Iraq: Powell's evidence will be fabricated

US Secretary of State Colin Powell will fabricate evidence against Saddam Hussein’s regime this week when he appears before the UN Security Council, officials in Baghdad charged today.

Washington is seeking support for military moves against Saddam, and President Bush has said Powell will present the council with damning new evidence proving that the Iraqi dictator has no plans to disarm.

But Major General Hossam Mohamed Amin, Iraq’s chief liaison to the UN arms inspectors, said the US was just playing a “political game”.

Powell would present the council with “fabricated space photos or aerial photos,” Amin said, adding that the Iraqis would be able to refute them – if they were given a chance to study them.

Reports over the weekend suggested Powell might submit tapes of intercepted conversations between Iraqi officials, where they can apparently be heard discussing how they have fooled the UN inspectors.

US intelligence officials have been desperately deciding what sensitive information can be declassified for Powell to bring to New York on Wednesday.

They said the risk was not just in letting Baghdad know how much the US knows - it was letting other Security Council members, like China and Russia, into the loop as well.

In a front-page editorial today, Baghdad’s ruling party newspaper, Al-Thawra, called on the Security Council members “to prove their credibility (and) confront with courage those fabricated American lies.”

Amin insisted Baghdad was “keen to resolve any pending issues” in the UN’s search for banned weapons, but he did not immediately offer new concessions on unresolved issues.

Saddam himself is expected to offer his own assessment on the US-Iraqi stand-off in a televised interview with former British MP Tony Benn over the next couple of days.

Iraq has steadfastly denied it has weapons of mass destruction, but it is under pressure to make concessions and show progress in the UN inspections process in hopes of blocking Washington and London’s bid for military action to topple Saddam.

UN resolutions passed since Iraq’s defeat by a US-led coalition in the 1991 Gulf War prohibit nuclear, chemical and biological weapons programmes in Iraq.

Thousands of such weapons were destroyed under a UN inspection programme in the 1990s. The US and Britain insist Saddam is still hiding banned weaponry and say they will disarm Iraq by force – if necessary.

The US has deployed almost 90,000 troops in the Gulf, a number that may double within weeks. Reflecting rising tensions, the Turkish military yesterday began moving troops from western Turkey to its border with Iraq.

Facing a US-led invasion, Iraq invited the two chief UN weapons inspectors back to Baghdad and Amin promised the government would “do our best” to make Saturday’s visit successful.

In New York, Iraq’s UN Ambassador, Mohamed Al-Douri, struck a more emphatic tone, saying: “I think they will find solution for all remaining issues between both parties.”

The chief inspectors are hoping that they will win meaningful concessions from the Iraqis on reconnaissance U-2 flights and private interviews with Iraqi scientists – two of the issues the inspectors say have stalled progress so far.

The talks with chief weapons inspectors Hans Blix and Mohamed ElBaradei will come just before their next important report to the council, on February 14.

It will be the second round of Baghdad talks for Blix and ElBaradei in three weeks.