
                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: MONDAY, April 2, 1990                   TAG: 9004020290
SECTION: NATIONAL/INTERNATIONAL                    PAGE: A1   EDITION: EVENING 
SOURCE: Associated Press
DATELINE: BAGHDAD, IRAQ                                LENGTH: Medium

IRAQ WARNS OF CHEMICAL USE

President Saddam Hussein today admitted that Iraq has sophisticated binary chemical weapons and warned that if Israel attacked it Iraq will retaliate and destroy half of the Jewish state.

In a speech broadcast by the state-run radio, Saddam denied Iraq had nuclear weapons and that sophisticated devices bought from the United States were meant for nuclear weapons development.

He lashed out at Western criticism of what U.S. and British authorities said were clandestine efforts by Baghdad to smuggle parts for nuclear weapons and over the March 15 execution of British-based reporter Farzad Bazoft on spying charges.

Saddam said Bazoft, a reporter for the London Observer weekly, was a spy and that "Iraq will chop the heads off spies."

British authorities arrested several Iraqis in London last week as they allegedly tried to smuggle krytrons, or electronic devices used to trigger nuclear weapons, from the United States.

In his first public comment on the arrests, Saddam denied claims that Iraq intended to use the devices for atomic weapons.

He said the devices were "only condensers which we bought for $10,500 and it's not logical that these could be used in atomic bombs."

But he defended Iraq's right to build unconventional weapons.

"I categorically deny that we have any atomic bombs, but let them [Iraq's critics] hear here and now that we do possess binary chemical weapons, which only the United States and the Soviet Union also have," he said.

In a clear reference to Israel, believed to be the Middle East's only nuclear power, Saddam said: "Those who are threatening us with nuclear bombs, we warn them that we will hit them with these binary chemical weapons."

"I also say that if Israel dares to hit even one piece of steel on any industrial site, we will make the fire eat half of Israel."

Iraqi officials admitted they used some types of chemical weapons during the 1980-88 war with Iran, but claimed they used them in self-defense.

They deny widespread allegations by governments and human rights groups that they used chemical weapons, outlawed under a 1925 Geneva protocol, against their Kurdish minority in areas held by Kurdish separatist guerrillas.

by CNB