UN nuclear agency receives Iraq's dossier

Iraq said yesterday it did not have any weapons of mass destruction as a massive dossier on its nuclear programme arrived in Vienna to be scrutinised by experts.

The content of the declaration, which could spell the difference between war and peace, may not be known for some time as UN experts screen the papers for sensitive data.

The section on Iraq's nuclear programme arrived in Vienna, home of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), at around 1730 GMT.

The entire 12,000-page document, which also deals with Iraq's chemical, biological and missile activities, was being flown to the United Nations in New York.

Iraq handed over the declaration to UN arms inspectors on Saturday, a day before a deadline set by a UN resolution requiring Baghdad to give a full account of any past and current nuclear, chemical or biological weapons programmes.

Washington has threatened to use military force to disarm Iraq if it does not come clean.

UN powers differed in their assessment of the handover. Russia's Foreign Ministry said the fact Baghdad met the deadline showed Iraq was complying with the UN resolution to disarm, while Britain warned that Iraqi President Saddam Hussein's previous disclosures were "a pack of lies".

UN arms inspectors began searching Iraq last month for weapons of mass destruction after a four-year hiatus.

US officials say Washington has substantial evidence, including some not made public, that Iraq has retained and accelerated banned weapons programmes.

But Iraq said yesterday the document proved it did not have such weapons and challenged the United States to provide the UN inspectors with evidence to the contrary.

"We hope that it will satisfy (Washington) as it is current, accurate as they have asked for and comprehensive, truthful, everything," Saddam's adviser Amir al-Saadi said.

"If they have anything to the contrary, let them come up with it, give it to the IAEA, give it to UNMOVIC (UN weapons experts), they are here, they could check it. Why play this game?" he told journalists in Baghdad.

But British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw told BBC Television Saddam's past disclosures about weapons had not been truthful.

"None of them have been accurate or full disclosures. Normally, they have been a pack of lies.

"It remains to be seen whether this... disclosure is consistent with his past behaviour or that he at long last has got the message that the international community's patience is about to run out," he said.

Straw said the previous UN weapons inspection team, which left Iraq in 1998, said it had found chemical and biological material which could be used to make weapons.

The first thing Saddam must do is account for those "thousands of tonnes of material", he said.

But former US President Jimmy Carter, in Oslo to collect the Nobel Peace Prize, said Iraqi compliance with UN weapons inspectors was a step towards averting any US-led war.

"If Iraq does continue to comply completely then I see no reason for the war and I think it's a good step forward," he told reporters yesterday. "But nobody knows what to expect."

At the same time as Iraq handed over its arms dossier on Saturday, Saddam apologised for his country's 1990-1991 occupation of his oil-rich neighbour Kuwait. However, he blamed Kuwait's leadership for precipitating the invasion.

Kuwait rejected the apology and accused Saddam of using it as a pretext to incite attacks against US troops currently training in the Gulf Arab state.

Arms inspectors continued their searches of suspect sites in Iraq yesterday. One team visited a geological survey facility in central Baghdad while another inspected a pesticides factory to the northwest.

The United States and Britain said earlier this year that the Fallujah-3 pesticide plant, destroyed in a 1998 military campaign, had been rebuilt and was producing chemical weapons.

But plant chief Haidar Taha told reporters: "This is all for civilian use, nothing else is produced here."

Another 25 UN arms inspectors, mostly from the IAEA, arrived in Baghdad yesterday to reinforce the current team.

A spokesman for the inspectors said a further 20 to 30 experts, mostly from the UN Monitoring, Verification and Inspection Commission (UNMOVIC), would arrive tomorrow.

The Iraqi dossier consists of 11,807 pages, 352 pages of supplements and computer disks with 529 megabytes of data.

Hussam Mohammed Amin, head of Iraq's National Monitoring Directorate, said the dossier detailed "some activities that are dual-use", referring to technology that has both peaceful and military applications.

UN Security Council members have decided to postpone the public release of the documents for as long as a week to allow experts to screen it for any military secrets that might help outsiders develop their own doomsday weapons.

The IAEA will analyse the nuclear part, while UNMOVIC in New York will study the part dealing with biological and chemical activities.

Diplomats said it could take a week before the UN's 15 Security Council members get a copy.

IAEA chief Mohamed ElBaradei said in Tokyo yesterday it would take time to analyse the dossier and pleaded for his agency to be allowed time to "do a proper job".

An IAEA spokesman dismissed a German newspaper report suggesting the declaration contained details of plans to build nuclear bombs and other weapons of mass destruction.

It was too early for anyone to speak authoritatively about the dossier, Mark Gwozdecky said.

US officials said on Friday Washington was expected to declare Iraq in "material breach" of last month's UN resolution if it stated it had no banned weapons, setting the stage for a possible US military attack on Iraq.

But they said Washington would not cite the breach as immediate grounds for war, letting UN inspections continue while Bush courted partners to help strike Iraq if needed.