Iraqi officials invite inspection as people brace for war

BAGHDAD -- Iraq denied again yesterday that it has any weapons of mass destruction, and invited U.S. officials to inspect any sites that Washington thinks is producing them.

"The American administration is invited to inspect these sites," said Minister of Military Industrialization Abdel Tawab Mullah Haweish at a news conference called just hours before the House voted to authorize President Bush to use military force if necessary to rid Iraq of weapons of mass destruction.

"I confirm that we have no weapons of mass destruction and we have no intention of producing them," Haweish said.

But, he said, if the United States launches an attack on Iraq to oust the government of Saddam Hussein, "We will teach them an unforgettable lesson."

The news media were invited to a site 19 miles north of Baghdad to inspect factories of the Nassr State Co. for Mechanical Industries, which, according to the Bush administration, is involved in producing materials for Iraq's nuclear weapons program.

"Nothing has been produced in this company to support the nuclear program -- never," said Gen. Hussom Amin, who showed reporters around the site. "That is all American propaganda."

One factory shown to the media was manufacturing steel plates, according to Amin. Another was a steel foundry that made equipment used in the concrete industry, he said.

The foundry manager, Hamad Adal, came close to tears in a conversation with a reporter about the threat of war.

"This factory was bombed in 1991 and again in 1998," he said. "I hope you tell them that there is nothing here to bomb; we hope it will make a difference."

Later, when a reporter asked if it might be pointless to show a bunch of reporters around the various sites, since they have no technical knowledge about weapons of mass destruction, Amin, who was involved with U.N. negotiations in Geneva with the weapons inspectors, said it was a "symbolic" visit.

"The position of the Iraqi government to open its doors to cameras and journalists should be appreciated," Amin said. "It is a symbolic message that Iraq is not involved in any development of weapons of mass destruction."

He said the United States is against the arrival of the U.N. inspectors "because the inspectors will find out that everything that the United States, Britain and the Zionists have been saying about Iraq having weapons of mass destruction is lies."

Meanwhile, on the east side of Baghdad, in another symbolic gesture, activists played a video of U.S. elementary school students for Iraqi elementary school students.

The video showed a Sept. 23 sendoff at Seattle's Keystone United Church of Christ, where about 100 children sang, "We are the Children of Peace," in English and Arabic for Bert Sacks, the Rev. Sharon Moe, Ginny NiCarthy and dozens of other activists who oppose the sanctions against Iraq.

Sacks, 60, a retired engineer, is making his ninth visit to Iraq. NiCarthy, 75, has been an activist in the non-violence movement since the 1960s. Moe, 54, traveled to Iraq in May with a delegation for Washington Physicians for Social Responsibility and returned to Iraq as part of a Voices in the Wilderness group on Sept. 29. Both groups are leaders in the fight to have sanctions against Iraq lifted.

Yesterday, they were on hand as dozens of the 540 students of the Omer Al-Mukhtar Primary School crowded into a small classroom to watch and listen to the American students' song with close attention, but some puzzlement.

While the students heard a message of peace, outside in the schoolyard, Head Mistress Samyra Al-Hili, 41, talked of the threats of war.

"We are used to such things," she said. "We don't care what Bush says anymore -- we are not afraid."

Al-Hili, who has been a member of the ruling Baath Party for 27 years, said no one in Iraq wants a war, but if it comes, the people are prepared.

Editor's Note

P-I foreign desk editor Larry Johnson and photographer Paul Kitagaki Jr. have been dispatched to Iraq to report on the mood and conditions as the country faces the threat of attack from the United States.