NEW YORK – A 167-page report declassified before the U.N. Security Council Friday will be used by the United States to persuade other nations that Saddam Hussein is falsely claiming Iraq has no weapons of mass destruction.
This large document -- which was handed out to the U.N. disarmament commission last week and made its way to member countries -- was separate from the oral report chief weapons inspector Hans Blix gave to the council Friday
The Bush administration is expected use the details of the dossier in efforts to convince Security Council members nations opposed to or unconvinced of the need for military force to change their positions.
The "cluster document," as it is known, has been used by inspectors to monitor and keep track of weapons Iraq is believed to possess, its cooperation with inspectors and its degree of compliance with Resolution 1441 and earlier resolutions.
The document separates inspection issues into 29 different areas and includes a report made by the predecessor to Blix's U.N. Monitoring, Verification and Inspection Commission (UNMOVIC), the U.N. Special Commission for Iraq (UNSCOM).
It reportedly documents that, as Secretary of State Colin Powell has argued, Iraq continues to produce forbidden missiles other than the Al Samoud 2.
Blix said Wednesday that the destruction of Al Samoud 2 missiles "is the most spectacular and the most important and tangible" evidence of Iraq's commitment to disarmament.
Fox News has learned that the decision to declassify and distribute the document came mainly as a result of pressure on Blix by Germany, which plans to argue that inspections are working by citing the vast amount of illegal items the dossier details as having been found.
The Bush team thinks the information works more to its benefit.
One official told Fox News the document is an "elegant testimony to lies and deceptions, which has been the pattern of Iraqi behavior across eight years."
The official added that very few pages contain truly "new" information, and that the rest sums up what was discovered, destroyed or obscured by Iraq during the 1990s.
Among other things, the document states that on at least 29 occasions, Iraq refused, despite repeated requests, to provide credible evidence that it did not possess arms or had disarmed fully and completely.
It also cites 17 instances when inspectors uncovered evidence directly contradicting Iraqi assertions, and that Iraq successfully concealed its weapons of mass destruction and ballistic-missile programs from UNSCOM.
Iraq admits in the dossier to numerous attempts to mislead inspectors by lying or planting false evidence, the document reveals.
Specific examples of noncompliance include:
— In 1995, Iraq declared its offensive biological weapons program, after publicly denying its existence for four years.
— In 1997, inspectors discovered evidence of production on prohibited missiles completed five years earlier.
— In 1997, Iraq declared 187 pieces of specialty equipment used to produce chemical agents.
— In 2003, after a confrontation with inspectors, Iraq turned over the "Iraqi Air Force" document, which disclosed 6,500 bombs armed with 1,000 tons of mustard gas, contradicting earlier chemical-weapons declarations.
Also included is an assessment that Iraq has the capability to manufacture chemical and biological weapons and tens of thousands of delivery systems such as missiles, munitions and unmanned aircraft.
The history and current status of Iraq's weaponized-anthrax program is also detailed.
After initially denying producing any anthrax, Iraq in 1995 admitted to having produced nearly 8,500 liters of anthrax. It maintained that there was only one anthrax-production facility in the country, and that none had been produced in 1991. It admitted to filling 50 R-400 bombs and five missile warheads with anthrax.
The report notes that UNSCOM dismissed those claims and countered Iraq could have produced as much as 25,000 liters of anthrax. It also notes that a second facility was used for anthrax production in 1991. UNSCOM also had evidence that more than five warheads were filled with anthrax and that there was no way of knowing how many R-400 bombs were filled with it.
UNMOVIC, which took over from UNSCOM in 1999, further concluded that:
— some 10,000 additional liters of weaponized anthrax were not destroyed;
— Iraq still has the technology and materials to produce anthrax;
— and that by 1993, Iraq was producing large quantities of a different bacteria "that could be a model for anthrax."
Powell said in his Feb. 5 Security Council presentation that the "mobile laboratories" he accuses Iraq of developing could produce a "dry" version of anthrax — enough in one month to equal 10,000 liters.
According to the cluster document, UNMOVIC also believes that Iraq has tanks specially equipped for spraying chemical and biological weapons as well as several types of "unmanned aerial vehicles," which can spray the agents. '
It says Iraq has continued to illegally pursue warheads designed for chemical and biological weapons, along with "Scud-type" missiles, propellants and launching capabilities, all of which are banned and were supposed to be destroyed.
The report also presents a list of questions the inspectors are still are trying to get Iraq to answer.
France and Germany want to use the questions as "benchmarks" of progress, The United States argues that the same questions have remained unanswered for more than a decade.
Fox News' Teri Schultz and Liza Porteus contributed to this report.
Get all the stories you need-to-know from the most powerful name in news delivered first thing every morning to your inbox