Iraq Claims It Can Make Seized Devices : Technology: Hussein also says his country had been able to import some earlier.

Iraq has been able to produce devices similar to those seized in March by British customs agents who claimed they were triggers for nuclear weapons, President Saddam Hussein said today.

He also said Iraq had been able to import some of the devices before the batch was seized in England. The seized devices had been manufactured in the United States.

Hussein reiterated Iraq’s denial that the devices were nuclear triggers but said Iraqi technicians at the Ministry of Industry and Military Industrialization were able to produce two of them.

He said they were electrical condensers to be used by Iraq’s University of Technology.

“Only five days after the Americans said they (seized them) our young men in the military industry managed to produce two condensers,” Hussein told about 2,000 Arab delegates meeting in Baghdad at a solidarity rally with Iraq.

Hussein displayed the devices, which he said were similar to one produced in the United States which he also showed to the participants.

“If the British or the Americans want to import some of these devices which are labeled ‘Made in Iraq’ they can negotiate a deal with the Ministry of Industry and Military Industrialization,” he said to cheers and applause from the Arab delegates.

Hussein also disclosed that Iraq was able to import some of the same devices produced by the American company before British customs officers seized a batch at London’s Heathrow airport.

“The ones they seized were not all that crossed,” he said without further elaboration.

Hussein said the technicians took the initiative themselves and without being asked, they produced two samples in two different government enterprises.

The president also accused the West of conducting a campaign to hinder what he described as Iraq’s technical and scientific advancement.

Hussein said Iraq will not abandon its course of technical development despite pressure from the West.

“Technical and scientific advancement is the new title of patriotism. So how can an honest and patriotic man retract from such a course?” he said.

“Anyone who says that he is independent in his country should check that with his scientific and technical development, and this applies especially to the Arabs,” he said.

Iraq has denied any intention of developing nuclear weapons.