IRAQ: Iraq yesterday dismissed as "ridiculous" a US newspaper report which cited Washington officials as saying that Islamic extremists linked to al-Qaeda had received a chemical weapon in Iraq.
The Washington Post quoted officials - who, the newspaper claimed, spoke without White House permission - as saying the information about the transfer came from a sensitive and credible source whom they declined to discuss.
Gen Hussam Muhammad Amin, head of Iraq's National Monitoring Directorate, told a news conference in Baghdad that all of his country's stockpiles of chemical weapons had been destroyed in the early 1990s.
"This is a really ridiculous assumption from the American administration because they know very well we have no prohibited material or prohibited activities," he said, when asked about the report.
Citing two officials with first-hand knowledge of the report and its source, the Washington Post reported that US analysts suspect the transfer involved the nerve agent VX and that it was smuggled through Turkey last month or late in October.
"The way we gleaned the information makes us feel confident it is accurate," one of the officials told the newspaper. "I throw about 99 per cent of the spot reports away when I look at them. I didn't throw this one away." The newspaper quoted one official as saying the transaction involved Asbat al-Ansar, a Lebanon-based Sunni group.
The Post said Mr Gordon Johndroe, spokesman for the Homeland Security Director, Mr Tom Ridge, was the only official authorised by the White House to discuss the reported chemical transfer on the record.
"We are concerned because of al-Qaeda's interest in obtaining and using weapons of mass destruction, including chemical, and we continue to seek evidence and intelligence information with regards to their planning activity," Mr Johndroe told the newspaper.
"Have they obtained chemical weapons?" Mr Johndroe asked. "I do not have any hard, concrete evidence that they have." Pressed on whether the information referred to a nerve agent, Mr Johndroe said: "There is no specific intelligence that limits al-Qaeda's interest to one particular chemical or biological weapon over the other."
The US Defence Secretary, Mr Donald Rumsfeld, told television interviewers there was no question terrorist networks such as al-Qaeda have sought access to chemical, biological and radiation weapons. "I have not seen the article. I have seen other information over a period of time that suggests that could be happening," Mr Rumsfeld said on ABC-TV.
In an interview on NBC-TV, Mr Rumsfeld said the US had warned Iraq and others "that anyone involved in weapons of mass destruction will wish they hadn't".
The newspaper said other spokesmen, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said the principal source on the chemical transfer was uncorroborated and indications that it involved a nerve agent were open to interpretation.
Iraq has asserted it has no chemical, biological or nuclear weapons.
• Iraq has bought more than 3.5 million vials of atropine since 1996, even though the drug can be used to protect against nerve gas attacks, UN officials said yesterday.
The US has made an issue in recent weeks of its current inability to block Iraqi attempts to import the drug, saying it wants to quickly add atropine to a new UN Security Council restricted list.
That would enable individual council members, including the US, to block Iraqi purchases via the UN oil-for-food programme.
An auto-injector enables a soldier to administer the drug quickly on the battlefield, prompting US fears Baghdad would use nerve gas in case of military strikes, threatened by President Bush if Iraq fails to disarm.