Iraqi nuclear scientist wants UN inquiry into 'lies' over nuclear weapons

BEIRUT (AFP) Mar 09, 2004
A top Iraqi nuclear scientist on Monday called for the UN to investigate why its weapons inspectors did not dismiss US and British claims last year that Baghdad was developing nuclear weapons as outright "lies."

Jaafar Zia, considered the father of the Iraqi nuclear program, said the inspectors had been "totally convinced" that Iraq did not possess nuclear bombs before the US-led invasion nearly a year ago.

But instead of criticizing London's and Washington's claims as a "web of lies", Zia said the head of the UN's International Atomic Energy Agency, Mohamed ElBaradei "contented himself with saying that the documents were not reliable, without saying that they had been falsified."

Zia's comments at a seminar in Beirut were the first time he has publicly spoken out since the fall of Saddam Hussein's regime in April 2003.

In a study he handed to participants, Zia accused the United States and Britain of making "false allegations" over Iraq's alleged nuclear weapons program, its reported attempts to buy uranium from Niger, as well as aluminum tubes which would have been used for to enrich uranium.

Zia said that Iraq had completed its nuclear disarmament in 1991, after the Gulf War, and that since then there had not been "a single scientific or technological possibility to restart that activity."

He said to him the "truth was as plain as day" as war loomed in March of last year on the allegations concerning weapons of mass destruction. Instead, ElBaradei and Hans Blix, the chief UN weapons inspector, asked for three more months to carry out inspections in Iraq.

He said the reports the UN submitted to the Security Council should have been "clear and courageous", and said the international body should hold an inquiry into why its inspectors did not tell the whole truth.

The United States and Britain invaded Iraq on March 20, accusing it of harboring biological, chemical and nuclear weapons in violation of UN resolutions -- but nearly a year on, those weapons have yet to be found.

Zia was speaking at a four-day seminar in the Lebanese capital on the occupation of Iraq and its consequences for the Arab world, regionally and internationally, attended by some 150 academics specialized in Iraqi affairs.

The meeting continues until March 11.

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