United Nations  weapons inspectors head for Iraq on Monday to begin a mission already clouded by Iraqi accusations that it is a pretext for a U.S. attack. The group of 17 inspectors due to leave Cyprus at around 1115 GMT will be the first to go to Iraq since inspections ceased in 1998. An advance team of logistics experts have been in Baghdad since last week, preparing the ground for a resumption of inspections scheduled for Nov. 27.

"We know where we want to go," said Melissa Fleming, a spokeswoman for the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), which is part of the inspection effort with U.N. agency UNMOVIC.

Iraq is obliged by a toughly worded Security Council resolution to permit unfettered access to the inspections team. On Sunday, Iraqi authorities made public an angry letter to the United Nations over the resolution's terms.

In the first detailed response since Iraq accepted the resolution on Nov. 13, Iraqi Foreign Minister Naji Sabri gave an item by item reply.

"The real motive was to create pretexts to attack Iraq under an international cover," Sabri wrote in the letter.

Resolution 1441 obliges Baghdad to allow the inspectors to peer into every corner of the country. Iraq denies it has any chemical, biological or nuclear weapons.

Baghdad agreed to produce a full account of its weapons program by a December 8 deadline and said U.N. inspectors would be given free access to all sites across the country. The inspectors must give their first report to the U.N. Security Council by Jan. 27.

TONS OF EQUIPMENT FLOWN IN

In Cairo on Monday, IAEA chief Mohamed ElBaradei told reporters: "If we can give a positive report, the inspections will be an alternative to war, not a precursor to war."

Fleming said 17 weapons inspectors -- 11 from UNMOVIC and six from the IAEA -- gathered over the weekend in Larnaca, Cyprus, from where they were to leave on a chartered cargo plane.

"The next wave of inspectors will be on December 8, a significant number of 30 to 35 will be heading down," she said.

Twenty tons of equipment have already been flown to Baghdad from Larnaca, including communications gear, computers, furniture and medicine.

President Bush  said last week that Iraqi President Saddam Hussein's days would be numbered if he carried on denying having weapons of mass destruction.

Iraqi media lambasted Bush on Monday and urged Security Council members to scuttle U.S. or British attempts to use resolution 1441 to attack Iraq.

The al-Jumhuriya daily said the Bush administration has been "issuing hysterical declarations day and night" that ignored international law.

PHOTO CAPTION

An Iraqi soldier guards a U.N. plane at Saddam airport in Baghdad November 23, 2002. World leaders pressed Iraq to comply with U.N. weapons inspections and U.N. officials in the Iraqi capital said on Nov. 24 that they were ready for the first 18 experts who start a search for any banned arms later in the week. (Suhaib Salem/Reuters)