Three senior Iraqi ministers have insisted that Baghdad will co-operate with UN arms experts to disprove US and British accusations it has weapons of mass destruction.
Scores of arms inspectors visited nine suspect plants yesterday as US and British planes attacked what Washington said were anti-aircraft artillery sites in a "no-fly" zone in southern Iraq.
Iraq said the jets had hit civilian installations and that Iraqi anti-aircraft and missilebatteries had fired back.
In London, opponents of Iraq's President Saddam Hussein agreed a politicalblueprint for the country's future, calling for a federal and tolerant Iraq if Saddam isousted.
But it is not clear what support the US-backed delegates have in their homeland. Saddam has dominated Iraq for 30 years and most of the delegates have been in exilefor decades
.Iraqi deputy prime minister Tareq Aziz branded US President George W. Bush a warmonger and hypocrite.
He said on the US television that Mr Bush was "driving America to a hostile imperialist policy" that was dangerous for both the United States and the world.
Mr Aziz said of the arms search "They will not find any weapons of mass destruction because, simply, we don't have them".