Iraq's foreign minister says Baghdad will only accept the return of UN arms inspectors under a comprehensive deal that would lift a crippling 12-year-old embargo.
The minister, Mr Naji Sabri, repeated Baghdad's invitation to US politicians and experts to verify that Iraq did not have weapons of mass destruction as charged by the United States and Britain. The US Congress has previously rejected the idea.
"They are spreading lies about Iraq's ownership of weapons of mass destruction to naive people who do not understand technical matters," Mr Sabri told the Saudi newspaper al-Watanin an interview.
"All that existed had been destroyed between 1991 and when the inspectors left in 1998," he added.
President Bush and British Prime Minister Tony Blair said after strategy discussions yesterday there was sufficient evidence to act against Iraqi President Saddam Hussein, but the means remained an open question.
Asked why the Iraqi leadership insisted on rejecting UN inspectors, Mr Sabri reaffirmed that Baghdad "will not allow the return of international inspectors unless under a comprehensive package under which a timetable is set to end the sanctions."
The sanctions have been in place since the August 1990 Iraqi invasion of Kuwait.