US skeptical over Iraqi arms

WASHINGTON -- Underpinning the U.S. review of Iraq's 12,000-page arms declaration, "there's skepticism and there's fear" about Saddam Hussein's nuclear ambitions, President Bush's spokesman said Monday.\nWhite House press secretary Ari Fleischer also said the United States had security concerns about sharing its own intelligence with United Nations inspectors trying to verify Saddam's insistence that his regime has no weapons of mass destruction.\n"We're going to continue to work with the inspectors to help to get them the information so they can do their job. ... Of course, at the same time, we want to make sure that sources and methods are not compromised in any information that could be conveyed to the inspectors," Fleischer said.\nHe withheld judgment on the arms declaration that Iraq turned over to the United Nations Security Council on Saturday. The United States wants to study the material "thoroughly, completely and fully and thoughtfully," Fleischer said.\nU.S. officials were still helping the Security Council president copy and distribute the material by Monday afternoon, he added.\nOver the weekend, a military adviser to Saddam suggested that Iraq was close to building an atomic bomb a decade or so ago -- a "wistful" admission of how much Iraq "yearned to get nuclear weapons," as Fleischer described it, and proof that the United States is right to be skeptical of Iraqi denials now.\nSaddam, the Iraqi president, insists his regime has no programs for developing banned nuclear, biological or chemical weapons. Bush says Saddam is lying.\nUnder a U.N. Security Council resolution unanimously approved last month, international weapons inspectors are in Iraq trying to validate those claims along with the information submitted on Saturday.\n"On the broader picture yes, there's skepticism and there's fear about Iraqi intentions and abilities," Fleischer said.\nOn the narrower question of determining the validity of Iraq's declaration to the U.N. Security Council, "that process deserves respect and it deserves thoughtful judgment and we will not rush to it," Fleischer said.