The United States, in a bid to keep Saddam Hussain guessing, has proposed that UN inspectors adopt a strategy of summoning key Iraqi scientists individually and in groups of as large as 50 to multiple interviews both in and outside Iraq, Bush administration officials said yesterday.

The goal is to get to at least five or six key arms specialists in each of the four categories of Iraq's scrutinised arms programmes - nuclear, chemical and biological weapons and ballistic missiles - to provide detailed evidence to the UN about Baghdad's arsenal.

Discussions between the U.S. and the UN about the plan are ongoing, particularly about how to persuade the scientists to take the multiple risks involved in revealing Iraq's deepest military secrets.

The U.S. says it is seeking to protect the scientists, engineers or technicians from retaliation by confusing Saddam's regime about who or what the UN is after, U.S. officials say.

The Bush administration hopes the scientists will produce enough corroborating information to convince the international community that Iraq is still hiding weapons systems - even if inspectors are unable to verify it in site inspections, administration officials said.

The U.S. has identified more than 500 specialists culled from an estimated 18,000 scientists, engineers and technicians who have worked on Iraq's deadliest weapons over the past two decades, the sources said.

The strategy for interviewing the scientists reflects concern among several senior U.S. officials that a major break appears unlikely within the next three to four months - the preferred U.S. time frame for a denouement for the inspections.

"Now that the Iraqi declaration is in, the scientists will become a hugely important tool," said a senior State Department official who requested anonymity.

The hardest part, officials say, will be getting the first scientist to agree to talk. "We're looking for that one person who will deliver the chicken farm. We're looking for one string to pull so we can begin to unravel the whole thing," the senior State Department official said.

The "chicken farm" refers to the 1995 defection of Saddam's son-in-law, an event that led to the discovery of a chicken farm with several containers full of hidden Iraqi arms documents - the most important discovery in the UN disarmament effort. The son-in-law was later lured back to Iraq and killed.

The U.S.-generated plan underscores a growing awareness that getting Iraqi scientists to talk will be far more difficult than it appears, according to former UN inspectors and Iraqi defectors.

The Iraqi president's regime has such a tight hold on its arms experts that there has not been a single major defection by a top scientist since 1994 or by a top official involved in the arms industry since 1995, according to other Iraqi defectors and former UN arms inspectors.

Many Iraqi specialists would be willing to talk, said Khaidar Hamza, who worked on Iraq's nuclear programme and defected in 1994.

"The majority of scientists don't like the government or the thuggish family turning the country, confiscating property, enriching themselves, restricting movement, threatening their families," Hamza said.

Yet waiting for scientists or engineers to approach the UN teams will be "waiting for the impossible," said David Albright, a former nuclear inspector in Iraq who is now president of the Institute for Science and International Security.

"No one will volunteer due to the fear of consequences," added Martin Indyk, who dealt with Iraqi defectors while on the Clinton administration's National Security Council.

Speed will be essential once scientists are interviewed because Saddam's regime has long had a team in place to move research, clean up development facilities or eliminate evidence after past defections, according to former defectors, former inspectors and former U.S. officials.

Robin Wright

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