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Iraqi President Saddam Hussein pledged chance to UN weapons inspections on Thursday to disprove US charge that his country still holds weapons of mass destruction.
He said he wants to spare his people of "harm way" in which "some might say we didn't give them a proper chance to disprove with solid evidence the American charge," Saddam told leading members of Baath Party in a televised speech.
"For that reason we shall provide them with such a chance," he said on the occasion to mark the three-day Muslim holiday of Eid al-Fitr.
Saddam made the offer a day after Iraqi Vice President Taha Yassin Ramadan accused UN arms inspectors of spying for the United States and Israel.
Spats about alleged espionage between Iraq and the UN arms inspectors already led to crisis in 1997 and 1998, and eventually unleashed air war against Baghdad on Dec. 17-19, 1998.
The US military recently said it had completed its first phase of war preparations and begun the second.
Nearly 60,000 US troops are gathering in the Gulf region with at least two aircraft carrier battle groups within the striking distance of Iraq.
(Xinhua News Agency December 5, 2002)
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