Swedes 'find evidence' of Saddam's weapons

Swedish arms experts found signs of an Iraqi programme for manufacturing prohibited weapons during a secret visit in June, their supervisor said today.

Military and government officials played down the claims and criticised the visit, saying it was not authorised.

Two chemical and biological weapons experts travelled to Iraq to help a television team evaluate information it had obtained about Saddam Hussein’s alleged weapons of mass destruction, said Aake Sellstroem, from the Swedish Defence Research Agency, who authorised the visit.

The information indicated Iraq had a programme for making chemical and biological weapons as late as last year, but yielded no clues about whether any actual weapons were made, he said.

“What this shows is that there was interest, organisation and activities involving weapons of mass destruction until 2002,” Sellstroem said. “But I haven’t seen any information about how many weapons there were.”

Sellstroem, who heads the agency’s weapons of mass destruction research unit, said a TV crew from a Monaco-based production company, World Television Network, requested his help in evaluating information it had received from an unnamed Iraqi source.

He said he made the decision to authorise the visit in haste and regretted not informing his superiors or the government about it.

Swedish Defence Minister Leni Bjoerklund strongly criticised the researchers for embarking on such a sensitive mission without government approval.

Defence research agency spokesman Hans Rehnvall said the two weapons experts, who were not identified, failed to find a “smoking gun.”

“They didn’t regard the results as particularly surprising or dramatic. A piece of the puzzle among many others,” Rehnvall said.

Rehnvall said the agency will prepare a report on the findings, but could not release it before the TV documentary is aired, in line with an agreement the arms experts signed with the production company.

The Swedish producer of the documentary, Wera Maria Cedrell, said the Swedes were among several European experts who helped evaluate documents, which she said were purchased from Iraqis who worked for the Baghdad regime before the war.

The documents included official Iraqi maps of sites where material for chemical or biological weapons could have been buried, she said.

Britain and the US used the threat of weapons of mass destruction as a major reason for going to war with Iraq in February.

In recent weeks, US and British leaders have been criticised for failing to produce evidence of such weapons programs and questionable pre-war intelligence.

The Swedish government objected to the war, saying UN inspectors should have been given more time to look for prohibited weapons in Iraq.