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Iraq dismisses U.S. and UK criticism
BAGHDAD, Iraq (CNN) -- Iraq's top government scientist has said his country would welcome "someone from American intelligence" to show U.N. weapons inspectors where Washington believes Iraq is hiding its weapons programs. General Amir Al-Saadi, speaking on Sunday, also rejected UK and U.S. claims of "material omissions" in its declaration of its weapons programmes. Al-Saadi told a press conference that the United States and Britain "are the only players in this macabre game" and their claims are nothing but "old rehashed reports" that he said Iraq has disproved. He said: "After 24 days of inspections covering practically all the sites named in those reports and after the submission of our declaration of December 7, the lies and baseless allegations have been uncovered. "The true part of the half-truths appear in detail in our declaration." Al-Saadi even said his country was prepared to welcome an American agent to verify that Iraq has nothing to hide. "We even wouldn't mind if someone from the American intelligence were to accompany the inspection teams to show them the places in which they allege there is something," he said. He cited a statement from the U.S. Department of State accusing the Iraqis of ignoring "efforts to procure uranium from Niger" in its declaration. "It was not uranium," he said. "It was uranium oxide -- not a weapon -- in the mid-1980s. "It is in the declaration. And there has been no new procurement or attempt to procure." Uranium oxide is a source of uranium, however, and weapons-grade uranium can be produced from it through uranium enrichment. Al-Saadi also accused former UNSCOM chief weapons inspector Richard Butler of trying to plant evidence that Iraq was producing VX gas, a lethal chemical weapons agent. "There was an attempt to produce in April 1990 a quantity of VX, but it was not successful," he said. "The material degraded rapidly and the production was abandoned because it was considered a waste. And that was that. There was no VX gas." The United States has accused the Iraqis of failing to account for material that can be used to grow such biological agents as anthrax, botulinum toxin and clostridium perfringens, manufacturing fuel for missiles Iraq says it does not possess and hiding mobile biological weapons facilities. President Bush said on Friday that the Iraqis' declaration "was not encouraging" and that the United States "will fulfill the terms and conditions" of the resolution calling on Saddam Hussein to disarm. Al-Saadi denied the claims and asked the United States and others to "let the inspectors do their work." Al-Saadi was speaking as seven more Iraqi sites came under the microscope of U.N. weapons inspectors.
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