S P E C I A L:

The Standoff with Iraq

Iraq denies using humans in biological weapons tests

January 14, 1998
Web posted at: 2:18 p.m. EST (1918 GMT)

BAGHDAD, Iraq (CNN) -- Iraq's Deputy Prime Minister Tariq Aziz on Wednesday denied that his country has used humans as subjects for testing biological weapons.

"This is one of the lies being used as a pretext for intruding into the headquarters and branches of the Iraqi security agencies," Aziz said at a news conference.

Richard Butler, the chief U.N. weapons inspector, told CNN he was surprised that Iraq had been raising this issue in public.

Speaking in an interview with CNN, he confirmed that U.N. inspectors had searched for documents about "the possible use of biological agents on prisoners, on live human testing." But he said that, when they looked for the documents covering the years 1994-1995, nothing was found.

Aziz accuses British and Americans of dominating U.N. weapons inspection teams
	281K/25 sec. AIFF or WAV sound

Aziz again accused the United States and Britain of dominating the U.N. weapons inspection teams in Iraq, saying this was "unacceptable" and had to change.

He said the inspection team headed by American Scott Ritter -- who had again been prevented by Iraqi authorities from carrying out his monitoring mission on Wednesday -- was a prime example of the imbalance tolerated by the U.N. commission in charge of dismantling Iraq's weapons of mass destruction.

"The special commission is dominated by the Americans and the British," Aziz said. "The United States and the British government are against lifting the sanctions for their own strategic interests. And they use the commission to procrastinate the work."

The United Nations has said it will only consider lifting the Gulf War sanctions against Iraq once Baghdad complies with demands to dismantle its mass weapons programs and provides all data the weapons inspectors are seeking.

Reuters contributed to this report.

Iraq Standoff Main  |  Latest Stories  |  Message Board

---

 

---

Sound off on our message boards & chat

© 1998 Cable News Network, Inc.
A Time Warner Company
All Rights Reserved.

Terms under which this service is provided to you.
Read our privacy guidelines.