WASHINGTON, NOV 25: An American U-2 spy plane flew safely over central Iraq on Monday on a United Nations mission to take pictures of sites associated with weapons of mass destruction, US officials have said.``It spent a couple of hours over Iraq and is now out of Iraqi territory,'' army colonel Richard Bridges, a Pentagon spokesman, told Reuters yesterday.``There was a U-2 flight today that took photographs of weapons of mass destruction-related facilities,'' added State Department spokesman James Foley.The United States said it remained wary of Iraq's intentions despite an agreement last week to let Americans resume work on UN weapons inspection teams.A US military force that has moved within striking distance of Iraq over the past weeks will stay for the time being as the UN inspectors resume their mission to find and eliminate any Iraqi nuclear, chemical or biological weapon programmes.``We're still in a watching mode. We don't consider that the issue is closed. The teams have returned, they've started their work and let's see whether they're able now to work more effectively,'' Foley told a briefing.The UN inspectors returned to Iraq last Friday after Baghdad backed down on US presence in UNSCOM.Meanwhile, President Bill Clinton has renewed his demand that UN weapons inspectors be allowed to operate without hindrance, rejecting Baghdad's insistence on excluding ``sensitive'' areas such as ``presidential palaces''.``Our position is, that's a lot of land, a lot of buildings, they (the inspectors) ought to be able to do what they think is necessary,'' Clinton said here yesterday.He was speaking to reporters on the sidelines of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) summit shortly before meeting his Chinese counterpart Jiang Zemin.
