Iraq Says It Has 11,131 Chemical Warheads in Stock : Military: U.S.intelligence badly underestimated Baghdad’s arsenal. The air war left half of Hussein’s Scud missile launchers in operation.

U.S. intelligence agencies greatly underestimated Iraq’s arsenal of chemical weapons, and allied air forces failed to destroy roughly half of Saddam Hussein’s permanent Scud missile launchers, according to a postwar accounting supplied by Baghdad.

Despite six weeks of allied bombardment, during which U.S. officials declared that several major chemical-weapons storehouses were struck, Iraq said it still has 11,131 chemical warheads as well as 1,005 tons of liquid nerve agents stored in vats. Most of the warheads were parts of bombs or artillery shells, but 30 were for use on Scud ballistic missiles.

Taken together, the remaining stockpiles of chemical weapons described by Iraq greatly exceed CIA Director William H. Webster’s prewar estimate of 1,000 tons given to Congress on Dec. 15.

The Iraqi accounting, turned over to the United Nations on Thursday, also discloses that 28 fixed Scud launch platforms remain operational in western Iraq. That number represents roughly half the fixed sites believed to have been functioning at the outset of the Persian Gulf War.

On Jan. 20, several days into the air war, Gen. H. Norman Schwarzkopf, commander of U.S. troops in the Persian Gulf, told reporters: “Today we are very confident that we have managed to neutralize the fixed launchers.”

If accurate, the Iraqi information appears to corroborate other indi cations that the Bush Administration understated some elements of Iraq’s military arsenal and overstated the level of destruction that allied forces wreaked on Iraq’s military during the war. Several weeks after allied offensive operations ended, the U.S. military conceded that more Iraqi equipment had escaped destruction than had been stated earlier.

The postwar list of weapons was prepared by Iraq under the terms of the U.N. resolution governing the Gulf War cease-fire. In addition to chemical weapons, it specifies the number of surviving Scud missiles, conventional-missile warheads and fuel-storage sites.

At least 2,700 of the more than 11,000 surviving chemical warheads, Iraq said, are buried under the debris of storehouses leveled during the air raids and missile attacks launched by coalition forces. In addition, 36 laboratories and chemical weapons factories were destroyed, Iraq reported.

After studying a translation of the Arabic documents, the Administration questioned some aspects of the Iraqi report.

Although U.S. officials did not dispute Baghdad’s accounting of chemical weapons, the State Department described as “short of reality” Iraq’s claim that it has neither nuclear nor biological weapons. A White House official said a more comprehensive list must be provided before the United States will move to ease U.N. sanctions.

Signaling dissatisfaction with Iraq’s compliance with the U.N. resolution governing the cease-fire, State Department spokesman Richard Boucher said: “It is important to us and, I think, to the whole world community that Iraq not be allowed to evade the obligations set out for them by the United Nations.”

While it is up to the United Nations to determine whether Iraq is complying with the requirements of U.N. Security Council Resolution 687 spelling out the cease-fire terms, the United States is likely to be a major player in shaping that determination.

The U.N. resolution keeps in place sanctions against Iraqi exports until all Iraqi nuclear, chemi cal and biological weapons are eliminated, Boucher said, adding: “Those conditions are still a long way from being fulfilled.”

Besides the 28 fixed launch platforms, Iraq said it still has one operational Soviet-made Scud missile, with a range of 200 miles, and 51 modified Scuds, known as Husseins, with a range roughly double that of the Soviet model.

Commenting on the fixed launch sites, a knowledgeable military source said the planners of Operation Desert Storm debated whether the platforms had been destroyed for weeks after dozens of allied warplanes armed with unguided bombs were sent on search-and-destroy missions.

“The fixed launchers were probably attacked, maybe several times. Some of them survived or were repaired,” said the source.

When questions were raised about the destruction of the Scud launchers, the source said: “Our first reaction was, ‘Sigh . . . how can that be?’ Some consider it to be a great embarrassment.”

In a Jan. 20 interview, only three days into the six-week allied air war, Schwarzkopf said he believed Iraq had “more than 20” launch platforms at fixed sites.

Meanwhile, officials said the task of destroying the remaining Iraqi chemical stockpile without jeopardizing surrounding populations will be a challenge of nearly overwhelming proportion.

International concerns about the peril posed by destruction of the chemical agents may lead to calls for American military participation, officials said. That, in turn, could require U.S. military specialists to travel deep into Iraq--in one case, to the Muthanna State Establishment 45 miles west of Baghdad--to sites where Iraq says the chemicals are stored.

The United States is considered to be the only country in the world that has what one Pentagon official called “a viable program” for destruction of chemical weapons. However, the Bush Administration has deemed it “out of the question” that Iraqi chemical weapons would be shipped to a new weapons-destruction facility on Johnston Atoll in the South Pacific.

A knowledgeable official said the United States and its allies are considering “field expedients” for destruction of the weapons. The official said the Administration--concerned about a continuing U.S. presence in Iraq as well as the high cost of ensuring the safe destruction of the weapons--may turn to the Soviet Union for help.

“There’s some feeling that the guys who didn’t fight in the war ought to play in the peace,” said one knowledgeable official. On the other hand, the official said, some officials have questioned whether the Soviets should be allowed to “enhance their prestige” in the region by being given such a major role.

Assessing Iraq’s report, Marvin Feuerwerger, military analyst at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, said the account did not specify whether the chemical warheads for Scud missiles were crude devices that detonate on impact or sophisticated air-burst weapons.

“It also seems their overall figures on chemical weapons on tonnage appear low, from what we know of their production capability before the war,” Feuerwerger said. “I am very suspicious, looking at this list.”

At the United Nations, Israeli Ambassador Yoram Azidor said the Iraqi information needs verification. Because it “might be inaccurate and untrue,” he said, it is up to U.N. teams to search for the weapons and destroy them.

However, a senior U.N. official who is closely involved in the implementation of the cease-fire terms said the Iraqi letter had “the ring of truth.”

“I never did believe they had nuclear or biological capability,” he said, “and their accounting of chemical weapons struck me as accurate, if not on the high side.”

But Boucher, the State Department spokesman, said the Administration doubts Iraq’s claim that it has no nuclear weapons or weapons facilities. “We don’t think that response is satisfactory,” he said.

A full accounting, he said, should have reported on bomb damage to the nuclear sites or given their current status.

Boucher noted that the United States remains convinced that a destroyed facility described by Iraq as a baby milk factory actually was used to produce biological weapons. But the Iraqi accounting makes no reference to biological facilities.

On the other hand, Boucher acknowledged that the nine-page document contained Iraq’s pledge, required by the resolution, “not to use, introduce, build or acquire any chemical weapons or missiles,” and not to acquire or produce nuclear weapons.

A White House official, speaking on condition of anonymity, expressed a relaxed view of Iraq’s report, predicting that the issue “will sort itself out.”

“Nobody’s particularly surprised that on the first go-round they weren’t particularly forthcoming,” he said.

Times staff writers John M. Broder and David Lauter in Washington and John J. Goldman and Stanley Meisler at the United Nations contributed to this report.