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Notebook: Iraq says British report on weapons 'full of lies'Compiled from Times wires© St. Petersburg Times published October 3, 2002 BAGHDAD, Iraq -- Iraq says war and U.N. inspections have ensured it is no longer capable of producing nuclear, chemical or biological weapons, and Baghdad released a detailed report Wednesday rebutting a British dossier on its arms programs. Washington says toppling Saddam Hussein may be the only way to ensure Iraq is not rearming. British Prime Minister Tony Blair, who has been a strong backer of the United States on Iraq, issued a 50-page dossier last week detailing what British intelligence said was Iraq's growing arsenal of chemical and biological weapons and Hussein's plans to use them. Blair also said Iraq was trying to develop nuclear weapons. The dossier, Iraq's Foreign Ministry said in its 29-page, English-language rebuttal, was "full of lies, fabrications and fallacies." "Iraq's capabilities to produce biological, chemical agents were destroyed during the 1991 aggression," the Foreign Ministry said, referring to the Gulf War that forced Iraq to reverse its 1990 invasion of Kuwait. Iraq said that its chemical program never advanced beyond a "crude" level and that U.N. inspectors after the Gulf War destroyed stocks of chemical weapons, munitions and production equipment. U.S. presses Ukraine on sale of radar systemKIEV, Ukraine -- The United States plans to send a team of experts to Ukraine to investigate whether the former Soviet republic sold a radar system to Iraq and will consider punitive measures beyond the halt of $54-million in aid, the U.S. ambassador said Wednesday. The agreement on the arrival of a U.S. team with military and technical expertise came during a two-day visit by Assistant Secretary of State Elizabeth Jones, who pressed President Leonid Kuchma on evidence that he personally approved the sale of a Kolchuha radar system to Iraq.
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From the Times wire desk
From the AP |
