Powell, in a theatrical query, asked why the Iraqi scientists were asked to sign declarations, with a death penalty if not adhered to, not to reveal their secrets to the IAEA inspection teams. Exactly the opposite is true. The four or five, as I recall, such declarations, which I read in detail, held us to the penalty of death in the event that we did not hand in all of the sensitive documents and reports that may still be in our possession! Had Powell's intelligence services provided him with a copy of these declarations, and not depended on "defector's" testimonies who are solely motivated by their self-promotion in the eyes of their "beholders," and availed himself to a good Arabic translation of what these declarations actually said, he would not, had he any sense been abiding by the truth, mentioned this as "evidence."

This is exactly the cause of the second untruth brandished by Powell: that Iraq is hiding or is still working (it is hard to discern from the tangle of his word what is really meant) on its "third" uranium enrichment process by referring to the cache of documents seized in the house of Faleh Hamza.

Faleh, according to my explanation of the above declarations, did not consider the reports on his work to be covered under this declaration for the following reason: Faleh did dabble during the eighties at the Physics Department in the Tuwaitha Nuclear Research Center itself - but not under the nuclear weapon program activities which came under the label of the PetroChemical 3 program - with the uranium laser enrichment process using a couple of medium range copper lasers.