A senior Iraqi official has said Iraq is ready to respond to questions over its arms declaration to the UN Security Council and declared inspections vindicated Baghdad's claim it has no banned arms in its possession.
"We are ready to respond to the questions which will be directed to us and we think that the majority or all of the questions could be resolved during the monitoring phase, during the technical discussions that could be taken between both sides," General Hussam Mohammed Amin told a news conference.
"The fact that Iraq's declarations are credible is confirmed firmly daily. That declaration...proved that Iraq has no weapons of mass destruction," Amin said.
Chief UN inspector Hans Blix said his arms teams had not found "any smoking guns" in Iraq so far during their search for banned weapons but would conduct interviews with scientists and others within a week or so to get more information.
He said Iraq's 12,000-page weapons declaration, submitted on December 7, had failed to answer "a great many questions".
AFP