BAGHDAD Iraq AP The United Nations has brought its complement of 120 weapons inspectors in Iraq up to full strength a U.N. official said Tuesday. The inspectors are ready to resume the intrusive searches of suspected arms sites that the Iraqi authorities tried to halt on Aug. 5 when they refused to provide the necessary escorts. ``We are back at full strength as we were before the latest crisis and we are ready to carry out all inspections'' the spokeswoman for the U.N. inspectors Caroline Cross said in Baghdad. The United Nations evacuated its weapons experts on Nov. 11 as the United States and Britain prepared to launch air strikes to force Iraq to reverse its Oct. 31 decision to cease all cooperation with the inspectors. Iraq relented Nov. 14 and inspectors began returning to Baghdad three days later. The first batches of inspectors to return have been checking monitoring equipment installed at sites where Iraq previously worked on its program of missiles and weapons of mass destruction. But lately the United Nations has been flying in visiting teams of inspectors whose mission is to search sites where Iraq is suspected of hiding evidence of its banned weapons program. It is these inspections that have previously brought Iraq and the United Nations to the brink of a showdown. ``We expect to see more visiting teams and we will be real busy for the next few weeks'' Cross told The Associated Press. Cross said teams of inspectors went out to work at sites Tuesday as they have every day since Nov. 18. Iraq's National Monitoring Directorate which follows the teams' activity has said 12 teams inspected 12 sites on Monday. Richard Butler the chief U.N. weapons inspectors has said he expects to report to the U.N. Security Council on the degree of Iraq's cooperation in two or three weeks. The inspectors must certify that Iraq has destroyed its chemical nuclear and biological weapons long-range missiles and the programs to build them before the Security Council will lift the sweeping sanctions imposed after Iraq invaded Kuwait in 1990. The recent dispute over inspections brought the Gulf to the brink of war for the third time in a year. The United States has left an armada in the Gulf to make sure that the Iraqi authorities honor their Nov. 14 pledge to cooperate fully with the U.N. experts. In a letter to the Security Council on Monday Iraqi Foreign Minister Mohammed Saeed al-Sahhaf complained the United States was threatening his country. The U.S. Congress has pledged dlrs 97 million to Iraqi dissident groups. The United States was not allowed ``to support opposition by supplying them with money and other means to overthrow the government'' al-Sahhaf said in his letter which Iraqi newspapers published Tuesday. UR; wf-as-jbm APW19981201.0455.txt.body.html APW19981201.0361.txt.body.html