BAGHDAD, December 14 (IslamOnline & News Agencies) - U.N. chief arms inspector Hans Blix has requested Baghdad to provide a list of scientists involved in Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction program, a U.N. spokesman here said Saturday, December 14.

Blix “wrote to the Iraqi ambassador at the United Nations in New York on Thursday to ask for a list of scientists in Iraq involved in the those areas linked to programs of mass destruction”, Hiro Ueki told Agence France-Presse (AFP).

Saturday’s Al-Hayat newspaper reported that Blix had given the Iraqis two weeks to provide the list.

U.N. Security Council Resolution 1441, which strengthened the inspections regime, gave the inspectors the right to interview Iraqi officials and scientists privately, inside or outside Iraq.

Iraq’s top liaison officer with the United Nations, General Hossam Mohammed Amin, said Thursday Baghdad was working on the list of scientists so that it could be ready whenever the United Nations asks for it.

Washington has been pressing the U.N. inspectors to use new powers to spirit Iraq scientists and their families abroad to allow them to speak out about banned weapons programs without any possibility of intimidation by Baghdad.

But U.N. officials have so far strongly resisted the U.S. pressure. “We are not going to abduct anybody, and we’re not serving as a defection agency,” Blix said last week.

Meanwhile, the U.N. arms inspectors swooped on a record 11 sites in Iraq. The probes carried out by the U.N. Monitoring, Verification and Inspection Commission (UNMOVIC) and the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) covered nuclear, missile, chemical and biological facilities, an Iraqi official said.

Iraq reported no incident by midday in any of the inspections.

One UNMOVIC team returned to a medical laboratory it could not visit Friday because the keys could not be found on the Muslim day of rest.

On their first visit Friday to the Communicable Diseases Control Center the key holder could not be located, so the inspectors sealed several locked rooms in order to ensure non-interference.

Their search was expected to focus on the biological and chemical capability of the vast facility located in central Baghdad’s Andalus Square that Iraq declared to the United Nations last October 1.

Inspectors used the hotline to call Amin, before sealing the offices. It was the first hitch for U.N. weapons inspections since they resumed in Iraq on November 25, after a four-year absence.

Under U.N. Security Council resolutions 687, which defines the terms of the 1991 Gulf war ceasefire, Iraq has the obligation to declare and place under U.N. supervision equipment that could be of dual civilian and military use, in addition to dismantling its unconventional weapons and long-range missiles.

Iraq says it no such arsenal anymore and challenged the United States to prove that its declaration on weapons, handed over to the United Nations on December 8, contained gaping holes as U.S. official claim.

In another development, Iraqi Deputy Prime Minister Tareq Aziz warned Saturday that U.S. threats against Iraq were only the opening salvoes in an “all-out war” against the whole Arab world, but he expressed confidence of “final victory”.

“I have confidence in our Arab nation’s capacity to resist and win final victory, whatever the sacrifices,” Aziz told an Arabic literary festival here.

“It’s an all-out war against the Arab nation, and that is why Arabs must wake up to the truth of what is in store for them and prepare to resist it.”

Aziz warned that the pro-Israeli campaign being waged by Washington was not limited to Iraq and the Palestinian territories but would extend to the whole Arab world, including those states currently offering support to U.S. war plans against Iraq.

“The imperialism of the axis of evil formed by the United States and its Zionist ally is targeting other countries too - the immediate hotspots maybe Iraq and Palestine, but the target is the whole Arab nation.”