Saddam ready to disprove arms claims

PRESIDENT Saddam Hussein said yesterday he was ready to give UN weapons inspectors a chance to disprove American allegations that Iraq possesses weapons of mass destruction.

However, Washington, which has threatened to go to war unless Iraq can prove it has renounced biological, chemical and nuclear arms programmes, insisted it had intelligence information to back its contention.

No inspections were taking place yesterday or today because of the Muslim Eid al-Fitr holiday, but all eyes were on Sunday's deadline for Iraq to come clean about its programmes.