Washington: The United States on January 9 said it is providing United Nations (UN) inspectors "significant" intelligence on Iraqi weapons programmes to enable them to become more "aggressive" and to be more comprehensive in their work.

The Bush administration, however, is still holding back some of its most sensitive information, waiting to see if inspectors "are able to handle it and exploit it... It is not a matter of opening up every door that we have," US Secretary of State Colin Powell told the 'Washington Post' in an interview.

He said the US has provided UNMOVIC (UN Monitoring, Verification and Inspection Commission) and the IAEA (International Atomic Energy Agency) with an outline of how to carry out sensitive interviews with Iraqi weapons scientists and technicians outside the country.

"I don't know that it is all glued together yet, but I know that the inspectors know there are ways to do tilt," he said.

"There is reluctance on the Iraqis' part. There is concern about where the scientists go, where they get resettled to, what papers can they get, what documents, what status are they in when they leave their country, who should come with them," Powell said.

Powell declined to provide specifics on what intelligence the US government was turning over to the inspectors, but said "we want to flood this up" with information that would help inspectors do their job.

"The means by which we get this information," he stressed, "is so sensitive, and if it is not handled properly or exploited in the right way, we will lose that channel."

PTI