Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMD)

Iraq showed reporters a warehouse stuffed with baby milk and sugar to repudiate a US newspaper report that the building was being used to produce biological weapons.

Iraqi Trade Minister Mohammed Mehdi Saleh met international media at a warehouse in the Taji area northwest of Baghdad, which US intelligence officials quoted in the Washington Times newspaper last week claimed was a biological weapons facility.

But instead of weapons and sophisticated labs, reporters on Tuesday found baby milk and sugar, which had been bought under Iraq's oil-for-food deal with the United Nations.

"They Americans are checking every movement in Iraq, but a satellite cannot tell real information," Saleh told reporters at the site.

"This is rubbish information, actually rubbish information to convert baby milk and baby food and sugar to weapons of mass destruction."

In an ironic report, the Washington Times reported last week that a US intelligence agency spy satellite had photographed a convoy of about 60 trucks at the building earlier in the month!!!

The Trade Ministry warehouse, which consists of three halls, on Tuesday contained boxes of powdered milk from Yemen, Vietnam, Tunisia and Indonesia and sacks of sugar imported from Egypt and India under the UN oil-for-food program.

"We started to move food from this warehouse to supply stores in provinces early this month, and more specifically on August 4 as we started to distribute food rations every two months," Saleh said.

"We have transported 2,500 tons of powdered milk in 187 trucks and not 60 trucks as the Americans said and we will continue to do ," he added.

"If they enlarge the satellite photographs they can compare boxes of the baby milk moved from this site as they were not covered and boxes here."

The warehouse, which was used to store meat before the 1991 US-led aggression, was completely destroyed during the war. It was recently rebuilt by a French company.