Reporters on Ground Get Iraqi Rebuttal to Satellite Photos
"At this ballistic missile site on Nov. 10," Mr. Powell said at the United Nations on Wednesday, "we saw a cargo truck preparing to move ballistic missile components."

To which, Kareem Jabbar Yusuf, the manager of the plant near here, said, "It's all lies."

Thus was crystallized, under the sun in the steadily warming desert, the dynamic in the debate over whether to attack Iraq: American accusations, Iraqi denials and pretty much no way for anyone else to know where the truth lies.

But what is clear is that Iraq is working vigorously to present its version of events, the day before the two chief United Nations weapons inspectors' scheduled treturn to Baghdad for another round of last-minute talks. After devoting two news conferences this week to rebutting Mr. Powell's accusations that Iraq still possesses weapons of mass destruction, officials here escorted dozens of journalists to two sites that he singled out before the Security Council.

Officials took reporters to Al Rafah plant, near Faluja, roughly 50 miles west of Baghdad, to view a new testing stand for Iraqi rockets. Under United Nations resolutions, Iraq is permitted to make rockets with a range of no more than 150 kilometers, or about 93 miles. But Mr. Powell alleged that this new testing stand was designed "for long-range missiles that can fly 1,200 kilometers," or about 745 miles.

"These are missiles that Iraq wants in order to project power, to threaten, and to deliver chemical, biological and, if we let him, nuclear warheads," Mr. Powell charged.

The new and unfinished stand, which rises in steel and concrete roughly 50 feet, is in fact, as Mr. Powell alleged, much larger than the old stand a few hundred yards away, which Iraq has used to test its rockets for more than a decade. The vent for the exhaust, a concrete channel embedded in the desert, is bigger, too, about 36 yards long, according to the plant's director, Ali Jassim.

But, Mr. Jassim said, the explanation is simple. Unlike the old stand, in which rockets are mounted and fired off in a vertical position, the new stand is designed to test the same permitted rockets lying horizontally, and thus the vent must be longer. This design, he said, was safer.

As to whether this new stand could be used for rockets that go farther than 150 kilometers, he said that the inspectors visited here five times and made no complaints. Also, an aluminum roof, which Mr. Powell said was meant to conceal activities from satellites, is actually meant to protect the stand, Mr. Jassim said, "from rain and dust."
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/02/08/international/middleeast/08BAGH.html