UN says Iraq maintaining cooperation despite Saddam tirade
( 2003-01-08 10:50 ) (7 )

Iraq continued cooperating with UN weapons experts Tuesday even as President Saddam Hussein levelled new accusations of spying and the inspectors stepped up their operations with a first helicopter flight, a UN spokesman said.

"No, none of our chief inspectors have reported any change in the Iraqis' attitude," Ueki told journalists after UN teams completed a fresh round of inspections a day after Saddam accused them of being engaged in "sheer intelligence activity".

Asked whether the inspectors had received any formal protest following the president's attack, the UN spokesman said"Ueki renewed his defence of the UN mission after state television reported a fresh assault on its professionalism by the Iraqi leader.

"All I can say is our inspectors are not spies," the spokesman said.

"They are employees of the United Nations ... They don't work for their governments."

He added that chief weapons inspectors Hans Blix and Mohamed ElBaradei were expected in Iraq for talks with Iraqi authorities in just under two weeks.

"Our working target is the 19th or 20th of January," Ueki said.

Blix, who heads the UN Monitoring, Verification and Inspection Commission and ElBaradei, chief of the International Atomic Energy Agency, were invited by Iraq on December 31. The inspectors must present a crucial report to the UN Security Council on the status of their work by January 27.

Saddam reprised virtually word for word Tuesday the tirade he delivered in a keynote speech the previous day.

"The inspection teams are going around looking at army units and posing questions which have nothing to do with weapons of mass destruction," the Iraqi president charged.

"They are going into factories, questioning workers and asking for lists of scientists who have nothing to do with mass destruction weapons. They are indulging in lowly intelligence work."

He then warned the United States, as it prepares for a possible attack on Iraq, saying Baghdad's forces would be victorious in any conflict.

The rapid fall of Afghanistan's Taliban has given the United States the "desire to attack Iraq ... a solid and stable country," he said, referring to the US-led operation following the September 11, 2001 terror attacks.

"The Taliban regime was really not one. It was not a state but a group of (theology) students," Saddam said, suggesting that Afghanistan fell because it had no oil. "In contrast, we are a petroleum country, and we would not be affected by a shortage of oil because we do not import it.

"When we say we are certain of victory, we do not say it on the basis of our own convictions but on a profound knowledge of our state of readiness," the Iraqi president added.

Without naming them, Saddam also denounced the "participation of the weak" in providing facilities to the United States in the Gulf.

The television later announced that Saddam had met with his sons Qussay, chief of the elite Republican Guard; Uday, who leads a volunteer militia; Defense Minister Sultan Hashem Ahmed and the president of the local atomic energy organization, Fadhel Muslim Janabi.

"I have confidence in your abilities," he was reported as saying, adding that "the enemy is mistaken in believing it can overtake us with time."

"We will prove to him that he cannot not attack us and he cannot break our will, as we stand up to defend our homeland and our principles."

Early in the day, a UN airborne inspection team travelled to a fertilizer plant at Al-Akachat close to the Syrian border, which was used in the past to extract uranium as part of Iraq's covert nuclear programme.

Three white Bell-212 helicopters emblazoned with the UN logo took off from Al-Rashid air base outside the capital with 13 inspectors, accompanied by two Iraqi helicopters.

Meanwhile, Douglas Fraser travelled to the new regional office in Mosul to take up his post as chief, two days after a 16-strong team began operations out of the new northern hub.

The Mosul-based inspectors toured two university faculties Tuesday, visiting the library, related laboratories and storage buildings, Ueki said.

Another seven teams, three of them specialised in missiles, were working elsewhere.