Iraq Accuses US, Britain of Lying in Arms Allegations

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Last updated at: (Beijing Time) Monday, December 23, 2002

Iraq Accuses US, Britain of Lying in Arms Allegations

Iraq on Sunday accused the United States and Britain of lying in their allegations that Iraq has weapons of mass destruction.

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Iraq on Sunday accused the United States and Britain of lying in their allegations that Iraq has weapons of mass destruction.

"After 24 days of inspections covering practically all the sites named in those reports and after the submission of our declaration of December 7, the lies and baseless allegations have been uncovered," Amir al-Saadi, Iraqi President Saddam Hussein's science adviser, told a news conference in Baghdad.

While saying Iraq is "ready to answer all questions," al-Saadi insisted that Iraq has no more documents to prove its claims that Iraq is free from any weapons of mass destruction.

"We do not have any more documentation," he told reporters, adding that Iraq will continue to cooperate with UN inspectors "to find ways of resolving the remaining disarmament issues."

In a bid to refute US allegations that Iraq has "omissions" in its arms declaration, al-Saadi denied that Iraq had attempted to procure uranium from Niger.

He said Iraq had only tried to obtain uranium oxide, not uranium, from Niger in the mid-1980s and the record has been in its weapons declaration to the UN Security Council.

US Secretary of State Colin Powell claimed that Baghdad is in "material breach" of UN Resolution 1441 for failing to tell the truth about its weapons stockpiles. Washington alleges that Iraq's massive arms dossier ignores what it says are Iraqi efforts to procure uranium from Niger.

Citing another example, al-Saadi said some tests conducted in the United State had shown that Iraq's spent missiles contained traces of VX nerve gas, but later independent tests by French and Swiss labs found no such results.

He admitted that Iraq had made an unsuccessful attempt in April 1990 to produce some VX nerve agent, but the material degraded rapidly and Iraq gave up the attempts.

Al-Saadi also challenged the US Central Intelligence Agency to send any representatives to Iraq to point out any sites allegedly engaged in prohibited weapons programs.

"We do not even have any objections if the CIA send somebody with the inspectors to show them the suspected sites," he said.

Asked about UN inspectors taking Iraqi scientists out of the country for private interviews, al-Saadi said the UN mission has the rights to do that but so far there is no indication that they want to resort to that option.

Under the newly-adopted UN Security Council Resolution 1441, Iraq handed over a mammoth declaration of its nuclear, chemical, biological and missile programs on Dec. 7.

Powell on Thursday said Iraq totally fails to meet the requirements of the UN resolution adopted last month on its disarmament.

In what was billed as "official US response" to the Iraqi document submitted to the UN Security Council, Powell told a press conference in Washington that "there are material omissions that in our view constitute another material breach" of UN resolutions by Baghdad.

Currently, over 100 UN arms experts have been carrying out their almost daily field operations in Iraq searching for banned weapons. So far no dispute between the inspectors and their Iraqi "minders" has been reported and the Iraqi side has showed an apparent willingness to cooperate.

By Jan. 27, the inspectors must give their first report to the UN Security Council about Iraq's weapons programs.

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