nation Security Council asked the experts to determine whether its arms embargo on Ivory Coast was working. The panel found that government defense spending was high and accused officials of doing a poor job of tracking both arms deals and revenues from the sale of its natural resources. But it concluded that neither the government nor the rebels had the money or the need at this time to procure weapons. Their biggest needs for now were helicopters, four-wheel drive vehicles and trucks, the report said. The panel praised the government for cooperating with its inquiry but accused the rebels of not giving it enough help. The main rebel group, Forces Nouvelles, for example, had never provided U.N. peacekeepers in Ivory Coast with a list of all its weapons, as the Security Council had demanded as a first step toward stripping all armed groups in the country of their weapons. --more 2241 Local Time 1941 GMT
