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Politics : DON'T START THE WAR -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: PartyTime who wrote (9963)	2/18/2003 5:43:07 PM
From: Vitas	Respond to of 25898

Iraq Scientist Says Saddam Hiding Arms Underground PartyTime's campaign ends any possible hope for a peaceful outcome way to go, PartyTime Tue Feb 18,12:28 PM ET Add World - Reuters to My Yahoo! By Ruben Alabastro MANILA (Reuters) - A former top Iraqi scientist said on Tuesday he believed Saddam Hussein (news - web sites) had dismantled his nuclear program but was making chemical and biological weapons that were hidden deep underground beyond the eyes of U.N. inspectors. Reuters Photo Latest news: • Bush: Protests Won't Sway Stance on Iraq AP - 43 minutes ago • U.N. Inspectors Visit Iraqi Rocket Sites AP - 2 hours, 11 minutes ago • U.S., Britain Will Seek Iraq Resolution AP - Tue Feb 18, 1:28 PM ET Special Coverage Hussain Al Shahristani said the Iraqi president did not have the capacity to deliver a payload of the weapons to distant countries but could pass them to overseas cells of supporters which he had built up over the years. "There's no way that they can really find them, unless by pure accident," Shahristani, a former chief scientific advisor to the Iraqi Atomic Energy Commission, told a briefing organized by an association of foreign journalists in the Philippines. "These materials are hidden deep underground or in a tunnel system." He said he was jailed for 11 years by Saddam's regime for refusing to develop banned weapons but that he escaped from Iraq in 1991. He now lives in London. Shahristani said his information came from former colleagues and dissidents who had recently fled the country. "My understanding is that the nuclear program has been, for all practical purposes, dismantled," he said. "But the program to produce chemical and biological weapons continued even during the years when the inspectors were in Iraq in the 1990s." Hans Blix, chief weapons inspector for the United Nations (news - web sites), said in a report to the world body's Security Council on Friday that his teams had discovered no banned weapons in Iraq. The report was seen as a setback for U.S. and British efforts to get U.N. endorsement to use military force against Iraq over its alleged failure to get rid of weapons of mass destruction. CHEMICAL BELT AROUND BAGHDAD Shahristani said he believed Saddam planned to make his last stand in Baghdad in the event of a U.S.-led attack and use the capital's four million residents as human shields. "There has even been discussion within his circle to set up what they call a chemical belt around Baghdad using his chemical weapons to entrap the residents of Baghdad inside," he said. Shahrastani quoted his informants as saying Saddam was banking on 50,000 to 100,000 soldiers to defend the city, but the scientist doubted they would fight to the last man. "Based on contacts that we are having with the people inside Iraq, who are talking with the military all the time, the general understanding of the population now is that the army is not going to fight," he said. "The army is not going to defend Saddam." Reports that Saddam had look-alikes to confuse potential assassins were "absolutely true," Shahristani said. "I have seen them," he said. "There are usually between four and eight convoys that leave the palace through different doors -- identical convoys of black Mercedes -- each of them having one who looks like Saddam. They leave in different directions." story.news.yahoo.com