Final touches put on Iraq's weapons declaration

UNITED NATIONS -- Iraq today will hand over more than 10,000 pages detailing its chemical, biological and nuclear programs, including sensitive material that will not be shared with the U.S. or other governments, chief U.N. weapons inspector Hans Blix said.

The United States and other Security Council members decided Friday that the material -- which could include recipes for chemical and biological weapons -- should be kept secret even from the council itself lest it fall into the wrong hands.

As a result, inspectors will take at least a week to weed out the sensitive details as well as translate the Arabic sections before giving the declaration to the council, U.N. officials said. The declaration is expected to be delivered to inspectors in Baghdad 11 a.m. today (8 p.m. local time) and then couriered to U.N. headquarters in New York on Sunday, the deadline for its arrival.

The declaration is a crucial requirement that Iraq must meet and Security Council members and weapons experts will be combing it to assess whether Baghdad is telling the truth. Omissions or false statements, coupled with any Iraqi failure to cooperate with weapons inspectors, could trigger war.

Iraqi Ambassador Mohammed Al-Douri said the report would reflect Iraq's long-standing claims that it is free of weapons of mass destruction although it will also contain some "new elements," which he did not disclose.

Bush administration officials say they are sure Iraq has such weapons and on Thursday the White House said "solid evidence" would be turned over to U.N. inspectors.

Blix called on Washington to share that evidence Friday.

"We would like to have as much information from any member state as evidence that (Iraq) may have weapons of mass destruction," he said.

On Friday, the White House said it wanted UNMOVIC to aggressively court Iraqi scientists with promises of safety and asylum in exchange for evidence against Saddam Hussein's weapons programs.

"We take the issue very seriously and attach great importance to it. We hope the international community would also attach the same importance to the issue," White House press secretary Ari Fleischer told reporters.

But Blix, the 74-year-old Swede who heads the U.N. Monitoring, Verification and Inspection Commission, known as UNMOVIC, was unmoved.

"We are not going to abduct anybody, and we're not serving as a defection agency," he said.

Under the latest Security Council resolution, Iraq has until Sunday to submit an "accurate, full, and complete declaration" of its chemical, biological and nuclear programs. Iraqi officials last month complained about the scope of this demand, pointing out it would even cover petrochemical industry production of plastic sandals.

Iraqi officials have called a news conference Saturday morning in Baghdad to discuss the report which Al-Douri said would contain "a huge amount of information." Several diplomats said they were told the declaration weighs some 130 pounds.

The material, which may include computer disks, will cover the 1991-98 history of U.N. weapons and equipment destruction, and "new elements" relating to dual-use sites and activities.

Noting the sheer size of the expected report, Blix said it would take time for his staff to pore over the material and analyze it.

"No member will get it on Monday," he said.

Inspectors are still reviewing reams of backlogged material Iraq provided in October.

Blix had called on the Iraqis to examine their "stocks and stores" before declaring they had no prohibited weapons left. But Al-Douri was adamant Friday that Iraq no longer had any.

"We said again and again that we have no more destruction weapons at all, everything has been destroyed and we have no intention to do that again," the Iraqi envoy said. "If the Americans have this evidence, they have to tell the inspectors in Iraq to go find this evidence.

"But they will find nothing."

Meanwhile, a U.S. official in Washington told The Associated Press the declaration would be distributed first to the United States, Russia, France, Britain and China, the permanent Security Council members, and then to the 10 other members.

Speaking on condition of anonymity, he said the process could take about a week.

The inspectors hope the Iraqis at least will help them answer some open questions by supplying convincing documentation on the fate of 550 artillery shells filled with poisonous mustard gas. Iraqi and U.N. accounts contain many such discrepancies from the 1990s.

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EDITORS: AP Special Correspondent Charles J. Hanley contributed to this report from Baghdad, Iraq.