IAEA claims that Jameel provided the inspectors with details of a military program

BAGHDAD, December 28 (IslamOnline & News Agencies) - An Iraqi scientist interviewed by U.N. arms inspectors on Friday, December 27, refuted claims he told them that his work was in any way linked to the development of a nuclear weapons program that has been banned by the United Nations and accused them of being capable of "fabricating inventions".

"I have no links with nuclear program," scientist Kadhum Jameel told Iraqi television network al-Shebab by telephone in comments broadcast live, Agence France-Presse (AFP) reported on Saturday, December 28.

After an interview with Jameel, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) spokesman Hiro Ueki claimed the Iraqi scientist had provided the inspectors with details of a military program that could be linked to a clandestine nuclear program.

In his daily statement on the inspections underway in Iraq, Ueki alleged Jameel, whom he described as "a metallurgist from a high-visibility state company", had "provided technical details of a military program".

"This program has attracted considerable attention as a possible prelude to a clandestine nuclear program. The answers will be of great use in completing the IAEA assessment," he claimed.

Ueki said more details would be provided at a news briefing on Saturday afternoon.

But Jameel told al-Shebab his work as a metallurgist could in no way be used in a nuclear research program and said he was "surprised" by Ueki's remarks.

"I appeal to all my scientific and specialist colleagues -- these (IAEA) people can fabricate inventions," he said.

He told the television network he had worked in several Iraqi military facilities, the latest being the al-Raya factory near Baghdad.

He said the IAEA had asked him about work he did on a stock of aluminum tubes at the al-Rashid company's Zu al-Fikar factory north of Baghdad.

The IAEA inspectors said in a statement they had visited the factory to see the stock of highly resistant tubes, which have both military and civilian uses.

Jameel said he had been involved in chemically and mechanically cleaning the tubes, which had corroded because of their poor storage conditions.

But he insisted they could have no nuclear use, contrary to assertions made in a recent British government report on Iraq's alleged weapons arsenal.

He said the tubes were used solely to build rocket launchers -- conventional weapons that Iraq is not banned from producing.

He said he told the IAEA experts: "As a specialist, I tell you it's impossible to use this stock for the use you refer to in these conditions."

"It's logical. If the tubes were to be used for something important and strategic, they couldn't be stored in such conditions," he continued.

"I swore to (them) these are just tubes for 81-millimetre caliber rocket launchers and can't be used for anything else."

Ueki told AFP that it was only the "second formal interview" that U.N. arms inspectors had conducted since resuming field operations in Baghdad, November 27 and was carried out "in private".

On Tuesday, December 24, inspectors had visited Baghdad's Technology University and interviewed Sabah Abdul Nur, a professor who had previously been linked to Iraq's nuclear program.

Asked why the inspectors would want to interview him, Abdel Nour said he had been "linked with the previous nuclear program."

On whether his interviewers had proposed that he travel abroad to be interviewed, he noted: "They did not ask me to leave Iraq, and I would have nothing more to say outside Iraq than I said here.

"We have nothing to hide in Iraq."

In a press conference held on Thursday, December 26, General Hossam Mohammad Amin, head of the Iraq National Monitoring Authority underlined that U.N. weapons inspectors failed, after 30 days of scrutinized inspections, to find proof substantiate U.S. and British allegations that Iraq possesses prohibited weapons.