BAGHDAD, Aug 5: The Iraqi parliament on Monday asked US congressional leaders to send a fact-finding team to Baghdad to check if Iraq is developing weapons of mass destruction, just days after the United Nations shunned a similar proposal.

Speaker Saadun Hammadi invited US Congress members to come to Baghdad with “nuclear, chemical and biological (NCB) experts” to check that US government claims “are not true”.

The White House dismissed outright the invitation. “There is no need for discussions,” spokesman Sean McCormack said.

“What there is a need for is for Iraq to live up to its commitment to disarm. It is also important to note that inspections were never intended as an end in itself, but as a means to an end,” McCormack said.

Hammadi’s invitation, which was carried by the official INA news agency, was sent to House of Representatives Speaker Dennis Hastert and Senate Majority leader Tom Daschle via a diplomat from the Polish embassy, which represents US interests in Iraq.

It came just days after Baghdad extended an invitation to chief UN weapons inspector Hans Blix and members of his team to discuss the possible resumption of arms monitoring.

The fact-finding team could “bring with it information provided by your (US) government on the false claims that Iraq has produced chemical and biological weapons and is about to produce nuclear arms.”

He promised to provide the US team with “all facilities it will need” to inspect plants and workshops which, according to Washington, “produce or plan to produce chemical and biological weapons even if they (the alleged sites) are buried underground.”

A congressional visit would allow US lawmakers to “take an objective decision” on any military campaign against Iraq, he said.

Hammadi highlighted the main problem between Baghdad and Washington as the “absence of dialogue as well as the fact that your Congress and the American people do not have the chance of knowing the truth (about Iraq) as it is”.

UN resolutions have explicitly barred Iraq from developing weapons of mass destruction and their delivery systems since the 1991 war, but monitoring efforts have been halted since UN inspectors withdrew from the country in 1998.

IRAQI MEDIA: Iraq’s state-run media urged the UN Security Council to support Baghdad’s initiative to kickstart talks with Blix.