The debate over Saddam Hussein's alleged banned weapons of mass destruction widened, after the top UN arms inspector questioned the credibility of coalition experts searching for them, as occupation forces struggled to control Iraq's growing unrest.

Meanwhile, Iraq's top US overseer, Paul Bremer, was set to convene talks Friday with representatives from across Iraq on forming an interim administration amid uncertainty on how to proceed in handing over power to Iraqis.

Iraqi policeman stands guard outside a UN office in Basra. 06 The debate over Iraq's alleged banned weapons of mass destruction widened after top UN arms inspector Hans Blix questioned the credibility of coalition experts searching for them. (AFP/Ahamad Al-Rubaye)

As the debate over elusive weapons continued to rage in London and Washington, UN weapons chief Hans Blix pressed the Security Council Thursday to allow his inspectors back into Iraq to restart searches.

"I do not want to question the integrity or the professionalism of the inspectors of the coalition, but anybody who functions under an army of occupation cannot have the same credibility as an independent inspector," Blix told reporters after addressing the council.

The United States and Britain have assembled their own team of more than 1,200 experts to continue the arms search.

Blix told the council "there remain long lists of items unaccounted for" in the nuclear, chemical and biological weapons programs Iraq claimed to have dismantled more than a decade ago.

"But it is not justified to jump to the conclusion that something exists just because it is unaccounted for," he said.

US and British leaders cited reports of Iraq's attempts to develop nuclear, biological and chemical weapons as the principal justification for war, but little evidence has emerged to back up the claims.

That has put the British and US leaderships on the defensive against claims they manipulated intelligence reports to bolster their case for war.

Blix's case was likely strengthened Thursday when senior US defense officials said they hoped a team from the International Atomic Energy Agency could help in identifying whether refined uranium ore is missing from the Tuwaitha nuclear complex near Baghdad.

The IAEA inspection team, which is due to arrive Friday in Baghdad, is the first -- and so far only -- team of international inspectors allowed back into the country since all pulled out of Iraq on the eve of the war.

It is set to begin inspections on Sunday in a job expected to last two weeks.

Bolstering claims Iraq had no weapons of mass destruction, the former head of South Africa's chemical and biological warfare program said he believed Saddam was hoodwinked by criminals who delivered containers full of sand instead of chemicals and failed to deliver purchased equipment.

"We picked up orders and requests he was sending out all over the world for raw materials, but the sanctions were so tight on him that he was really hoodwinked by a lot of criminals," Wouter Basson told the Pretoria Press Club.

"Ingredients, chemicals, constituents and electronics that he ordered and paid for never cropped up.

"There were containers full of sand offloaded, and I think ultimately they just gave up and realized under their circumstances it is not going to work for them."

Meanwhile, in the flashpoint city of Fallujah, a stronghold of Saddam loyalists, one US soldier was killed Thursday and five others wounded in an attack on their vehicles.

Hours after, occupation authorities warned they would enforce a ban on incitement to violence, even in mosques.

"This applies to the territory of Iraq. We respect religious sites ... but if we hear that there are groups who are using and abusing religious establishments such as mosques to incite religious or ethnic violence we would consider taking action," a spokesman for the US-led administration said on condition of anonymity.

"Nothing in this notice will be designed to curb public debate. It is certainly not going to be illegal to criticize the coalition."

The attack was the second deadly assault on US troops in Fallujah in nine days and came just hours after more than 1,000 soldiers poured into the area to clamp down on the spate of violence against the US occupation forces.

The move was part of a general redeployment of coalition troops to hotspots in western and northern Iraq, notably places where troops have come under attack, such as Sunni Muslim-dominated areas west of Baghdad.

Meanwhile, Bremer was due to meet with various political, tribal and religious leaders to discuss plans for an interim administration. The talks are part of consultations to choose 25-30 people to sit on a political council heading the administration.

But a spokesman for Bremer's administration said Thursday plans to drop a national conference on the issue were not final, and that if Iraq political groups pressed for one, it would be considered.

Back in Washington, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said the much feared "Chemical Ali," Ali Hassan al-Majid, thought killed when his villa was bombed in the southern Iraqi city of Basra during the war, could still be alive.

"They attacked locations in the south where they had located him. There were speculations that he had been killed, now there is some speculation that he may be alive but I just don't know," Rumsfeld said.

Majid was blamed for ordering the notorious 1988 chemical weapons attack against Kurds in Halabja.

In a sign of the continuing tensions, an influential tribal leader with ties to Saddam's regime was shot dead Wednesday in Basra, a resident close to his family said.

Sheikh Ali Najm al-Saadun was killed near the offices of the Supreme Assembly of the Islamic Revolution in Iraq, the main Iraqi Shiite movement. Members of his tribe said they suspected the group's armed wing, the Badr Brigade, of being behind the murder.

Copyright 2003 AFP

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