IRAQ: Iraq is to send a report on its disposal of the VX nerve agent to chief UN weapons inspector Dr Hans Blix today and another report on anthrax a few days later, a diplomatic source said.
"The Iraqis are sending the report on the VX to the United Nations chief weapons inspector tomorrow," the source said in Baghdad yesterday. "The anthrax report will be submitted in a few days by the Iraqis."
Mr Blix had asked Iraq to submit full reports on VX and anthrax to back up its claims that it had destroyed them after the 1991 Gulf War.
The US and Britain say Baghdad has failed to account for all its VX and anthrax production. Baghdad denies possessing weapons of mass destruction, and says it is co-operating fully with the UN.
The UN says it has been unable to account for the quantities of VX and anthrax which Baghdad says it destroyed. The diplomatic source said that in the past the Iraqis claimed they had lost documentation on the destruction, and asked inspectors to estimate the amounts based on the size of the contaminated areas.
The inspectors asked Iraq to provide documents to back up its claims, and for interviews with scientists and workers present at the destruction sites.
The diplomatic source said one of those scientists was interviewed by the UN Monitoring, Verification and Inspection Commission (UNMOVIC) inspectors on Wednesday. "The inspectors want to interview all those present there," the diplomat said.
"The interviews are very important. They have a technique to tell immediately if the person is telling the truth," he said, adding that the inspectors knew exactly how long it would take to destroy certain quantities of banned weapons.
With the UN Security Council still bitterly divided over US and British war plans, UN arms experts supervised the scrapping of three more banned al-Samoud missiles by Iraq yesterday in a programme Washington has denounced as a charade.
Iraqi officials said UN inspectors travelled to eight suspect arms sites, including Taji military base, 40 km north of Baghdad, where 61 al-Samoud missiles have been destroyed since March 1st. Mr Ueki said Iraqi technicians destroyed three more missiles, seven warheads and 22 fin-shaped tails under the gaze of inspectors. More components were destroyed at the al-Aziziyeh site, he said.
As the inspectors pursued their nearly four-month hunt for weapons of mass destruction, Iraq's Foreign Minister, Mr Naji Sabri, rejected as "an aggressive plan for war" British proposals to set Iraq a string of disarmament tasks. He said the proposals sought to "personalise" the rift between Iraq and the US and Britain by demanding disarmament moves from Saddam directly. - (Reuters)
• A UN weapons inspector in Iraq died yesterday after a truck hit his car as he was returning from an inspection mission.
The unnamed inspector was returning from Numaniyah, south of Baghdad, when the accident happened. The man's nationality was not immediately known. He was taken by helicopter to hospital in the Iraqi capital but died one hour after arrival there.