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Rym Brahimi: Iraq preparing for war
BAGHDAD, Iraq (CNN) -- Top U.N. weapons inspectors told the Security Council on Thursday that Iraq's declaration of its weapons programs was short on evidence that the country has disarmed, and U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell is expected to say that Iraq continues to be in "material breach" of U.N. resolution 1441. Iraqi officials had said earlier that they weren't expecting the U.N. weapons inspectors to say they had found anything new because there is nothing new to report. "There's nothing that they don't know about Iraq's program," said Gen. Amir al-Saadi, the scientific adviser to Saddam Hussein. "There is nothing they can pin on us." Inspections in Iraq concerning weapons of mass destruction continued Thursday, but at a faster pace, according to CNN Correspondent Rym Brahimi, who filed this report: BRAHIMI: They've been out again, they've intensified their pace, now not only looking at sites that have been mentioned in that famous declaration, but also using new equipment. They used the helicopters for the first time today. Now we're told by Iraqi officials that this was just a test run to see how it was going with the helicopters. We'll have more on that later. Meanwhile, they did go to a site, where it took them at least 10 minutes to get in. Total surprise by the director at that site, saying it was a guesthouse that had never been previously visited before by any inspection teams. But then eventually, they got in, and we're waiting to hear from the U.N. for the report on what happened today. Now, the Iraqi officials are very unhappy at the noises coming out of Washington and London regarding the U.N. mandated declaration of weapons of mass destruction, saying that there are holes in it, there is information missing. Iraq's foreign minister today saying that Britain and the United States are lying. Iraq says that they know very well there are no weapons of mass destruction and the U.S. is just lying about it, and they know that the inspectors' work will actually prove Iraq to have been truthful in the end. There are rumors here and there of troop movements. There were also rumors a few months ago about movements of troops in different areas of the country, not necessarily just Baghdad, but it's all really difficult to confirm, because these are not really things we're privy to, nor is the Iraqi public generally speaking. What we do know is Iraqi officials do say that they are preparing themselves, they are training their people, a lot of the people from the ruling Ba'ath Party have received training, and also received weapons from what we're being told, and that's as much as we know, that and the fact that they're distributing a little more food rations to the people in preparation of an eventual war.
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