Inspectors find only mushrooms amid ruins of bombed reactor

Twisted pieces of metal rise from the rubble, rainwater lies in craters gouged into the earth, a scorched chimney leans into a jagged wall – reminders of how Saddam Hussein's nuclear ambitions were destroyed.

United Nations inspectors revisited the old Osirak site yesterday to check whether Iraq has once again embarked on a nuclear programme, as Washington and London claim. Tony Blair recently made public satellite photographs which, he maintained showed that the Iraqis were engaged in secret new construction.

The remains of the three reactors destroyed in 1981 by the Israelis, and then a decade later in the Gulf War, by the Americans, have been left by the Iraqis. Around it is the vast, sprawling al-Tuwaitha complex, with dozens of buildings, artificial hills with foxholes for anti-aircraft guns, and cars and buses lined up to transport workers around the plant.

The Iraqis insist the site is now used for medical and pharmaceutical products. Officials were keen to show the supposedly clandestine construction which so alarmed Mr Blair. They appeared to be no more than a few sheds. Nor were there overt signs of the infrastructure needed to enrich uranium for nuclear weapons.

Monitors from the International Atomic Energy Agency arrived at 8.55am and spent four hours and 48 minutes at Iraq's biggest suspected nuclear site, poring over equipment and computers, before leaving with samples.

Faiz al-Barkhdar, the director of al-Tuwaitha and an adviser to President Saddam, professed to be bewildered by the visit. Nothing nuclear had been tested at the site since 1991, he insisted, and the gun emplacements were empty.

One of the new sheds was being used to grow mushrooms, Mr al-Barkhdar said. Observers comments about nuclear bombs and mushroom clouds were lost on him. "It is to help us produce better quality mushrooms, that is all," he insisted. "I know this is not strictly medical and pharmaceutical, but are Bush and Blair going to say this is a material breach?

"The truth is even the harmless work we do is very difficult, because of the UN sanctions. We cannot get spare parts, and around 70 per cent of the equipment cannot be used. We keep applying to the UN to get more supplies in, but we only get refusals."

For a plant running at a fraction of its capacity, there appeared to be a huge number of people present. Twenty-eight buses were lined up to take workers back to Baghdad in the afternoon as work finished early for Ramadan. Mr al-Barkhdar said about 2,500 people were employed, in a variety of jobs, "but none of them nuclear".

The inspectors had been particularly interested in a furnace in the physics laboratory, said Mr al-Barkhdar. It was made by the Degusse company of Germany and has been at the plant for over 10 years. "It does not even work, again because of lack of spare parts," he complained. "But the inspectors still took swabs from inside, I think to see whether we are using it for uranium. They will not find anything, I guarantee."

Osirak, is never far from the mind of the people working at the plant. Pointing at the wreckage, Mr al-Barkhdar recalled: "The Israelis hit with missiles early in the evening, a Frenchman and a number of Iraqis were killed, they hit the reactors. Then the Americans bombed the new facility during the war in the middle of the night, all that work was lost. Now they are just seeking an excuse to attack again."

Another group of UN inspectors visited al-Muthanna, 60 miles north west of Baghdad, once the nucleus of Iraq's chemicals production. But the facility was severely damaged in the Gulf War by more than 30 Tomahawk missiles and 2000lb laser-guided bombs

The inspectors discovered mustard gas shells in the derelict buildings of the complex. The Iraqis claimed they intended to destroy the shells – of the type used to gas to death 5,000 people in Halabjah – but were waiting for discussions with the UN first.