U.N. inspectors on Thursday gave a mixed interim report on Iraq's arms programs, providing ammunition both to those backing U.S. preparations for a possible conflict and for the anti-war camp. Chief weapons inspector Hans Blix said his teams had so far found no "smoking gun" but added Iraq had failed to answer many questions about its armaments. Baghdad said it would do so. Washington appeared unimpressed with Blix's double-edged comments.

"The problem with guns that are hidden is you can't see their smoke," a White House spokesman told reporters. "We know for a fact that there are weapons there." The markets as making war more likely interpreted Blix's remarks, made to reporters as he prepared to brief members of the U.N. Security Council, and oil prices quickly rose.

He said it was up to Iraq to show it did not have banned weapons, not for his staff to prove it did. "Iraq cannot just maintain that it must be deemed to be without proscribed items as long as there is no evidence to the contrary," he said.

Among suspected items unaccounted for in Iraq's declaration, he said, were stocks of VX gas, imports of missile engines, ingredients for production of missile fuel and chemical bombs.

The U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, John Negroponte, also insisted the burden of proof was on Iraq. "Anything less is not cooperation and will constitute further material breach," he said.

Within hours, a senior Iraqi official said Iraq was ready to answer questions over its declaration but added U.N. inspections had vindicated its claim to have no banned arms. "We are ready to respond to the questions which will be directed to us," Hussam Mohammed Amin told a news conference in Baghdad.

ALUMINUM TUBES

The head of the International Atomic Energy Agency, the U.N.'s nuclear watchdog which is separately responsible for investigating nuclear-related activity in Iraq, was also reporting to the U.N. Security Council on Thursday.

"To date, no evidence of ongoing prohibited nuclear or nuclear-related activities has been detected, although not all of the laboratory results of sample analysis are yet available," Mohamed ElBaradei said.

He said aluminum tubes suspected of being part of an Iraqi nuclear arms program were in fact unsuitable for that use.

The arms inspections in Iraq are based on a November U.N. resolution which threatened the oil-rich state with "serious consequences" if it failed to cooperate with the U.N. teams.

Washington and Britain, its staunchest ally, are anxious to stress that the verdicts of inspectors are not necessarily a make-or-break "trigger" for war.

British Prime Minister Tony Blair told his cabinet that a January 27 formal progress report on inspections in Iraq should not be regarded as a deadline for a decision on military action.

Secretary of State Colin Powell also tried to deflect attention from January 27. "It is not necessarily a D-day for decision-making," Powell told the Washington Post.

Joschka Fischer, foreign minister of Security Council member Germany, took Blix's remarks as support for its anti-war stance. "It all points to the need for a continuation of inspections," he said, adding Berlin would do all it could to avert war.

But in Vilseck, Germany, the U.S. Army began sending long lines of heavy tractors, bulldozers, cranes, trucks and other engineering equipment for shipment to the Gulf from its Grafenwoehr training ground.

U.S. INTELLIGENCE ON IRAQ

France called on the United States, Britain and others to give the U.N. inspectors intelligence on where to find the weapons that Washington insists Iraq is hiding.

Powell said Washington was doing so but had withheld some of its most sensitive information. Iraq's al-Thawra newspaper, the organ of President Saddam Hussein's Baath Party, said the intelligence did not exist, and accused Washington and London of forming an "axis of deception."

Blix told Reuters his teams would begin interviewing Iraqi experts about prohibited weapons within a week. He did not say whether the Iraqis would be taken abroad for interview to protect them from reprisal, as the United States has demanded.
Time magazine's Web site said inspectors would soon invite Iraqi scientists to be interviewed abroad. In Baghdad, Amin said there was no formal arrangement for experts to leave Iraq.

FOG HINDERS AIR INSPECTIONS

U.N. inspectors drove to at least seven sites in central Iraq, on Thursday Iraqi officials said. But witnesses said helicopters carrying inspectors had to turn back to Baghdad because of bad weather in the northwest.

The United States and Britain continued to build up forces in the Gulf. In a surge of U.S. deployments, defense officials said the Air Force had begun sending dozens of B-1B bombers and fighter aircraft to the region.

PHOTO CAPTION

International Atomic Energy Agency head Mohamed ElBaradei and chief U.N. weapons inspector Hans Blix address the media outside the U.N. Security Council after a briefing on Iraq Thursday, Jan. 9, 2003, at the United Nations. Blix told reporters Thursday that inspectors have found no "smoking guns" since they returned to Iraq in November. (AP Photo)
- Jan 09 3:10