Saddam decreed a ban on WMD, a key demand of U.N. disarmament resolution

BAGHDAD, February 14 (IslamOnline & News Agencies) – The National Council, parliament, ratified Friday, February 14, a decree issued by President Saddam Hussein banning weapons of mass destruction.

Speaker Saadun Hammadi, who lambasted the United States and "its lies about Iraq," opened the emergency parliamentary session shortly after Saddam's decree was announced, reported Agence-France Presse (AFP).

The decree was a key demand of U.N. disarmament resolution 1441.

It is also one of three pending issues between Baghdad and the U.N. weapons inspectors along with opening Iraqi airspace for U-2 surveillance planes and allowing private interviews to be made with Iraqi scientists, which both were approved by Iraq.

"It has been decided to forbid all individuals and companies in the private and public sectors to import, produce and manufacture nuclear, chemical and biological weapons," Saddam said in the decree.

"All relevant ministers, each according to his competence, have received the order to apply this decree and take the necessary steps to impose sanctions on those who contravene it," added the decree.

No More Pretexts

Saddam earlier insisted in a meeting with Iraq's number two, Ezzat Ibrahim, and Vice President Taha Yassin Ramadan, that Iraq "is free of weapons of mass destruction, nuclear, chemical and biological.

"The aggressors do not have any hope at all in using this cover as a pretext and a justification for aggression in the U.N. Security Council," he said.

"If, after all this, the aggressors stage an attack, the Iraqi people and armed forces will fight them in a spirit of jihad that will please friends and annoy enemies," Saddam warned.

Saddam's declaration and decree come only hours head of the anxiously awaited report by chief U.N. weapons inspectors Hans Blix and Mohamed ElBaradei to the U.N. Security Council.

Friday's report, the fourth to help shape council opinion since inspections resumed in Iraq in late November after a four-year hiatus, comes amid great divisions within the world body members that is expected to make it harder for Washington and London to win a resolution backing war on Iraq.

The United Nations has been asking Iraq to pass legislation banning the production and development of weapons of mass destruction since the disarmament process was launched after the 1991 Gulf War.

The head of Iraq's National Monitoring Directorate, which liaises with U.N. inspectors, said Thursday, February 13, that the law was supposed to be enacted only after Iraq is relieved of U.N. sanctions in force since 1990 and long-term monitoring of its armament programs comes into force.

But Baghdad, which insists it does not have and is not developing mass destruction weapons, was set to speed up enactment at the request of Blix's U.N. Monitoring, Verification and Inspection Commission and ElBaradei's International Atomic Energy Agency, General Hossam Mohammed Amin said.

Amin said he expected weapons inspections to continue after Blix and ElBaradei's report.

Iraq Expects "Positive" Report

Baghdad expected the crucial report to be "positive", Amin said, noting the promise to enact the legislation on banned arms activity as one example of Iraq's "proactive cooperation" with the inspectors.

Iraq's ruling Baath party called on Blix and ElBaradei not to be swayed by U.S. pressure and present the Security Council with an "objective" report.

They "must today submit to the Security Council a professional and objective report and weigh each phrase in their document (to avoid) dangerous consequences, especially with the United States on the look-out," the party's Ath-Thawra newspaper said.

"We do not want to see a report in favor of Iraq but we ask that the document is truthful, without additions or omissions," the daily said.

It called on the inspectors "not to amplify the negative aspects or ignore the positive aspects in Iraq's attitude."