On the one hand, Iraqi officials are declaring they have no weapons of mass destruction..

"The declaration will repeat that in Iraq there are no weapons of mass destruction," Hussam Mohammed Amin, head of the Iraqi National Monitoring Directorate, told a news conference.

And on the other hand, they're prepared to use them?

In the first statement of its kind, a senior Iraqi official confirmed that his country is not ruling out the possibility of using weapons of mass destruction to defend the regime. His statements were published in a lead article in today's London-based Arabic-language daily Al-Quds Al-Arabi, which is known to support Saddam Hussein. (1) The article's title stated that Iraqi sources do not rule out the possibility of using chemical weapons to defend the regime. The following are excerpts from the article:



"A senior Iraqi official who refused to reveal his name said that the Iraqi regime would defend its existence and its reputation. The Iraqi official said unequivocally: 'When the regime was under intense attack in Al-Fau and began to be under threat, it did not hesitate to use all the weapons of mass destruction in its possession. Similarly, when the people of Halabja, or some of them, became guides for the Iranian forces that tried to breach the northeast [front], the regime did not hesitate to use chemical weapons.' Therefore, 'do not expect us to stand idly by in the face of any aggression that seeks to destroy and banish us not only from the regime but also from life.'"



Which is it? How can you be prepared to use weapons you don't have? Or, how can you say you don't have the weapons and yet are preparing to use them? It'd be nice if they get their story straight.

In the meantime, the UN team is hard at work (spoken like Elmer Fudd)

"Be vewwy, vewwy, qwiet. I'm hunting weapons of mass destwuction."