None of the 31 former Iraq officials, including Aziz, had divulged any information to U.S., British investigators

LONDON, June 18 (IslamOnline.net & News Agencies) – The U.S. has spurned repeated calls from its all-time war alley Britain to cut deals with top Iraqi officials, now in the custody of the Anglo-American forces, in swap for information on the whereabouts of ousted president Saddam Hussein and Iraq’s alleged weapons of mass destruction (WMD), reported a leading British newspaper Wednesday, June 18.

British officials told American colleagues that offering to free the detained Iraqis, who feature on the U.S.-drafted list of most wanted 55 members of the ousted regime, is the only way to extract information from them about Saddam and his weapons arsenal, reported The Time.

British officials told the daily that although frequently squeezed by the CIA and Britain’s MI6, none of the 31 former Iraq officials had divulged any information during intensive interrogation.

They may be afraid of incriminating themselves, or scared of possible revenge by Saddam’s loyalists, British investigators argue.

London is, therefore, proposing to offer them protection and a new life overseas if their information were decisive.

Among the most important former officials in the U.S.-British custody are Tariq Aziz, the former Deputy Prime Minister, Zuhayr Talib abd al-Sattar al-Naqib, director of military intelligence, Amir Hamudi Hasan al-Sadi, a presidential advisor on scientific and technical affairs, and Rihab Taha, known in the west as Dr Germ.

But the British appeals fell on deaf ears in Washington, with U.S. President George Bush’s administration adamant not to bargain with the Iraqis.

"We have been trying for ages to persuade the Americans but they have come up with all kinds of legal arguments," an unnamed British government official said.

According to The Times, a few top scientists have been flown out of Iraq, but most of the detainees are still being held at an undisclosed location in Baghdad.

They all stick to one story, namely, that Iraq had no clandestine WMD program, British investigators told the paper.

British Prime Minister Tony Blair is under mounting pressure over the failure to find Iraq’s alleged WMD, the main cause played by him and Bush to justifying waging war on Iraq without a U.N. authorization.

Blair is facing two separate parliamentary inquiries into whether he told parliament and the public the truth in the run up to the war.

Former British foreign secretary Robin Cook told a parliamentary inquiry Tuesday, June 17, that Britain went to war against Iraq on "highly suggestible" information about Iraq’s alleged weapons arsenal.

Cook quit Blair’s government on March 17 as the leader of the House of Commons protesting the Iraq war.

Clare Short, who also quit Blair's cabinet in protest over the war, testified that the prime minister was guilty of "honorable deception" in the run-up to the war.

Both Blair and his director of communications, Alastair Campbell, have refused to appear before the committee, which takes evidence in public and publishes its reports.

Campbell had written a personal letter apologizing to Sir Richard Dearlove, the chief of the Secret Intelligence Service, for discrediting the service with the release to journalists last January of the so-called "dodgy dossier" on Iraq and WMDs.