Iraqi general says VX nerve gas transfer 'ridiculous'

BAGHDAD, Iraq -- A senior Iraqi general dismissed as "ridiculous" a U.S. report that an Iraqi chemical weapon was delivered to an Islamic extremist group affiliated with al Qaeda.\n"They know very well," Lt. Gen. Hossam Mohammed Amin said Thursday of the U.S. government, "we have no prohibited material or activities, and all the stockpile (of chemical weapons) have been destroyed."\nMeeting with reporters, Amin also described as "piracy" last Monday's surprise U.S. takeover of a U.N. master copy of Iraq's all-important arms declaration, a move the Iraqi government previously denounced as allowing Washington to "play with" and "possibly forge" the documents before they could be reviewed by the rest of the world.\nAmin, chief liaison to the U.N. weapons inspectors now operating in Iraq, said the Iraqis thus far are satisfied with the "professionalism" of the inspections.\nThe U.N. teams, in the third week of resumed inspections, headed out again Thursday on their daily missions. They visited a missile test site west of Baghdad, an antibiotics plant and a metalworking plant, among other facilities, Iraqi Information Ministry officials said.\nThe Washington Post on Thursday quoted sources as saying the Bush administration had received a credible report that Islamic extremists affiliated with al Qaeda took possession of a chemical weapon -- suspected to be the nerve agent VX -- in Iraq in October or November.\nThe sources were said to be "two officials with firsthand knowledge of the report and its source." But other unnamed U.S. officials cited by the newspaper suggested the "report" may have been based on a hypothetical case raised in a recent U.S. military communication.\n"This is really a ridiculous assumption from the American administration," Amin said, speaking in English in response to a question.\n"We are used to (hearing) such reports from the enemies of Iraq," he said, naming U.S. and Israeli intelligence agencies.\nWhite House press secretary Ari Fleischer declined to comment on intelligence that the Bush administration may have received about a transfer. But he did not dispute that a transfer may have occurred.\n"We have long standing concerns about Iraq providing weaponry to al Qaeda. We know al Qaeda is seeking it," Fleischer said.\nIn a wrap-up report in 1999, after U.N. inspectors withdrew from Iraq, the United Nations said the Iraqis had not adequately explained the disposition of 1.5 tons out of 3.9 tons of VX nerve agent they acknowledged producing in the 1980s, all of which Iraq said it had destroyed.\nThe U.N. inspectors said they found traces of VX where the Iraqis said they had neutralized the chemical agent, but could not confirm the amount.\nAmin spoke after two days of extensive activity by the U.N. inspectors. On Wednesday, they paid unannounced visits to at least eight sites including a medical research center and a new missile factory.\nThe teams from the U.N. nuclear agency -- the International Atomic Energy Agency in Vienna -- have intensified their work this week, after receiving reinforcements Sunday that increased the number of nuclear inspectors to 27.\nOn that same day, Iraq's massive arms declaration was flown from Baghdad to New York and Vienna, where analysts are poring through its 12,000 pages in search of still more sites to visit and questions to answer.\nThe declaration was filed under a new U.N. Security Council resolution requiring Iraq to report on nuclear, biological, chemical and missile research and production. The resolution also mandates that Iraq surrender any weapons of mass destruction -- which it denies it has. The U.S. government says it is sure the Baghdad government retains such weapons, and threatens war if Iraq fails, in Washington's view, to comply with U.N. disarmament demands.\nThe resolution also mandated the resumption of the inspections after a four-year gap. Before such monitoring ended in 1998 amid U.N.-Iraqi disputes, inspectors destroyed tons of Iraqi chemical and biological weapons and dismantled Iraq's program to try to build nuclear weapons.\nIn the late 1980s, as part of that weapons effort, scientists and engineers at an Iraqi nuclear center at Tarmiya, 25 miles north of Baghdad, sought to master a difficult technology -- electronic magnetic isotope separation -- to enrich uranium to fissionable levels usable in atomic bombs.\nThat effort stalled, and Iraq turned to another technology at another site, again unsuccessfully. Within two years of Iraq's defeat in the 1991 Gulf War, U.N. inspectors tracked down and destroyed buildings and equipment at the Tarmiya site, as well as at other nuclear facilities. Tarmiya remained under U.N. monitoring until 1998.\nReturning after four years to the site -- now known as the Ibn Sina Company -- the monitors "inspected the new activities at the site and verified that no nuclear activities remain or have been initiated," the U.N. statement said.\nThe inspection agencies -- the IAEA and the U.N. Monitoring, Verification and Inspection Commission, for chemical and biological weapons and missiles -- generally have not reported on the results of their field missions. There was no explanation why it was done in this case.\nIn fact, a U.N. official, speaking on condition of anonymity, noted that plant managers and other Iraqis have frequently told reporters after inspections that the monitors found nothing indicating work on weapons of mass destruction. "But," he said, "that doesn't mean the inspectors have found nothing." He said "bits and pieces" of any evidence found would be collated over time.\nInspectors on Wednesday also continued their thorough review, started earlier in the week, of operations at al-Tuwaitha, Iraq's major nuclear research center.\nIn the 1980s, scientists at the site 15 miles southeast of Baghdad were key to Iraq's efforts to build nuclear weapons. Many of the complex's more than 100 buildings were destroyed in U.S. bombing during the 1991 Gulf War.\nThe U.N. office also reported that a team completed its inspection Wednesday of the remote al-Qaim uranium mining site and a nearby processing facility.\nIn the coming months, U.N. officials hope to inspect hundreds of Iraqi industrial and research installations, many of them "dual-use" sites whose products or equipment could be devoted to either civilian or military use.