"Does it make sense that this troop buildup ... targets just Iraq and is aimed only at changing the Iraqi regime?" Aziz asked.

BAGHDAD, December 24 (IslamOnline & News Agencies) - The massive U.S. military buildup in various Middle East bases is enough for a world war against the entire Arab nation, not just against Iraq, Iraqi Deputy Prime Minister Tareq Aziz said Monday, December 24.

"This is a strategic buildup for a war reaching the level of a world war and targeting ... the entire Arab nation from the Mashreq [Middle East] to the Maghreb [North Africa]," he told an Afro-Asian solidarity meeting with Iraq, Agence France-Presse (AFP) reported.

Some 65,000 U.S. forces are currently deployed in the Gulf and 50,000 more are expected to be sent to the region as Washington threatens to attack Iraq under the pretext that it still possesses weapons of mass destruction – allegations U.N. weapons experts have so far failed to prove after almost one month of inspections.

"Does it make sense that this troop buildup ... targets just Iraq and is aimed only at changing the Iraqi regime?" Aziz asked.

"The direct target now is Iraq, but after Iraq no one will be safe – neither in Marrakesh [Morocco] nor in Bahrain," Aziz said.

The return of U.N. arms inspectors to Iraq should be sufficient to allay fears about Baghdad's armament programs, Aziz said.

Meanwhile, inspectors carried out a 24th day of inspections Monday, December 23, visiting five sites including a factory making powdered milk for babies twice bombed by U.S. warplanes.

A biological team from the U.N. Monitoring, Verification and Inspection Commission (UNMOVIC) entered the baby milk factory at Abu-Ghreib, 20 kilometers (12 miles) northwest of the capital.

Under the U.S. claims that the factory is undergoing secret biological weapons production, the factory was destroyed during the 1991 Gulf war and bombed again in 1998 after reconstruction.

The inspectors' spokesman, Hiro Ueki, said experts from UNMOVIC and the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) had carried out roughly 150 inspections since resuming searches, adding there were currently 102 UNMOVIC and six IAEA inspectors in Iraq.

Ueki also said the inspectors were preparing to 'interview' Iraqi weapons scientists who would brief the inspectors on their work.

In Washington, where the administration is pushing for the scientists to be spirited out of Iraq, officials 'ignored' Monday an invitation from Baghdad for Central Intelligence Agency inspectors to help look for the alleged weapons of mass destruction.

"There is a mechanism already in place, through the United Nations agency," said State Department Deputy spokesman Philip Reeker.

Meanwhile, Iraqi warplanes shot down an unmanned U.S. reconnaissance drone over the southern part of the country.

Iraqi aircraft and anti-aircraft artillery shot down the unmanned U.S. drone, a military spokesman said Monday, quoted by the state INA news agency.

"The sky eagles and the courageous men manning anti-aircraft artillery downed a U.S. Predator reconnaissance aircraft which flew in from Kuwaiti airspace to violate our airspace," he said.

U.S. military officials earlier said Iraqi aircraft shot down the Predator in a "no-fly" zone where U.S. and British aircraft have stepped up attacks in recent weeks. The so-called "no-fly" zones in northern and southern – from which Iraqi aircraft are barred – are not sanctioned by any U.N. resolutions.

The U.S is likely to use the incident as a pretext for an attack on Iraq.