Iraqi Deputy PM Tareq Aziz said on Saturday Chief UN arms inspector Hans Blix will go to Baghdad on February 8, and rubbished US plans to expose Iraq’s alleged weapons of mass destruction.British PM Tony Blair flew home from a council of war with President George W. Bush. He forecast world opinion would rally behind a new UN resolution that may authorise an attack on Iraq. ‘‘I believe there will be a second resolution,’’ Blair said after his meeting with the US President. Iraq scientist ‘refuses interview’ BAGHDAD: UN weapons experts said they again failed to interview an Iraqi scientist on Saturday after he insisted on having an Iraqi witness. Hiro Ueki, a UN spokesman for the inspectors in Baghdad, said arms experts sought a private interview with an Iraqi individual but it did not take place. ‘‘Due to his insistence on this witness no private interview took place,’’ he added. (Reuters) In Baghdad, Aziz said Blix was not expected to meet President Saddam Hussein on his forthcoming visit, but would consult with Iraqi experts on setting up panels to discuss outstanding issues.Blix and Mohamed ElBaradei, head of the UN nuclear watchdog the IAEA, were invited to Baghdad after they delivered a scathing report to the UN last Monday. They said Iraq had not provided enough information to help them verify whether Baghdad still possessed banned biological, chemical and nuclear weapons, or had destroyed previous banned weapons programmes.Aziz said any evidence that US Secretary of State Colin Powell planned to produce on Iraqi weapons programmes at a UN Security Council meeting next Wednesday would be ‘‘fabrications and lies’’ as Baghdad had no such weaponry.The hawkish US-British position is not shared around the world, and Europe is deeply divided on Iraq. His aides said Bush privately supported the idea of a second resolution but did not want to give an impression of weakness to Saddam Hussein.Blair and Bush said a conclusion of the Iraq crisis was coming in weeks rather than months. ‘‘I think it will be plain to people whether Saddam is cooperating or not in the next few weeks,’’ Blair said. ‘‘If he does not comply, we have to act.’’To get another resolution will require persuading France and Russia to back it as both want to give inspectors more time.
