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Baghdad offers access to CIA

LONDON DEC. 23. In a surprise move to stave off the U.S.-led attack, Iraq has invited the CIA to track down the elusive weapons of mass destruction in the country amid reports that the U.N. is preparing secret contingency plans for a war that would halt all the Iraqi oil production, ``seriously degrade'' its electricity system and provoke civil unrest.

Amir al-Sadi, Scientific Adviser to the Iraqi President, Saddam Hussein, on Sunday challenged the U.S. and the British intelligence to show hard evidence that Iraq possessed any biological, chemical or nuclear weapons. ``We do not even have any objections if the CIA sent somebody with the inspectors to show them the suspected sites,'' Gen. Sadi said in Baghdad.

The Iraqi offer of unhindered access to CIA agents came after pressure from Washington that made war early in the new year almost inevitable, The Guardian reported today.

After four days of diplomatic onslaught, Iraq had hit back accusing the Bush Administration of rehashing old lies. ``We have told the world we are not producing these kinds of weapons, but it seems that the world is drugged, absent or in a weak position,'' Mr. Hussein said.

Meanwhile, a report in the Times today said the internal U.N. documents predicted that the worst fighting would be in the three central governorates around Baghdad, with the Kurdish-controlled north remaining largely free of conflict. But it would take a month after the war breaks out for the U.N. humanitarian workers to plunge in work in the predominantly Shia south.

Though formally expressing the hope that war can be averted, the U.N. relief agencies are already positioning emergency supplies and updating evacuation procedures for the hundreds of foreign staff now inside Iraq.``The U.N. expects that there will be full compliance by Iraq... and that, consequently, there will be no new humanitarian crisis,'' one document says.

The U.N. Secretary-General, Kofi Annan, was trying to keep the preparations secret for fear of signalling to Iraq that weapons inspections were futile and a U.S.-led attack was inevitable, a report said.

PTI

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