June 9, 2003	Monday	Rabi-us-Sani 8, 1424

LOS ANGELES, June 8: Saddam Hussein had a network of small labs that conducted research on chemical and biological weapons, but did not have any such weapons, the Los Angeles Times reported on Sunday, quoting a former Iraqi general.

The goal of the secret labs, set up after 1996, was to rebuild Iraq’s banned weapons programmes once United Nations sanctions were lifted, the source — described as a brigadier general who insisted on anonymity — told the Times.

Each team had up to four scientists unknown to UN inspectors, and worked on computers and conducted “crude experiments in bunkers and back rooms in safe houses around Baghdad,” according to the Times.

The general also said that some Iraqi defectors interviewed were Iraqi double agents.—AFP