Six inspectors from the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) returned to Vienna on Thursday after their first mission to Libya. A spokesman reported that they had enjoyed "active and full cooperation from Libyan authorities".

"In the past two weeks we have acquired considerable information and understanding of the history, scope, and development of Libya's nuclear programme," the IAEA's Mark Gwozdecky told AFP.

The inspectors landed in Tripoli eight days after Libyan leader Moamer Kadhafi on December 19 renounced any quest for weapons of mass destruction after nine months of secret talks with the United States and Britain.

In a surprise move, IAEA director general Mohamed ElBaradei travelled with them and met with Kadhafi.

The IAEA inspectors visited nine sites declared by Libya as relevant to its nuclear activities, Gwozdecky said, and would inspect the 10th, a storage facility for natural uranium, soon.

Gwozdecky pointed out that "we aren't ready to draw any conclusion, it will require much more and thorough work before we can do so."

But ElBaradei has declared his satisfaction that Tripoli was acting as if it had already signed the additional protocol to the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) by allowing in-depth, suprise searches of sensitive sites.

The US administration of George W. Bush has accused the IAEA of rushing into Libya, suggesting that Washington would have liked a bigger role in verifying Libya's disarmament.

The New York Times on Friday quoted a senior US official who called ElBaradei's visit "a 'badly advised' public relations exercise at a time when the United States Central Intelligence Agency and Britain's MI6 spy agency were developing strong bonds with Libya's military and intelligence chiefs."

He added that ElBaradei "has (only) got a minuscule percentage of the knowledge" about the full assortment of Libya's illicit weapons programs, therefore "he has a role, but only with the technical aspects" of verifying the dismantling of the Libyan nuclear programme.

According to the US state department, under secretary of state John Bolton was due to travel to London in the near future for talks on verifying Libya's claims.

But Gwozdecky on Friday pointed out that the IAEA had sole responsibility for verifying compliance with the NPT.

It had reacted quickly and "done its job", he said, adding that the IAEA's success at verification hinges on "the authority that the inspectors have."

He said another vital factor was "any state having information relevant to our work sharing this information with us."

A diplomat in Vienna said in support of the agency: "There are people who are well-equipped to conduct verification missions."

The controversy recalls other clashes between the United Nations and the United States over verification missions.

When Washington claimed in the run-up to the Iraq war that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction, IAEA inspectors countered that they had found no proof of this.

Washington has since sent in its own inspectors to look for unconventional weapons, with no success, and ignored ElBaradei's requests that his officials be allowed to return to complete their work.

The United States also criticised a report by ElBaradei on Iran in which he concluded that there was no proof that Tehran had a nuclear arms programme.

In November, IAEA member states condemned Iran for covert nuclear activities but stopped short of taking Iran before the UN Security Council which could impose sanctions, as the United States had wished.

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