Iraq Dismisses British Dossier as 'Lies and Allegations'

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Last updated at: (Beijing Time) Thursday, September 26, 2002

Iraq Dismisses British Dossier as 'Lies and Allegations'

The Iraqi cabinet dismisses on Wednesday a British dossier about Iraq's development of weapons of mass destruction as "lies and allegations."

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The Iraqi cabinet dismisses on Wednesday a British dossier about Iraq's development of weapons of mass destruction as "lies and allegations."

"The dossier is baseless, false propaganda and has no satisfactory evidences," an official cabinet spokesman said following a cabinet meeting chaired by President Saddam Hussein.

"The (UN) inspection team will come back to Iraq soon and can verify within a short time that (British Prime Minister Tony) Blair's dossier is nothing but lies and false allegations," the unidentified spokesman said in a statement carried by Iraq's state television.

The British government on Tuesday released a dossier of evidence accusing Iraq of pursuing weapons of mass destruction and preparing to use them.

Iraq's arms plan "allows for some of the WMD to be ready within 45 minutes of an order to use them," Blair said in the introduction to the document.

Iraq has been under sweeping UN sanctions since its August 1990 invasion of Kuwait and the embargo will not be lifted until the UN has verified that Iraq has eliminated all of its weapons of mass destruction and means of launching them.

Continuous spats about alleged espionage activities between Iraq and the UN arms inspectors, who were commissioned to verify that Iraq has eliminated its weapons of mass destruction, led to crisis in 1997 and 1998, and eventually the brief air war against Baghdad from Dec. 17-19, 1998.

In an official letter addressed to UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan on Sept. 16, Iraqi Foreign Minister Naji Sabri said his government is ready to accept the UN weapon inspectors unconditionally.

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