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BAGHDAD, March 2: Iraq used bulldozers to crush six more Al Samoud missiles under the supervision of UN inspectors on Sunday, stepping up efforts to avert a possible US-led attack.
Officials confirmed 10 of the rockets have been destroyed so far. But a key adviser to President Saddam Hussein said Iraq would stop destroying them if Washington pressed ahead with plans to invade outside the authority of the United Nations.
“If it turns out that in early stages during this month America is not going the legal way...why should we continue (destroying the missiles)?,” top scientific adviser Gen Amer Al Saadi told a news conference.
In a new move to head off Washington’s threat of military action to force it to disarm, Baghdad also opened talks on Sunday with the weapons inspectors on VX nerve gas and anthrax stocks it says it has destroyed.
Iraq began dismantling the missile programme by destroying four rockets on Saturday, meeting a key deadline for disarmament set by chief UN weapons inspector Hans Blix.
Saadi confirmed at the press conference: “During the past two days there was destruction of Al Samoud 2 missiles, four yesterday and six today.” He said Iraq had around 120 of the missiles and added: “There was a destruction of a casting chamber (on Sunday)...”
The Iraqi authorities decided not to release footage of the destruction process because it was “too harsh” and “unacceptable” for its people to see, Al Saadi said.
ROCKETS CRUSHED BY BULLDOZERS: Missile experts of the UN Monitoring, Verification and Inspection Commission (UNMOVIC) went to Taji base, 40km north of Baghdad, to oversee the missiles’ destruction on Sunday, inspectors’ spokesman Hiro Ueki said.
Iraq destroyed four of the white missiles with thin fins on Saturday at Taji by crushing them with large bulldozers. The Arabic word Samoud, which means steadfastness, is printed on every missile. A casting chamber was wrecked at another site.
Mr Saadi said the weapons inspectors had launched 853 inspections since they resumed their work last November. He also said the inspectors resumed private interviews with Iraqi scientists, describing Baghdad’s cooperation as “full”.
“In total, practically all the areas of concern to the UNMOVIC in the subjects of remaining armaments questions have been addressed and this is an ongoing process...,” he said.
Chief UN weapons inspector Hans Blix, who is due to make a crucial report on Friday to the UN Security Council on Iraqi compliance, said destruction of the missiles would be a “a significant piece of real disarmament”.
Saadi said he did not expect Blix to visit Baghdad before his Security Council presentation on March 7. But he said the chief inspector might visit later this month.
UN experts say Iraq’s surface-to-surface missiles must be destroyed because their range exceeds the 150-km limit allowed under the previous UN resolutions.—Reuters
