WASHINGTON/BAGHDAD, 23 December 2002 — The United States should refrain from attacking Iraq alone, Foreign Minister Prince Saud Al-Faisal said yesterday. “I cannot imagine a war waged on Iraq on a bilateral fashion, that the United States goes alone,” Prince Saud said in an interview with CNN.

The prince quoted US President George W. Bush as saying that war “is the last resort” in an effort to disarm Iraq and praised as “very wise” the US decision to rely on the United Nations. So the decision to go to war “should not be taken as a simple decision,” he said.

“It is not a conflict between the United States and Iraq. It is about United Nations resolutions and about the government of Iraq’s implementation of those resolutions,” he said.

The prince also left open the possibility that the Kingdom might cooperate in a war on Iraq if the war receives UN support. “Every member of the United Nations is liable to cooperate with any decision based on Chapter 7 in the United Nations Charter and every member is obliged to cooperate in that, but that cooperation does not mean joining in the effort to fight, sending troops and so forth,” he said.

As war loomed in the Gulf, Baghdad said that the CIA was welcome to come to Iraq and indicate suspect sites to the UN weapons inspectors. Iraq also said it was ready to answer any questions from the United States and Britain over its arms program.

“We are ready to deal with each of those questions if you ask us,” Amir Al-Saadi, an adviser to President Saddam Hussein, told a news conference in Baghdad at which he also accused previous inspection regimes of manipulating evidence against Iraq.

“We do not even have any objections if the CIA sent somebody with the inspectors to show them the suspected sites,” he added.

Saddam himself demanded the United States stop harassing him. “The world should tell America now there is no need for more aggression and sanctions on Iraq in order to let it cooperate freely (with the UN),” he told visiting delegates.

Saadi said chief weapons inspector Hans Blix had sent Iraq a “formal request to provide a list of certain scientists and we are going to provide that list before the end of this year”.

There has been growing talk of war since the United States last week condemned Iraq’s UN-ordered declaration of its weapons programs as incomplete and so a “material breach” of Security Council Resolution 1441 on Iraqi disarmament. Defying the resolution carries an implicit threat of eventual war.

Saadi addressed specific questions already raised by Washington and London, for example over attempts to obtain uranium, and said some of those concerns were based on outdated information.

The United States and Britain were, according to a British Defense Ministry source, planning a massive seaborne invasion if war broke out against Iraq, a strategy planners hope would make troops less exposed to chemical or biological attack.

Some 1,000 US troops are expected in Israel this week for an exercise involving US-made Patriot missiles, which were largely ineffective in intercepting the 39 Scud missiles that Iraq fired at Israel in the 1991 Gulf War. The Patriot has since been upgraded and Israel has developed and deployed the more effective Arrow anti-missile system. The New York Times yesterday said US intelligence agents were working with Kurdish groups in northern Iraq opposed to Saddam.

UN experts in Iraq continued their hunt for banned arms. Iraqi officials said sites searched by the inspectors included a space research center in Baghdad. (R)