Iraqi dossier heading for expert analysis

Copies of a massive Iraqi document detailing the country’s chemical, biological and nuclear activities were today flown out of Baghdad for analysis by experts at the United Nations and International Atomic Energy Agency.

The 11,807-page document was handed over yesterday by Iraqi officials, who said it showed that President Saddam Hussein had no weapons of mass destruction.

Both the US and UK said they would take time to decide whether Saddam has complied with UN Security Council resolution 1441, which requires an “accurate, full, and complete declaration” of Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction and ballistic missile programmes, as well as any non-military nuclear, chemical or biological activities.

But both indicated scepticism that it would reveal the truth about his arsenals.

But one of Saddam’s top advisers, Lt Gen Amer Al-Saadi, insisted Iraq had already given “first-class evidence” of the state of its weapons programmes, which he said was ignored for political reasons.

Any evidence Western governments had of inaccuracies or omissions in the new dossier should be handed over to the UN Monitoring, Verification and Inspection Commission (Unmovic) and the IAEA, he said.

“If they have anything to the contrary, let them forthwith come up with it,” he said. “Give it to the IAEA, give it to Unmovic. They are here – they could check it. Why play this game?”

The plane which carried the dossier from Baghdad to its first staging post in Cyprus returned to the Iraqi capital with 25 new inspectors, roughly doubling the size of the team on the ground.

The inspectors, who today investigated a government mining company and a pesticide factory near Baghdad, are soon to take delivery of the first of a fleet of eight helicopters to enable them to broaden the range of their unannounced visits to Iraqi facilities.

A copy of the Iraqi dossier was heading for UN headquarters in New York and another one arrived at the IAEA offices in Vienna tonight.

Inspectors at the two offices will have the mammoth task of checking its claims against evidence on the ground and in Unscom’s reports.

IAEA director Mohamed El Baradei said: “I hope the international community will bear with us and give us time to do a proper job.”