Iraq defends its claim

BAGHDAD, Iraq -- A top advisor to Iraqi President Saddam Hussein challenged Washington to put forward any proof that Baghdad's account of its chemical, biological and nuclear programs was inaccurate, as Iraq's voluminous report was flown Sunday to the United Nations headquarters.\n"It's accurate, comprehensive and truthful," Gen. Amer al-Saadi, presidential science adviser, said of the arms declaration report that Iraq handed in a day earlier. He told reporters that if others -- implicitly the United States -- "have anything to the contrary, let them come forth with it."\nAl-Saadi said the report, which is more than 10,000 pages long, "will embarrass some nations and companies" cited as having assisted in Iraq's efforts to build weapons of mass destruction, which Baghdad insists it no longer holds.\nAl-Saadi said the document was so complete that if the council makes it all public, "this means that the Security Council is participating in the proliferation of materials" relating to prohibited weapons. He said the council already was discussing how to handle the report during a meeting in New York on Tuesday.\nA U.N. courier brought one copy of the report to Vienna and handed it over Sunday to the International Atomic Energy Agency, which heads U.N. nuclear inspections in Iraq. Another commercial flight was taking two more copies to New York -- one for the Security Council, the other for the U.N. Monitoring, Verification and Inspection Commission.\nSpeaking to reporters, al-Saadi gave an overview of what was in the various reports on chemical, biological and nuclear programs, reading chapter headings from the declaration but offering few details.\n"Already it's been described as a telephone book," he said of the number of pages in the report.\nThe documents account for Iraq's "dual-use" industries that can serve both civilian and military purposes. They also detail the weapons programs that Iraq has already acknowledged running before 1991 but that it says were halted long ago. Al-Saadi warned that some material in the papers, if made public, might be used by others to help develop weapons.\nHe said Iraq's nuclear program never reached the stage of producing a bomb, as Iraqi officials have said in the past, but suggested material in the report could misused.\n"If you follow the documents we have given, there is no guarantee that you would succeed (in making the bomb) ... We don't know. It's for others to judge," he said.\nA day earlier, Saddam grudgingly apologized to Kuwait for his 1990 invasion. That invasion and seven-month occupation ended only when a huge, U.S.-led force drove Iraq out in February 1991 and led to sanctions and U.N. demands that Iraq give up weapons of mass destruction.\nSaddam's letter to Kuwaitis, read on state television by his information minister, was obviously timed to coincide with the presentation of the "tell-all" arms documents. Although he apologized to the Kuwaiti people, Saddam also repeated Iraqi charges that it was the Kuwaiti government's anti-Iraq oil policies that justified the invasion.\nToday, Saddam charged, the Kuwaiti government was working "with foreigners" who have aggressive designs on Iraq. Thousands of U.S. troops in Kuwait, based there since the 1991 war, would likely play an important role in any new U.S. attack launched to punish Saddam for allegedly stockpiling weapons of mass destruction.\nKuwait's information minister, Sheik Ahmed Fahd Al Ahmed Al Sabah, rejected Saddam's apology.\nWhile Saddam's apology was unexpected, his arms declaration was long-awaited.\nThe U.N. resolution requiring the declaration be filed by Sunday also called on Iraq to declare any stocks or programs in chemical, biological or nuclear weapons. The Baghdad government says it has none.\nU.S. President George W. Bush rejected such Iraqi denials. Reacting to the delivery of the giant report Saturday, Bush spokesman Ari Fleischer said Washington will analyze Iraq's claims and work with other countries to end "Saddam Hussein's pursuit and accumulation of weapons of mass destruction."\nIn Britain Sunday, British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw said his country would not rush to judge Iraq's arms declaration, but added he remained skeptical about the document. Straw, speaking to the BBC, also dismissed Saddam's apology to the Kuwaiti people.\nRussia, which has been an Iraqi ally on the Security Council, said Iraq has shown it wants to cooperate with the United Nations.\n"Iraq's timely submission of its declaration, parallel to its continued cooperation with the international weapons inspectors, confirms its commitment to act in compliance with" the latest Security Council resolution on Iraqi arms, the Russian Foreign Ministry said Sunday in a statement issued in Moscow.\nBush administration officials, backed by Britain, have threatened war if, in their view, Baghdad has not met U.N. arms control demands. They say they have "solid evidence" Iraq retains weapons of mass destruction, and will eventually supply it to U.N. inspectors.\nIn Iran Sunday, the leader of the biggest Iraqi opposition group told The Associated Press that he has documents proving Saddam is hiding weapons of mass destruction and that he was prepared to hand over the documents to the United Nations if the safety of his informers inside Iraq was guaranteed.\nMohammed Baqir al-Hakim, leader of the exiled Supreme Council of the Islamic Revolution in Iraq, offered no details. He said he had not approached the United Nations, instead waiting for officials to come to him now that he has publicized his claim.\nU.N. investigators, who returned to Iraq two weeks ago after a four-year absence, went out on their daily surprise inspections again Sunday morning, visiting a mining and survey company in Baghdad and a pesticide plant west of the capital.\nThe U.N. teams received reinforcements later Sunday, 25 additional inspectors, most from the nuclear agency. They also received the first of an expected eight helicopters on Saturday, and on Sunday it was being assembled for deployment here.\nThe previous U.N. weapons inspection regime collapsed in 1998 amid U.N.-Iraqi disputes over access to sites and over U.S. spies within the U.N. operation.\nIf Iraq is eventually found to have cooperated fully with the inspectors, U.N. resolutions call for the Security Council to consider lifting economic sanctions imposed on Iraq after it invaded Kuwait in 1990.