Iraq: We have no more to declare

Iraq said yesterday that it had nothing more to declare to the UN on its weapons programme and warned that it might stop the destruction of its al-Samoud 2 missiles if America continued to threaten it with war.

Lieutenant-General Amer al-Saadi, the chief weapons adviser to Saddam Hussein, accused George Bush and Tony Blair of trying to engineer "a war driven by greed".

General Saadi said Baghdad might cease scrapping the missiles if it believed Washington was going to ignore the UN Security Council. "If it turns out at an early stage during this month that America is not going to behave in a legal way, why should we continue?" he said.

Iraq has destroyed 10 missiles in two days. But stopping the process will almost certainly be seen by America and Britain as a "material breach" of UN resolutions, and provide the trigger for an invasion.

The claim that Iraq has fulfilled all its UN obligations is also likely to be used by Washington and London as evidence that President Saddam is not prepared to "fully disarm".

General Saadi said: "Practically all the areas of concern to Unmovic [the UN inspection team] and the subjects of remaining disarmament questions have been addressed."