BAGHDAD, Iraq (AP) - Six Iraqi scientists working at different Baghdad research institutions were ordered to destroy some bacteria and equipment and hide more in their homes before visits from U.N. weapons inspectors in the months leading up to the war, the scientists told The Associated Press.
In separate interviews, all of the scientists said they were involved in civilian research projects and none knew of any programs for weapons of mass destruction. It was not clear why their materials, ostensibly for nonmilitary research, were ordered destroyed.
But their accounts indicate the government of Saddam Hussein may have had advance knowledge of at least some of the inspectors' visits, as the United States suspected, and that the former Iraqi regime was deeply concerned about any material that could raise the suspicion of U.N. experts.
"An hour or two before the inspectors came to the university, I got my orders from the chairman," said a biochemistry professor at Saddam University for Science and Engineering.
"The order was to hide anything that might make the inspectors suspicious. Any bacterium, any fungus. I destroyed seven petri dishes in the autoclave and I put the others in the trunk of my car."
He said the petri dishes held Staphylococcus and E. coli bacteria and a fungus that can cause severe skin problems -- all commonly used for experiments.
The scientist and several others would only speak on condition of anonymity.
While U.S. troops are firmly in control of the Iraqi capital, university officials, some of them linked by blood to Saddam, remain in their academic positions and scientists fear they could be fired if they are discovered providing information that slights their bosses.
Saddam University's assistant dean, Ameer Abbas Ameer, said inspectors visited his university three times, checking the chemistry, biology and physics departments. He denied ordering professors and researchers to destroy or hide materials.
"The inspectors never found anything because there wasn't anything to find," he said. "They were even joking about it when they were here. They were never serious. You don't search for weapons of mass destruction under the carpet."
But the professor and other scientists said orders came from Ameer's office, through the department chairman, to hide and destroy materials when the inspectors were on their way.
"The chairman told us not to answer questions from any inspectors, to go to the cafeteria and stay there until they left," the professor said. "They were afraid. What they were afraid of, I don't know."
President Bush claimed during his State of the Union address that Iraqi spies had penetrated the U.N. inspections. While some inspectors privately suspect as much, none of the inspection teams found any firm evidence to support the president's claim.
"Clearly we were well aware that the Iraqis were trying to figure out our inspection plans and we took many practicable precautions against that," said Ewen Buchanan, spokesman for the U.N. inspectors. He said information was handled on a "need to know" basis and precautions included "silent briefings" between inspectors to elude any listening devices the Iraqis may have placed at U.N. offices in Baghdad.
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An American military team hunting for unconventional weapons in Iraq, the Mobile Exploitation Team Alpha, or MET Alpha, which found the scientist, declined to identify him, saying they feared he might be subject to reprisals. But they said that they considered him credible and that the material unearthed over the last three days at sites to which he led them had proved to be precursors for a toxic agent that is banned by chemical weapons treaties.
The officials' account of the scientist's assertions and the discovery of the buried material, which they described as the most important discovery to date in the hunt for illegal weapons, supports the Bush administration's charges that Iraq continued to develop those weapons and lied to the United Nations about it. Finding and destroying illegal weapons was a major justification for the war.
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The team, with vehicles and supplies from the 101st Airborne Division, went out on its own to survey other sites and pursue the tip about the buried containers and the scientist. After completing a lengthy survey of one installation, Mr. Gonzales and other team members from the Defense Intelligence Agency's Chemical Biological Intelligence Support Team decided to try to find the scientist.
Mr. Gonzales tracked down the scientist's note, which had never been formally analyzed and was still in a brigade headquarters, along with the scientist's address, military officials said.
The next morning, MET Alpha weapons experts found the scientist at home, along with some documents from the program and samples he had buried in his backyard and at other sites.
The scientist has told MET Alpha members that because Iraq's unconventional weapons programs were highly compartmented, he only had firsthand information about the chemical weapons sector in which he worked, team members said.
But he has given the Americans information about other unconventional weapons activities, they said, as well as information about Iraqi weapons cooperation with Syria, and with terrorist groups, including Al Qaeda. It was not clear how the scientist knew of such a connection.
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