Baghdad ready to answer US queries

He said chief weapons inspector Hans Blix had sent Iraq a ‘‘formal request to provide a list of scientists and we are going to provide that list before the end of this year’’. Saadi addressed specific questions raised by US and UK, which found that Baghdad’s declaration fell short of meeting the UN resolution to disarm Iraq.

Saadi said US questions over whether Iraq had disclosed its efforts to obtain uranium from South Africa or Niger had already been discussed in talks with Blix and nuclear weapons chief Mohamed El Baradei.

Saadi said he had told them last month that Iraq had tried to obtain uranium oxide, not uranium, from Niger in the 1980s but had never tried to obtain such material from South Africa.

‘‘There were no new procurements or attempts to procure,’’ he said. ‘‘That was a question formally asked across the table and answered.’’ On Washington’s question of whether Iraq had tried to produce the nerve agent VX, Saadi said US concerns were based on information from a UN inspection team in the early 1990’s, which Iraq said manipulated evidence.

Saadi said Iraq made an unsuccessful attempt in April 1990 to produce VX but the material degraded rapidly and attempts to produce it were abandoned. ‘‘No production was achieved, no VX was produced,’’ he said. (Reuters)