BAGHDAD, Feb 7: Iraq on Friday gave reporters a tour of two missile sites to “expose the lies” of US Secretary of State Colin Powell, who has charged the facilities contain banned weapons.

A convoy of about 40 vehicles took off from the information ministry in central Baghdad and travelled for about 90 minutes across the northern highway to Al Rafah military facility.

“We are showing this site to the media and the world to expose the lies of Colin Powell,” site director Ali Jassem told his visitors.

Mr Powell on Wednesday delivered a lengthy report to the UN security council, detailing what he said was evidence of Iraq’s continued drive to acquire weapons of mass destruction.

His presentation was ridiculed here as a “stunt” based on fabricated data aimed at justifying a US attack on Baghdad.

Mr Jassem on Friday took reporters to a test stand for liquid-fuel engine missiles that he said “is used for Al Samoud missiles, whose range does not exceed the permitted limit of 150 kilometres”.

He then pointed out a second, nearby test stand that was larger and apparently new.

“Colin Powell is saying that we are testing here long-range missiles on it,” he said. “Isn’t it

obvious that the test stand is new, not used, and not even completed?”

“We are building this new facility, which is due to be completed in the middle of this year, in order to provide safer conditions for the engine tests and for the people working on the site.”

Jassem said UN arms experts had visited the site and attended tests on four occasions since the resumption of UN weapons inspections in November.

Journalists were next driven to Al Moutassem military facility that director Karim Jabbar Youssef said was “a site for assembly, static testing, repairing and alignment checking of solid propellant missiles, mainly Al Fatah, which are within the allowed range”.—AFP