On the eve of President Bush’s State of the Union address, chief United Nations weapons inspectors assessed Iraq as being incompliant with international disarmament efforts.

Chief United Nations weapons inspector Hans Blix gave the report to the United Nations Monday in New York, saying Iraq was not completely cooperative with inspectors searching for weapons of mass destruction.

Blix prefaced his remarks with a history of weapons inspection in Iraq. Iraq was often uncooperative with inspections ordered by the U.N. cease-fire to the Gulf War in 1991. Weapons inspectors remained in Iraq, destroying large quantities of chemical weapons in 1994 before leaving in 1998. In 1999, a resolution was passed to return inspectors, but Iraq refused until November of 2002, after President Bush demanded inspections proceed unimpeded under threats of war.

In December of 2002, Iraq submitted a 12,000-paged declaration of arms in accordance to a resolution by the U.N. Security Council. Blix said although the declaration did contain a good deal of information on the development of biotechnology and missiles, it was lacking the necessary detail requested by the United Nations.

“One might have expected that in preparing the declaration, Iraq would have tried to clarify and submit supporting evidence regarding the many open disarmament issues. Regrettably, the 12,000-page declaration, most of which is a reprint of earlier documents, does not seem to contain any new evidence that would eliminate the questions,” Blix said.

Blix said Iraq officials were often cooperative in inspections and tours of weapons facilities carried on Fridays, the Muslim day of rest, as well as Christmas day and New Year’s Day. Blix said on a number of occasions, inspectors conducting unannounced inspections were met by unwarranted public outbursts.

“Demonstrations and outbursts of this kind are unlikely to occur in Iraq without initiative or encouragement from the authorities. We must ask ourselves what the motives may be for these events,” Blix said.

Blix said conflicting reports by the Iraqis leave about 6,500 chemical bombs presently unaccounted for. The much-publicized finding of chemical rocket warheads in a bunker southwest of Baghdad last month also raised suspicions with inspectors.

“This was a relatively new bunker, and, therefore, the rockets must have been moved there in the past few years, at a time when Iraq should not have had such munitions,” Blix said.

Blix also said there were “strong indications” Iraq had produced more Anthrax than they reported in the past. Blix is uncertain of whether missile production is proceeding within proscribed limits, citing two Iraqi projects into building liquid-fueled missiles capable of traveling over 150 kilometers, in addition to the refurbishing of Iraq’s missile production infrastructure.

Blix closed his report by saying the weapons inspection team has been building up its presence in Iraq and in the past two months had completed 300 inspections of 230 sites. He offered its continued service to the president of the United Nations and said more time was needed for a more in-depth evaluation.

President Bush’s Press Secretary Ari Fleischer said Bush was pleased that the inspectors were able to be in Iraq for the last two months and make their report.

“The process is continuing, but the process is running out of time,” Fleischer said. Fleischer said he had not heard the president put a limit on how much longer he would allow investigations to continue.

“The president will continue to consult and talk to our allies. But I think it’s important for the world to know what the president has said, that time is running out,” Fleischer said.

Fleischer said Bush spent a considerable about of time working on tomorrow’s State of the Union address and that the address would probably not contain any recommendation of immediate action on Iraq.

Charles Jones, emeritus professor of political science at the University of Wisconsin, said historically the State of the Union serves two main purposes: addressing crisis situations facing the United States and listing domestic initiatives for the coming year.

“Two crisis situations right now are certainly foreign-policy issues, but also the economy,” Jones said.

Jones said, besides that, Bush is also under pressure to address a number of other issues.

“Members of Congress have their priorities they want to hear about,” Jones said. “I’ve had friends in state departments who were thrilled to get even a sentence in the address about what they were working on.”