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Iraq Scientist Says Saddam Hiding Arms Underground

(Reuters/Washington Post) - Ruben Alabastro Hussain Al Shahristani, former chief scientific advisor to the Iraqi Atomic Energy Commission, said on Tuesday in Manila that Saddam Hussein had dismantled his nuclear program but was making chemical and biological weapons that were hidden deep underground beyond the eyes of UN inspectors. "The program to produce chemical and biological weapons continued even during the years when the inspectors were in Iraq in the 1990s," he said. "There's no way that they can really find them, unless by pure accident," he said. "These materials are hidden deep underground or in a tunnel system." Shahristani said his information came from former colleagues and dissidents who had recently fled the country. Shahristani said he believed Saddam planned to make his last stand in Baghdad and use the capital's four million residents as human shields. "There has even been discussion within his circle to set up what they call a chemical belt around Baghdad using his chemical weapons to entrap the residents of Baghdad inside," he said. "Based on contacts that we are having with the people inside Iraq, who are talking with the military all the time, the general understanding of the population now is that the army is not going to fight," he said. Reports that Saddam had look-alikes to confuse potential assassins were "absolutely true," Shahristani said. "I have seen them," he said. "There are usually between four and eight convoys that leave the palace through different doors - identical convoys of black Mercedes - each of them having one who looks like Saddam. They leave in different directions."
2003-02-19 00:00:00
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