IRAQ: Saddam Hussein has insisted that Iraq holds no weapons of mass destruction and that it is in his country's interest to help UN weapons inspectors "get to the truth".
In an hour-long interview with veteran peace campaigner and former British Labour minister Mr Tony Benn - part of which was shown on Channel 4 News last night - Saddam also denied any connection between his regime and the al-Qaeda network.
At the same time he told Mr Benn: "If we had a relationship with al-Qaeda and we believed in that relationship, we wouldn't be ashamed to admit it."
Saddam also asserted that he had complied with UN resolutions preceding the current Resolution 1441; questioned the basis of UN resolutions in international law; accused Britain and the United States of being "more motivated by war than their responsibility for peace"; and vowed his people would fight bravely in defence of their country.
10 Downing Street said the interview - Saddam's first with a foreign visitor since the Gulf War - had changed nothing. A spokesman for the British Prime Minister, Mr Tony Blair, said: "This was an opportunity for him to answer the vital questions raised by Hans Blix [the UN's chief weapons inspector]. Unfortunately the questions weren't put."
Asked about Channel 4's payment for the interview to a London television station, Mr Blair's spokesman said it was for Channel 4 to decide whether the interview had been conducted in accordance with normal journalistic standards.
At one point, when Mr Benn told him of his grand-children and asked if the president had any message for the peace movement, Saddam replied:
"We admire the development of the peace movement in the past few years around the world."
Asked if Iraq possessed any weapons of mass destruction, Saddam replied: "Most Iraqi officials have been in power for over 31 years and have experience of dealing with the outside world. Every fair-minded person knows that when Iraqi officials say something, they are trustworthy This is an opportunity to reach the British people and the forces of peace in the world.
"There is only one truth and therefore I tell you, as I have said on many occasions before, that Iraq has no weapons of mass destruction whatsoever."
Asserting that "Iraq has no interest in war", Saddam challenged anyone who claimed to have evidence to the contrary to produce it, and suggested it should actually be easy for the inspectors to establish the truth.
"These weapons do not come in small pills that you can hide in your pocket. These are weapons of mass destruction and it is easy to work out if Iraq has them or not."
While it was in Iraq's interest to help the inspectors, the question was "whether the other side wants to reach the truth or whether it wants to find a pretext for aggression." And he said the US administration was "motivated by aggression" reflecting its desire to control oil and extend its hegemony, and "based on sympathy for a Zionist entity that was created at the expense of the Palestinian people and their humanity" .
Challenged on Channel 4 News to say whether he believed Saddam's replies on weapons of mass destruction and al-Qaeda, Mr Benn said of the interview: "It confirmed me in my view that we must work for peace." Mr Blair and President Bush, he charged, were "set on a war process. they want to attack".