BAGHDAD/WASHINGTON: With time running out for Baghdad to avoid a war, the fate of Iraq lies in the hands of a handful of scientists and weapons experts, who will be asked to give up the secrets of Saddam Hussein’s weapons programme.

Nine days remain before the deadline for Iraq to provide a list to the UN of “all personnel currently and formerly associated with Iraq’s chemical, biological, nuclear, and ballistic missile programmes”.

The debriefing of those personnel — scientists, technicians, and military officers — has emerged as a potential trigger for war.

If Iraq balks at identifying its brains trust, or handing over scientists and generals to the UN for questioning, diplomats believe that would provide the final provocation needed to justify a war under the UN resolution: omissions in Iraq’s weapons declaration plus a failure to cooperate.

However, diplomats also say that this next stage of the inspection process could provoke a rift between the US and the UN.

Under the UN resolution passed last month, Hans Blix, the head of the inspection teams, has the power to take the scientists and their families outside Iraq to conduct interviews.

The inspectors began collecting names of scientists this week, and the list which the UN has demanded may run to thousands of names. Among them are perhaps 100 scientists the US believes hold the clues to President Saddam’s secrets.

“What we expect from the list is from the top to the level of scientist and engineer,” said Yasuhiro Ueki, the spokesman in Baghdad for the UN weapons inspection team.

The logistics are staggering. “There is a lot to think about just in terms of procedure,” said David Albright, a nuclear expert who was an inspector in Iraqi in 1996. “Do you interview them in a blitz? How do you manage with only one room that is bug-free and soundproof? How do you make sure that Iraq does not have a way to intimidate them?” One avenue suggested by US officials is to summon the scientists in large batches, and so protect through camouflage the real object of the inspectors’ interests.

Their dream scenario would be to snag a defector, using the information provided to swoop on an illegal weapons facility and so come up with the smoking gun that Washington craves.

Several of the key scientists are known to the weapons inspectors from the 1990s — especially in the nuclear sphere.

They include Rihab Taha, believed to head Iraq’s biological programme, and Jaffar Dhia Jaffar, the head of Iraq’s uranium enrichment programme.

Other key figures are Nissar al-Hindawi, a technical director on Iraq’s biological programme, and Hazem Mohammad Ali, a virologist.

During the earlier rounds of interviews, sometimes conducted in groups of 25 and in the presence of Iraqi minders, inspectors reported that several senior scientists were lying or covering up the depth of Iraq’s programmes.

Dr Rihab frequently burst into tears or shouted at inspectors during interviews in 1991, confounding attempts to extract information.

Even more unsettling for Iraq, the new resolution gives Dr Blix the authority to remove scientists and their families from the country for interviews. The strategy is being promoted vigorously by Washington.

However, Dr Blix is concerned that the UN not be accused of intimidation. On Thursday, he told the security council that scientists would have to consent to being interviewed outside the country.

Any Iraqi scientist who does agree to travel abroad and provide details of any secret weapons programmes knows they face the ultimate penalty for betraying the regime.—Dawn/The Guardian News Service.