BAGHDAD, March 1: Iraq used bulldozers to crush four of its al-Samoud missiles on Saturday, in line with a deadline set by the United Nations to start destroying the banned rockets, a UN spokesman said.

Iraq agreed to scrap about 100 of its most advanced surface-to-surface missile hoping to avert a US-led invasion to disarm Baghdad of weapons of mass destruction Washington says it possesses.

“I can confirm now that four al-Samoud missiles have been destroyed,” Hiro Ueki, spokesman for the UN inspectors, told Reuters.

UN experts say the range of the al-Samoud 2 missile exceeds the 150-km (93-mile) limit set in U.N. resolutions. Chief weapons inspector Hans Blix gave Iraq until March 1 to begin destroying the rockets.

Ueki said the destruction of the missiles, components and related systems began at Taji military base, some 40 km north of Baghdad.

“UN inspectors supervised the work,” he told reporters.

Dimitri Perricos, who heads the UN inspectors team, said missile casting chambers were also destroyed at another site south of Baghdad.

He said the process took longer than expected because the Iraqis wanted to destroy the missiles by crushing them while the UN inspectors had proposed blowing them up. In the end, they had to bring larger bulldozers to accomplish the mission.

Perricos said they expect a larger number of missiles to be destroyed on Sunday, saying the priority would be for missiles already deployed by the Iraqi military.

He said Iraq has around 100 al-Samoud 2 missiles but would not say how many were deployed. Iraqi experts had put the number of deployed missiles at around 50.

The United States, however, dismissed Baghdad’s vow to dismantle the missiles as “propaganda wrapped in a lie inside a falsehood”. It said the move would still leave Baghdad short of UN demands it give up its alleged banned weapons.

Iraq allowed its most advanced surface-to-surface missile to be scrapped in the hope it could avert a US-led invasion.

Hiro Ueki, spokesman for the UN inspectors, said the destruction of the missiles, components and related systems had begun at Taji military base, 40kms north of Baghdad.

“UN inspectors supervised the work,” he told reporters.

UN experts say the missile range exceeds the 150-km limit set in UN resolutions and chief UN weapons inspector Hans Blix gave Iraq until March 1 to begin destroying the rockets.

Mr Blix hailed Iraq’s pledge to destroy the missiles as “a significant piece of real disarmament”.

In another concession to avoid military action, an Iraqi biologist and a missile expert went ahead with private interviews with the weapons inspectors on Friday night in the first private meetings in three weeks, Ueki said.

WHITE HOUSE: In its reaction to the missile destruction, the White House said Baghdad’s move was merely part of “a game” it was playing with the international community.

“President Bush has always predicted that Iraq would destroy their Al Samoud 2 missiles as part of their games of deception,” White House spokeswoman Mercy Viana said.

She added that UN Resolution 1441 “called for a complete, total and immediate disarmament; it did not call for pieces of disarmament”.

“It is a game that Iraq is playing,” she said.

Anticipating Iraq’s decision on Friday, a White House spokesman had said: “I think the (US) president made it perfectly plain yesterday (Friday) in the Oval Office — and he has said this repeatedly — it’s disarmament and regime change.”

He said President Bush “has always predicted that Iraq would destroy its AlSamoud 2 missiles as part of their games of deception”.

“I think when you summarize Iraq’s statement, that in principle they will destroy their missiles, the Iraqi actions are propaganda wrapped in a lie, inside a falsehood,” Mr Fleischer said.

“The president remains hopeful that war can be averted. The president remains hopeful that Saddam Hussein and his top leaders will go into exile or that he will completely and totally disarm,” he continued.

“Total disarmament is total disarmament is total disarmament,” he said. “It’s not a piece of disarmament.”

“If someone takes one bullet out of the chamber of a gun while they have six other bullets in the gun, they haven’t disarmed.”

Fleischer said that Washington was only insisting upon enforcement of the United Nations’ own resolution.

“The UN set out the standard: full, immediate, complete disarmament,” Fleischer said.—AFP