much production equipment were destroyed and "dual use" industries.

PTI