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Scientist says Iraq had no weapons

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Published: Sept. 17, 2003 at 9:09 AM

BAGHDAD, Sept. 17 (UPI) -- A senior official in Iraq's new science ministry said Wednesday the country never revived its nuclear program after inspectors dismantled it in the 1990s.

Abbas Balasem, an official of the new U.S.-backed administration in Baghdad, told Voice of America Iraqi scientists had no way to re-start the program because the United Nations inspectors took away all the necessary resources.

Former chief U.N. weapons inspector Hans Blix echoed those sentiments, telling Australian radio he believes Iraq destroyed nearly all of the weapons of mass destruction it had in the summer of 1991 -- a position Iraq consistently maintained.

"It is sort of puzzling, I think, that you can have 100 percent certainty about the weapons of mass destruction's existence and zero certainty about where they are," Blix told ITV.

Topics: Hans Blix
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