NEWS UPDATE What's happening?

The latest developments in Iraq:
A senior Iraqi official played down concerns today about the reported disappearance from Iraq's nuclear facilities of high-precision equipment that could be used to make weapons, saying all sites under the interim government's control have been secured. Iraq's interim science and technology minister, Rashad Omar, invited the International Atomic Energy Agency to visit the sites at any time and promised full cooperation with the U.N. watchdog. The United States said Tuesday that it will conduct "a full investigation" along with the Iraqi government into the reported disappearances.
U.S. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld was to ask his counterparts from the other 25 NATO countries today to expand the alliance's role in Afghanistan and Iraq. In Iraq, Rumsfeld wants NATO to speed up dispatching officers to train senior Iraqi military officers. The alliance's defense ministers also will consider a request from Iraq for critically needed military equipment.
Prime Minister Tony Blair denied today that he misrepresented intelligence about Iraqi weapons before the war, rejecting growing demands to apologize. "I cannot bring myself to say that I misrepresented the evidence, since I do not accept that I did," Blair said in the House of Commons. Opposition Conservative Party leader Michael Howard said Blair "did not accurately report the intelligence he received to the country. Will he say sorry for that?" Blair said he had previously accepted responsibility and apologized for "any information given in good faith that has subsequently turned out to be wrong."
Iraq's deputy leader pleaded with donors today to fulfill their promises of aid to help rebuild his war-ravaged nation, while U.S. Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage acknowledged that Washington was initially too slow in channeling money to Iraq. Of the $13.6 billion in grants and loans promised last year by nations and lending institutions, only about $1 billion has been deposited in World Bank and U.N. funds for Iraq.
Investigators have begun unearthing a mass grave near the northern Iraqi village of Hatra, uncovering more than 100 bodies and seeking evidence to use in a future trial of Saddam Hussein. The bodies, believed to be Kurds killed during Saddam's crackdown in 1987-88, are buried in nine trenches, according to Greg Kehoe, an American who works with the Iraqi Special Tribunal.
Source: Combined dispatches