NEWS ANALYSIS : Once Again, Rivals Stay Close to Truth : Credibility: But exceptions are noted at the final debate as the candidates clash on familiar points of controversy.

There weren’t a lot of whoppers, but there a few stretchers and some questionable assertions.

In their third debate, the three presidential contenders Monday fell into the pattern of their earlier two encounters and stuck generally to the truth as they debated Arkansas’ record, and the candidates’ characters and hiring records. But there were exceptions.

IRAQ: President Bush’s flat declaration that there is no evidence American technology was used in Iraq’s nuclear-weapons program appears to conflict with the findings of U.N. inspectors who have examined Iraqi weapons facilities.

In an angry response to attacks from Perot and Clinton, Bush declared, “The nuclear capability has been searched by the United Nations, and there hasn’t been one single scintilla of evidence that there’s any U.S. technology involved in it.”

But in an inspection last year at an Iraqi nuclear-weapons facility, U.N. officials discovered highly sophisticated computerized welding equipment being used to help produce bomb-grade uranium. It had been licensed for sale to Iraq by the Commerce Department. Earlier this year, U.N. inspectors destroyed American carbide-tool technology discovered at Iraq’s primary nuclear-weapons facility.

In addition, declassified State Department documents from July of 1990 confirmed that Iraq had obtained U.S. technology for use in its programs to develop nuclear, chemical and biological weapons.

Although Monday was the first time the so-called Iraqgate issue has come up in a presidential debate, Bush has denied that U.S. technology and aid played a role in Iraq’s military build-up on other occasions.

A senior Administration official last week tried to explain the apparent discrepancy between the President’s position and other evidence by saying that Bush meant the aid had not provided “meaningful, significant help.”

The largest portion of U.S. aid to Iraq in the 1980s--$5 billion--was in the form of loan guarantees so Iraq could buy American grain and other commodities. Bush defended that program too.

“Yes, we had grain credits for Iraq, and there isn’t any evidence that those grain credits were diverted into weaponry,” he said. “None. None whatsoever.”

A disputed 1990 review by the Agriculture Department found no evidence to support suspicions that Iraq had traded American food for weapons, but FBI agents investigating a massive Iraqi loan scandal said the issue of diversion of U.S. food for weapons is still under scrutiny.

Perot went beyond the documentary record when he accused Bush of signaling Saddam Hussein that he could take the northern part of Kuwait in the summer of 1990.

“That is absolutely absurd,” responded Bush.

Perot suggested that signal was conveyed in written instructions to then-U.S. Ambassador April Glaspie before a crucial meeting with Hussein days before he issued the invasion order. No such document has been released publicly, and such an authorization has not been contained in any records that have emerged so far.

ARKANSAS: The differences over Arkansas had more to do with the candidates’ different perspectives on a poor state that has made strides in recent years.

When Bush said the state is “the lowest of the low,” he is accurate in that Arkansas remains among the lowest-ranked states in such categories as average income and level of education. But Clinton, who likes to stress the rate of improvement, is also correct when he says the state was ranked first last year in the rate of overall manufacturing job growth.

Bush aides said he misspoke when he said Arkansas was 30% behind the national average in job creation. Arkansas job growth actually exceeded the nation’s; from 1979 to 1992, the state’s number of jobs grew 28.4%, while the nation’s grew 20.5%.

ECONOMY: Bush once again misstated portions of Clinton’s economic program, contending at one point that the Arkansan’s proposal to raise $150 billion in new revenues over four years would require him to increase taxes for everyone earning $36,600 a year or more.

Clinton’s plan calls for raising federal income tax rates only for those couples earning more than $200,000 a year or single persons making more than $150,000. The remainder of his increased revenues would come from imposing a 10% surtax on millionaires; raising the alternative minimum tax (again, paid only by upper-income taxpayers); closing additional tax “loopholes” on unearned income and forcing foreign corporations that do business here to pay the same in corporate taxes that American corporations do.

Most tax experts say the bulk of Clinton’s plan would bring in approximately what he says it would. The one exception is his plan to tighten enforcement on foreign corporations, which analysts say is likely to raise only about $1 billion a year rather than the $9 billion to $13.5 billion that Clinton contends. Even with that, however, the revenue shortfall would not be nearly as large as Bush insists.

Clinton contended that the economy created virtually no new jobs during the Bush Administration, while Bush claimed that during “the Reagan-Bush years . . . we created 15 million jobs.” Both figures are correct. The difference depends on the years included in figuring the total. There was some modest job growth during the first nine months of Bush’s tenure, but it was more than offset by the recession that began in 1990.

Times staff writers Art Pine, David Lauter and Norman Kempster contributed to this report.