‘If US attacks, we halt disarming’

Iraq began scrapping a second batch of banned missiles on Sunday to try to halt the US march to war — only to have the US dismiss its efforts as a ‘‘game of deception’’.

Meanwhile, Arab leaders meeting in Cairo passed a resolution on Saturday saying they opposed an attack on Iraq as a threat to Arab national security — but not without an unprecedented demand from a fellow Arab nation, UAE, that Iraqi President Saddam Hussein should go into exile to spare the region of war. Bulldozers destroyed another 10 Al-Samoud-2 missiles under the eyes of UN inspectors on Sunday.

Dimitri Perricos, head of the inspection team, said they had wanted to blow up the missiles — ‘‘it is faster’’ — but had left the choice to the Iraqis. The destruction of the stock of around 100 Al-Samouds was expected to take two weeks.

On Sunday, inspectors were to hold talks with Iraqi officials on ways to provide long-sought proof of Baghdad’s assertion that it had long ago destroyed banned stocks of VX nerve gas and anthrax.

Inspectors also said they had interviewed a biological weapons scientist and a missile expert on Friday in private.

But Washington, whose threats of war and military build-up in the Gulf have yielded more disarmament in Iraq than a decade of international economic sanctions, insists Iraq still has huge stores of weapons of mass destruction. ‘‘Resolution 1441 called for a complete, total and immediate disarmament. It did not call for pieces of disarmament,’’ a White House spokesman said. ‘‘The President has always predicted that Iraq would destroy its Al-Samoud missiles as part of their game of deception.’’(Reuters)