UN demands Iraq scientists' names

Inspectors have intensified their work

Chief United Nations weapons inspector Hans Blix has asked the Iraqi authorities for a list of Iraqi scientists who have worked in programmes of weapons of mass destruction.

The tough new UN resolution which allowed inspectors to return to Iraq last month gives Mr Blix full powers to interview the scientists and even fly them and their families to safety abroad, if necessary.

He has so far ruled out doing so, despite American demands.

On Thursday, Iraq said it had been preparing such a list and would deliver it when required to do so.

Meanwhile, inspectors are intensifying their searches of suspect weapons sites

• On Saturday, inspectors returned to an infectious diseases centre to examine rooms they were locked out of a day before.
• A second team re-examined the main Iraqi nuclear centre where nearly two tons of low-grade enriched uranium are in storage, the Associated Press news agency reported.
• Iraqi officials said the inspection teams also went to a Scud missile facility that also had been used to make bomb casings for chemical weapons

The head of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) said experts would need about two months to reach a conclusion on Iraq's declaration about past and present weapons programmes - a 12,000-page dossier submitted on 7 December.

"By January, we should have a status report which should move us forward," Mohamed el-Baradei said, quoted by Reuters news agency.

"We still need a few months before we come to a conclusion on the Iraqi declaration," he said.

Sensitive

The debriefing of Iraqi scientists is one of the most sensitive issues at the heart of the current crisis, the BBC's Rageh Omaar in Baghdad says.

Our correspondent says the issue was the bitterest pill the Iraqi authorities had to swallow and - much to the surprise of the United States and Britain - they did so.

Iraq's General Amin: "List can be delivered any time"

The alternative would have constituted a material breach of Resolution 1441 - diplomatic code for war against Baghdad.

But our correspondent also says the issue is sensitive for weapons inspectors as well.

The US has been urging Mr Blix to promise safety or asylum to the scientists - a "necessity" given Saddam Hussein's record of intimidation.

But Mr Blix has said the UN is not going to "abduct people".

"We are not serving as a defection agency," Mr Blix said last week.