Iraq bans weapons in bid to stave off war
The presidential decree, sought by the UN for more than a decade, prohibited the production or importation of chemical, biological and nuclear weapons and of all materials used to make them.
“All ministries should implement this decree and take whatever measures are necessary to punish people who do not adhere to it,” the decree read.
White House spokesman Ari Fleischer reacted sceptically, saying: “If one would want to make believe and pretend that Iraq is a democracy that could pass meaningful laws, it would be 12 years late and 26,000 litres of anthrax short.”
The ban appeared intended to head off a war threatened by the US and Britain. But Saddam and top lieutenants said that if attacked, Iraqis will defend their country “with a spirit of faith and holy war”.
“If the aggressors still attack, the blame should fall on them before God and the people,” the leaders were quoted as saying by the official Iraqi News Agency. “Iraqis will fight them as a people and as an armed force.”
The leaders called contentions that Iraq still has weapons of mass destruction “an excuse to be used by aggressors in the Security Council as a cover for aggression”.
The UN weapons inspection chiefs said that while Iraq has not been completely co-operative they have found no evidence that Iraq has resumed production of weapons of mass destruction. But they said some banned weapons materials have not been accounted for.
The US and Britain are trying to declare Iraq in violation of UN disarmament orders and are seeking support from other Security Council members to authorise military action. Members Russia, France and Germany want to give the inspectors more time in the absence of firm evidence that Iraq still has banned weapons.
Iraq considered the reports by Mr Blix and Mr El-Baradei to be key in encouraging or deterring war.
“A historic responsibility lies on the shoulders of Blix and El-Baradei,” Al-Thawra, the newspaper of Iraq’s ruling Baath Party, said in a front-page editorial yesterday. “We hope they are fit for this responsibility.”
The inspectors, it said, “should weigh every sentence in that report with high responsibility and sensitivity, because what they are going to say will have serious consequences.”
Moments before Mr Blix and Mr El-Baradei delivered their reports, Iraq’s 250-seat parliament unanimously adopted a resolution accusing the US and Britain of scheming to “control Iraq and the Arab world, steal its oil and wealth and draw a new political map on an ethnic, sectarian and colonial basis”.
“The claims by Bush and Blair about the existence of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq have been refuted through visits to hundreds of sites in which inspectors have not found any arms or banned material,” the parliament said.
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