Iraq shrugs off US/British arms dossier accusations

IRAQ yesterday said it was not worried by accusations that its weapons declaration to the United Nations contained little new, and said it would give UN inspectors a list of scientists linked to arms programmes.

“We are not worried. It’s the other party (the United States and Britain) that is worried because there is nothing they can pin on us,” presidential adviser Amir al-Saadi told a news conference. “There is nothing that they don't know about Iraq's weapons programmes. They know everything.”

US and British officials have said the Iraqi dossier submitted on December 7 is full of holes, a charge that Saadi said was aimed to pre-empt the assessment of weapons experts: “We have heard only politicians talk like that. We have not heard any reputable weapons expert come and pick holes in our declaration.”

He added that Iraq would hand over the list of scientists which UN chief weapons inspector Hans Blix has requested by the end of the month.

“We will submit the list in time,” he said, adding that the scientists would be named in order of seniority.

Asked if Iraq would let scientists be interviewed abroad, as authorised by last month’s Security Council resolution 1441, he said: “We’ll cross that bridge when we come to it.”

Saadi was speaking just before Blix and Mohamed ElBaradei, in charge of nuclear arms inspections, gave the council an initial view on Iraq’s 12,000-page arms dossier.

ElBaradei, head of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), told the council Iraq had provided clarifications, but no new documentation on its nuclear programme.

He said the important issue now was verifying through inspections and intelligence Iraq’s assertion that it had no nuclear weapons programme.

“Iraq’s current declaration of its nuclear programme prior to 1991 contains no substantive changes from the FFCD (declaration) provided to the IAEA in 1998,” ElBaradei said, according to a text of his statement.

Iraq denies it has pursued any banned weapons programmes since December 1998 when previous UN weapons inspectors were withdrawn ahead of a US-British bombing campaign.

“We don’t expect Blix and ElBaradei to say there is anything new,” Saadi said, indicating that Iraq had nothing to add to previous information it had given on past programmes.

UN experts resumed inspections on November 27 after Iraq decided to “deal with” a tough new Security Council resolution requiring it to disarm or face serious consequences.

General Hussam Mohamed Amin, the chief Iraqi official liaising with the inspectors, said the UN teams had visited 130 sites, of which 116 had previously been subject to UN monitoring, since they resumed work in Iraq.