An Iraqi soldier prevents photographers and camera crews from taking pictures of a military production facility at Umm al-Maarek or mother of all battles complex.

BAGHDAD, November 30 (News Agencies) - Disarmament experts undertook Saturday a third day of inspections in Iraq, rolling into suspected sites for missiles, warheads and chemical weapons.

A first team spent three hours at a complex baptized Um al-Maarik (Mother of All Battles) south of Baghdad, reported Agence France-Presse (AFP).

The site at al-Yusifiya, 15 kilometers (nine miles) from the capital, is known to have been used previously to develop and build the Al-Hussein missile, an Iraqi version of the SCUD, with a range of 650 kilometers (400 miles).

Iraq admitted in 1995 having filled 25 SCUD warheads with anthrax and/or other toxins.

The complex was put under surveillance before the previous inspections regime halted four years ago and turned into a production center for missiles with a range of less than 150 kilometers (90 miles), which Iraq is today allowed to possess.

A group of inspectors went inside the compound accompanied by Iraqi officials from the National Monitoring Directorate, but journalists were kept out.

President Saddam Hussein named the 1991 Gulf War the "Mother of All Battles", claiming victory from the survival of his regime despite being ousted from Kuwait.

The same group moved on to a second site just a few kilometers (miles) away called al-Milad, guarded over by a tank and part of Iraq's military industrialization program.

Over the entrance hangs a sign bearing words from Saddam last June 29 addressed to the workforce: "We would not be surprised if you told us you can make everything, the opposite would surprise us."

Employees are also warned in a notice from the management not to remove any documents or computer disks.

Another team of experts meanwhile drove 70 kilometers (45 miles) north of Baghdad to Balad and went into a military camp which had once produced chemical weapons, correspondents reported.

The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) and UN Monitoring, Verification and Inspection Commission (UNMOVIC) experts had swung out of their headquarters in the Iraqi capital aboard their four-wheel drive vehicles just before 8:30 am (0530 GMT).

The United Nations is set to fly a first helicopter into Iraq on Sunday to extend the range of weapons inspections, UN spokesman Hiro Ueki said.

"The first helicopter will arrive tomorrow, with our regular UN flight", from a rear base in Larnaca, Cyprus, he said.

The chopper will be based at al-Rasheed airport near the center of Baghdad, Ueki added.  Several more helicopters are due to be brought in at unspecified dates.

The helicopters will be used to transport arms experts to remote areas and provide surveillance of suspect sites while they are being inspected to ensure there is no movement in or out.

The first two days of inspections on Wednesday and Thursday, all covering sites visited previously by disarmament experts before 1998, went ahead "without incident", according to UN spokesmen.

The apparent failure of inspectors to announce the discovery of anything untoward left Iraq to trumpet that the "lies" of British Prime Minister Tony Blair, who claimed the inspected sites would produce banned weapons, had been exposed.

Baghdad's state-run media meanwhile hailed Saturday the persistence of anti-war protests around the world as Washington continued to press for Iraq to be punished mercilessly for any breach of the November 8 UN Security Council resolution that paved the way for the renewed inspections.

"The righteous continue to support Iraq against U.S. threats," headlined the government daily Al-Jumhuriya.

"The world is still shouting its refusal of U.S. threats to attack Iraq," thundered another official newspaper, Al-Qadissiya.

Thousands of demonstrators rallied in the Australian cities of Sydney, Adelaide and Canberra Saturday to protest their government's strong support for U.S. and British war threats. Similar protests were scheduled in Melbourne, Brisbane, Darwin and Perth on Sunday.

To counter the reluctance of many European countries to countenance preparations for war amid Iraq's apparent cooperation with the UN inspectors, Washington prepared to send two envoys across the Atlantic on a marathon tour of as many as 10 countries, including key Iraq neighbor Turkey.

Pentagon number two, Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz, and State Department number three, Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs, Marc Grossman, were due to arrive in Europe Sunday, beginning their tour with stops in key ally Britain and NATO headquarters in Brussels.

They then head to Ankara in a bid to persuade the Turkish government that its concerns about the economic cost of any U.S. military action against its southern neighbor are being taken seriously by Washington.

A U.S. official said the administration was considering an initial aid package of between 700 million and 800 million dollars, rising into the billions over a period of years.

Washington has formally asked some 50 countries for assistance in the event that it goes to war, and Turkey is vital since the Pentagon needs access to its bases if it is to launch a large-scale offensive to unseat President Saddam Hussein.

But as the U.S. envoys prepared to leave, Russia hammered home its view that Iraq's disarmament should now be left to the UN experts.

"As representatives of the weapons inspectors themselves have said, Baghdad is clearly cooperating with them," said Deputy Foreign Minister Alexander Saltanov.

As the inspections continue, a December 8 deadline looms under Resolution 1441 for Iraq to give a "currently accurate, full, and complete declaration of all aspects" of its weapons of mass destruction program -- chemical, biological and nuclear weapons, ballistic missiles and other delivery systems.

 "False statements or omissions in the declarations submitted by Iraq ... shall constitute a further material breach of Iraq's obligations and will be reported to the Council for assessment," the resolution reads.

U.S. President George W. Bush has warned that any "lying" would prompt Washington to launch military action.

Baghdad has strongly denied possessing any weapons of mass destruction and insists the inspectors will find nothing incriminating.

Meanwhile, a British media report claiming Iraqis are hiding illicit weapons parts in their homes may be valid, the spokeswoman for the IAEA said on Saturday.

"My experience as a [UN weapons] inspector in the 1990s taught me that everything is possible in Iraq," Melissa Fleming told German radio DeutschlandRadio Berlin when asked about the news reports.

But the spokeswoman stressed immediately afterwards: "It is possible that the information coming from Britain is not precise.

"The job of the agency is not to judge these information (sic), but to verify all possibilities," she added.

Fleming, just back from Baghdad, said that cooperation between UN inspectors and Iraqi authorities "is proceeding as it should" for the moment.

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