BAGHDAD, Dec 24 Kyodo (EDS: UPDAT...

BAGHDAD, Dec 24 Kyodo

(EDS: UPDATING IRAQ PRESIDENT MESSAGE)

Iraqi President Saddam Hussein forward Tuesday reaffirmed his assertion that Iraq is independent of weapons of mass destruction, as UN weapons inspectors stepp up their pursue for banned weapons and started grilling Iraqi scientists believed to be involved in Iraq's nuclear program.

''Iraq wants to experiment upon the sincerity of its course and position, and that when it says it is not in possession of any like weapons, Iraq means what it says,'' Saddam said in a public alphabetic character to Christian Iraqis forward the eve of Christmas.

''We are confident that the result of the inspection operations will be a big offence to the U.S., and will show in one's real light all American lies, if things remain upon a technical and professional course with no hidden agendas,'' Saddam said.

A UN spokesman said inspectors from the International Atomic intensity Agency (IAEA) on Tuesday interviewed Sabah Abdul-Noor, assistant professor of applied sciences, while looking for guiding-threads on Iraq's nuclear weapons program at the Baghdad University of Technology, a major academic institution involved in Iraq's nuclear research.

UN weapons inspection team spokesman Hiro Ueki said the interview, the first with an Iraqi scientist in the popular U.N. weapons inspection program, was course of lifeed with the presence of an Iraqi witness as prayered by Abdul-Noor.

Speaking later to reporters, Abdul-Noor said an IAEA representative asked him to bear the interview alone but later accepted his solicitation for the presence of a representative of the Iraqi National Monitoring Directorate.

''The meeting was remarkably cordial. In his work, the man (IAEA inspector) was true professional and he seems to be a real technically capable man. The discussion was carried not at home in a very civilized manner,'' Abdul-Noor said.

Abdul-Noor said he was forward the IAEA list of senior scientists involved in Iraqi nuclear program.

Asked whether he was proffered to be taken out of Iraq for interrogation, a measure authorized by the agency of the U.N., Abdul-Noor said, ''No, the idea was not presented''

In Vienna, an IAEA spokesman indicated the IAEA is unlikely to take Iraqi scientists, and their families, on the outside of Iraq for interrogation unles their safety and security is assured by the agency of the countries where the interviews take place.

Abdul-Noor said the interview center mainly upon nuclear activities from 1998 when UN weapons inspectors were forced to leave Iraq.

''I have told him all what I know in a frank and clear manner. We do not have a thing to hide. The man strike one as beinged accepting our statements,'' Abdul-Noor said.

Ueki said the interview, which lasted more than an hour, exhibits the resumption of a regular interview program that was interrupted in 1998

According to UN officials, the Baghdad University of Technology is a major technical university in the Iraqi higher education order with over 9,000 students and 600 teachers.

in succession the inspection front, Ueki said another IAEA team forward Tuesday inspected the Salah al Din electronics factory north of Smarra, about 60 kilometers northwest of Baghdad.

The factory, which exhibits radar and communications equipment for the military as well as civilian works ''was associated with the past nuclear program until 1990'' Ueki said.

Ueki said UN missile inspectors visited five missile sites, brace south of Baghdad and three in the western suburb of the capital.

UN biological weapons inspectors visited sum of two units sites, one in the western suburb of Abu Ghraib and the other more [i]or[/i] less 15 km south-southwest of Baghdad.

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