A UN plane left Baghdad on Sunday with a mammoth dossier which Iraq says proves it has no doomsday weapons, despite deep US scepticism backed by a threat of war. The UN had set Sunday as a deadline for Iraq to hand over the declaration in New York and Vienna, the headquarters of the UN and the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA). The plane took the 12,000-page document first to the Mediterranean island of Cyprus, a base for UN arms inspectors who resumed searching in Iraq last month for any nuclear, biological or chemical weapons. The documents were to be flown later on Sunday to New York and Vienna. US President George W. Bush, who has made clear Iraq faces war if Washington judges Baghdad has deceived the world, promised that the Iraqi declaration would be studied carefully. ‘‘We will judge the declaration’s honesty and completeness only after we have thoroughly examined it, and that will take some time,’’ he said. ‘‘The declaration must be credible and accurate and complete.’’ But a senior US official said Washington had evidence Iraq had retained and even accelerated banned weapons programmes. ‘‘I think we have substantial evidence,’’ he said. ‘‘Since 1998 there has been a number of pieces of information, intelligence evidence, that suggest that a number of these programmes not only continue but have accelerated.There are things of course that we’re not going to make public,’’ the official said. The official suggested that the US may provide additional intelligence and other support to UN inspectors in Iraq, who have said it was needed to do their job. At the same time as Iraq’s arms dossier was handed over to UN inspectors in Baghdad on Saturday. After the plane left Baghdad, inspectors resumed their searches of sites in Iraq. The inspectors received more equipment on Saturday, including helicopters that would be used to fly inspectors to distant sites in future missions. More than two dozen experts were expected to fly to Baghdad on Sunday to join the current inspection team. Iraq says the arms dossier shows it has no weapons of mass destruction. The dossier’s 11,807 pages, 352 pages of supplements and computer disks with 529 megabytes of data were displayed at the Baghdad headquarters of Iraq’s National Monitoring Directorate on Saturday. Hussam Mohammed Amin, head of the directorate, said the dossier details ‘‘some activities that are dual-use,’’ referring to technology that has both peaceful and military applications. ‘‘If the US has minimum levels of fairness and bravery it should accept the report,’’ Amin said. US officials said on Friday Washington was expected to declare Iraq in ‘‘material breach’’ of last month’s UN resolution 1441 if it stated it had no banned weapons, setting the stage for a possible US military attack on Iraq. — Reuters Kuwaitis ridicule Saddam’s speech as a pack of lies Kuwait: Kuwaiti lawmakers and observers ridiculed Saddam Hussein’s speech to the Kuwaiti people today, saying it was provocative and threatened the emirate’s leaders. ‘‘He (Saddam)’s lying about everything,’’ liberal lawmaker Mohammed Al-Saqer said. ‘‘He’s apologising to us 12 years later, why did he have to be put in a corner to apologise? It’s not convincing to us,’’ said Saqer, who heads Parliament’s foreign affairs committee. ‘‘The timing of his speech proves he’s scared,’’ but he added: ‘‘This is a direct threat to Kuwaiti officials. It’s unacceptable.’’ Islamist MP Waleed al-Tabtabai said he rejected attempts by Saddam to divide Kuwaitis as a government and a people. The speech ‘‘overflowed with lies,’’ Tabtabai said. ‘‘Kuwaitis will unite to face these threats embedded in the speech. The subject of the existence of US forces in Kuwait is not a matter of dispute between anybody in Kuwait. ‘‘Saddam’s attempt to drive a wedge between the people and government won’t succeed because the Kuwaiti regime is legitimate,’’ Tabtabai said.
