DATE=12/24/00

TYPE=CORRESPONDENT REPORT

TITLE=IRAQ / BOMB (S/L)

NUMBER=2-270779

BYLINE=LAURIE KASSMAN

DATELINE=LONDON

CONTENT=

VOICED AT:

INTRO: A British newspaper, The Sunday Times, is quoting an Iraqi dissident as saying Iraq is working on a nuclear bomb. The dissident says the work began in the months before United Nations arms inspectors left the country in 1998. Correspondent Laurie Kassman has more details in London.

TEXT: The Sunday Times identifies the 39-year-old Iraqi dissident as Salman Yassin Zweir who says he worked as a design engineer for Iraq's Atomic Energy Commission. Mr. Zweir says he was instructed two years ago to return to his work at the commission even before U-N inspectors had left the country. When he refused, he was arrested and tortured.

The young engineer is quoted as saying Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein will never give up his dream of being the first Arab leader to have the atomic bomb.

The British newspaper says Mr. Zweir escaped to Jordan where he has been reunited with his wife and two children. The article does not say when he left Iraq.

U-S intelligence officials are to debrief the dissident to check out his allegation that Iraq is still trying to build a nuclear bomb in violation of U-N ceasefire resolutions imposed after the 1991 Gulf War.

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The U-N Security Council imposed tough economic sanctions after Iraq's invasion of Kuwait in 1990 and demanded that Iraq scrap its weapons of mass destruction and toxic weapons research programs. Ten years later, the U-N sanctions remain until Iraq proves it is fully complying with the U-N demands.

Still, suspicions have been raised during the past decade about Iraq's secret efforts to rebuild its weapons programs.

Earlier this year, the former head of the U-N special commission on Iraq told a U-S congressional committee he believes Iraq has revived its nuclear weapons design team. But U-N inspectors have been refused access to the country to investigate.

Officials from the International Atomic Energy Agency, based in Vienna, also are expected to interview the Iraqi defector, who says he had worked on methods for producing highly enriched uranium needed to make a bomb.

The Sunday Times Newspaper quotes the former deputy head of U-N inspectors in Iraq as saying his teams had detected a pattern that indicated research was continuing but they never could find direct evidence of it during their mission in Iraq. (Signed)

NEB/LMK/KL/PLM