Iraq repeated denials it is rearming and said that even without sophisticated weapons, it will teach the United States an unforgettable lesson if it is attacked.
Minister of Military Industrialisation Abdel Tawab Mullah Huweish spoke at a news conference on Thursday, after US officials claimed that Iraq is rebuilding at weapons research and development sites.
”I am in charge of the weapons programs and I am saying here and now that we do not have weapons of mass destruction and we do not have programs to develop them,” Huweish said.
After US President George Bush’s speech on Monday in which he accused Iraqi President Saddam Hussein of pursuing a nuclear weapon and plotting to attack the United States with biological and chemical arms, the White House released satellite photos of two alleged weapons sites. An analyst at the US Defence Intelligence Agency identified two more on Tuesday.
Iraqi officials have repeatedly denied they are working on nuclear weapons. US intelligence does not believe Saddam has developed any, but thinks he may by 2010.
All four sites — the Al Furat centrifuge development center, the Nassr-Taji Steel Fabrication and Military Production Facility, the Al Qa’im uranium ore refinery and the Tuwaitha Nuclear Research Centre — were bombed, during either the Gulf War or the four days of US and British airstrikes in 1998 that began after UN inspectors accused Iraq of failure to cooperate and left the country.
While Huweish said Iraq was not pursuing mass weapons, the minister said it had a right to rebuild at the sites. ”We have rebuilt some of what the evil aggressors destroyed because Iraq has not vanished and we have the right to live like any other people.”
On the possibility of a US strike, he said, ”If the Americans commit a new stupidity, we will teach them a lesson that they will not forget.”
Asked what Iraq could do to match the American superiority in weapons, he said: ”They will concentrate on airstrikes to destroy our infrastructure, but when they are on the ground they will not be able to move even one inch.”
”We are peaceful people but when we fight we fight fiercely because we are defending our existence, our heritage and our future,” he said. – Sapa-AP