Iraq challenges United States to 'come up' with evidence

BAGHDAD, Iraq -- A top adviser to President Saddam Hussein challenged Washington on Sunday to "come up" with evidence it claims to have that Baghdad still holds weapons of mass destruction.

At the same time, Lt. Gen. Amer al-Saadi told reporters that a huge, new Iraqi arms declaration, submitted to the United Nations on Saturday, does not offer fresh Iraqi evidence to allay U.N. suspicions that Baghdad may retain weapons in two crucial areas: VX nerve agents and biological weapons.

He did speak of sensitive evidence in another area, however: information about foreign help to Iraq's past weapons programs. If released, it will "embarrass" some countries and their companies, he said.

More than 12,000 pages

The general, former military production chief and now Saddam's science adviser, spoke at a news conference as the voluminous declaration, more than 12,000 pages on Iraqi nuclear, chemical and biological programs, was flown to U.N. headquarters in New York, where it arrived at 8:40 p.m. EST.

The documents were met by chief U.N. weapons inspector Hans Blix, who said his staff "will immediately take a look" at them. He then notified the Security Council that the document arrived and he planned to discuss its handling during a Tuesday luncheon with council members.

The latest U.N. resolution required Iraq to give a full declaration detailing all its chemical, biological and nuclear programs, even those it says are peaceful, and provide evidence it had gotten rid of the weapons programs it possessed in the past, as well as its programs to develop missiles to deliver the weapons. The White House underlined Sunday that the burden was on Iraq to prove that it had complied.

U.N. officials have said that Iraq's previous disclosures made since inspections first began in 1991 have been neither complete nor candid.

A U.N. inspector brought a copy of the part of the report dealing with Iraq's nuclear program to Vienna on Sunday and handed it over to the International Atomic Energy Agency, the U.N. agency overseeing nuclear inspections in Iraq.

IAEA experts were to begin examining the documents Sunday night, searching for gaps and comparing Iraq's account to intelligence from other nations and to data from past and present inspections, said IAEA chief Mohamed ElBaradei. He said he hoped to have a preliminary report in 10 days and a more detailed analysis by the end of January.

The two New York copies were earmarked for the Security Council and the U.N. Monitoring, Verification and Inspection Commission, whose inspectors are here checking for violations of U.N resolutions that since the Gulf War have forbidden weapons of mass destruction to Iraq.

International inspectors in the 1990s destroyed many tons of Iraqi chemical and biological weapons and dismantled its effort to build a nuclear bomb. The Baghdad government denies it retains any such weapons.

Bush administration officials reject such denials, however, and threaten war against Iraq if, in their view, Baghdad does not meet U.N. arms control demands. They say they have "solid evidence" Iraq retains weapons of mass destruction, although U.N. inspectors indicate they have seen no conclusive evidence.

'Why play this game?'

Al-Saadi told reporters the Iraqi declaration was "accurate" and "truthful." Then he added: "If they have anything to the contrary, let them forthwith come up with it, give to the IAEA, give it to UNMOVIC. They are here. They could check. Why play this game?"

White House spokesman Scott McClellen would not comment on al-Saadi's demand, but he said the administration believes the burden is on Iraq to prove that it has provided a full accounting -- not on Security Council members or the inspectors to prove that it has not.

Some U.S. lawmakers said Sunday the White House must decide soon to release intelligence data to the United Nations and the public if the Bush administration is to make its case that Iraq is lying about its weapons of mass destruction.

"We have to put our best evidence forward, especially if it's a question of Saddam Hussein again denying all of these assertions," Senate Democratic leader Tom Daschle of South Dakota told CNN's "Late Edition."

Senate Intelligence Committee chairman Bob Graham, D-Fla., compared the situation to the 1962 Cuban missile crisis, when the Kennedy administration offered information on Soviet missile sites in Cuba.

Al-Saadi said the report documents the weapons programs that Baghdad has acknowledged pursuing up until 1991 -- including its drive to develop a nuclear weapon. The report also details the chemical, biological and nuclear programs since 1991, which Baghdad contends were peaceful.

Al-Saadi was asked whether Iraq, in the declaration, presents any new evidence in its own defense, in the area of VX nerve agent, for example.

In the 1990s, U.N. inspectors found that 1.5 tons of the lethal chemical weapon, produced in the 1980s by Iraq, was not fully accounted for. They found evidence VX had been dumped where the Iraqis said it was, but they could not verify the 1.5-ton amount. Al-Saadi said "some first-class evidence" was given to inspectors in the 1990s, but they weren't satisfied "because they were mainly led by personnel from the United States and Britain."

Al-Saadi insisted that "nothing of the previous program exists," referring to VX.

As for biological weapons, earlier U.N. inspectors said in 1999 that Iraqi documentation left huge gaps in verification. Al-Saadi said Sunday that further evidence doesn't exist. He noted that the inspectors gained access to some documents in 1995, and "those documents have not been increased since then, not by a single document."

Blix has said that on such questions, Iraq's answers "must be convincingly shown by documentation, by evidence."

Al-Saadi's comment was brief on companies implicated in Iraq's drive for doomsday weapons in the 1980s. He said only, "There are things that will embarrass countries and companies," and that the world should not be surprised, since it required Iraq to report such information.

Previously undisclosed information about foreign business involvement in Iraq's weapons programs could lead to prosecutions under export-control laws or deeply embarass governments that have urged restraint in dealing with Iraq.

The U.N. weapons inspectors continued those daily missions Sunday, visiting a government mining and survey company in Baghdad with past association with uranium processing, and a pesticide plant west of Baghdad. Pesticide production can be converted to chemical weapons making.

The team received reinforcements Sunday: 25 new investigators who arrived from a rear U.N. base in Cyprus and who will double the staff, allowing quick expansion of the inspection schedule.

The arms declaration will draw weeks of scrutiny from nuclear engineers, chemists, microbiologists, missile technicians and other specialists as the United Nations searches for clues, among the dry accounts of industrial processes and 1990s weapons destruction, of hidden arms programs or remaining caches of weapons of mass destruction.

They will be particularly interested in "dual-use" industries that can alternate between civilian and military uses.

If 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.