
                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: FRIDAY, August 25, 1995                   TAG: 9508250113
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL                    PAGE: A-2   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: Associated Press
DATELINE: UNITED NATIONS                                LENGTH: Medium

IRAQ HAD GERM AGENTS READY FOR MISSILE USE

Iraq had missiles and bombs laced with germ warfare agents ready for use during the Gulf War, and its program to build other weapons of mass destruction was larger than suspected, a U.N. weapons inspector disclosed Thursday.

Allied forces during the Gulf War suspected Iraq had biological weapons, but it never was proven.

Also Thursday, The Washington Post reported that he governments of Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Egypt and Kuwait privately have assured the United States they are eager to exploit new cracks in the authority of Iraqi President Saddam Hussein, but they said imposing concrete measures such as new trade embargoes will take time, according to senior U.S. officials.

The Arab governments told a high-level U.S. delegation that visited the capitals of their countries last week they agree with Washington that Saddam's continued control of Iraq is a threat to their security and an impediment to the region's stability, the officials said.

During the Gulf War, toxins were contained in ``scud missile warheads, rockets and gravity bombs,'' said Charles Duelfer, spokesman for the U.N. Special Commission on Iraq.

Iraq has also acknowledged it developed more of the germ agents - anthrax and botulism - than it previously said, and that production occurred at more sites, said Duelfer.

Commission chief Rolf Ekeus will brief the Security Council today on the new disclosures, which were made by Iraq over the past week.

The revelations will depict an Iraqi arms program far more advanced and aggressive than was previously known, U.N. officials said.

Ekeus' report will play a major role in determining whether debilitating trade sanctions against Iraq are lifted, a move the United States has adamantly opposed.

The United Nations is demanding that Iraq fully disclose all its efforts to produce weapons of mass destruction before it lifts an oil embargo, which was imposed along with trade sanctions in 1990 after Iraq invaded Kuwait.

Iraq has complained that the sanctions are wreaking havoc on its economy and people.

The team of U.N. weapons inspectors led by Ekeus collected Iraqi documents that fill 130 footlockers, Duelfer said. ``It's literally hundreds of thousands of pages. Now, the task ahead is enormous with respect to verifying what the Iraqis say,'' he said.

Iraq claimed earlier this month that all its information on weapons of mass destruction had been turned over.

But the recent defection of the head of Iraq's arms program to Jordan apparently prompted the government to invite Ekeus to review documents it claimed the official, Lt. Gen. Hussein Kamel al-Majid, had concealed.

by CNB