Warning to Congress over 'nuclear' Iraq
Saddam Hussein will have the capability for making three nuclear bombs by 2005, a former Iraqi engineer has told US senators.
Khidir Hamza, who played a key role in Iraq's fledgling nuclear weapons programme before defecting in 1994, sounded the warning as Congress launched hearings on the build-up to an expected US- led attack on Saddam's regime.
Citing German intelligence, he said the Iraqi leader was likely to have enough weapons-grade uranium to make the bombs in three years.
He also claimed Iraq was using companies based in India to import the equipment it needed for making bombs, channeling it through countries such as Malaysia.
Mr Hamza, who now works for a New York-based think-tank, claimed Saddam was also making progress in chemical and biological weapons programmes .
He added that Baghdad was "gearing up to extend the range of its missiles to easily reach Israel". The evidence, largely backed up by former UN chief weapons inspector Richard Butler, came amid calls for caution in the US where speculation about an attack is intense.
Some reports have claimed that any assault will be put off until after November's mid-term elections for Congress, while others suggest that President Bush has abandoned plans for a large-scale invasion of Iraq.
Instead, a force of fewer than 80,000 troops would stage a lightning assault on Baghdad and other key command centres.
Mr Hamza's evidence will boost the "hawkish" advisers to President Bush while alarming Labour MPs in Britain who fear Tony Blair will support any US action without seeking to obtain a fresh mandate from the United Nations.
Their warnings on military action have, in turn, been reinforced by today's National Audit Office report detailing a catalogue of disasters suffered by British troops in last year's huge £90million desert warfare exercise, Saif Sareea, in Oman.
Mr Blair has consistently promised to publish a dossier of evidence of Saddam's weapons build-up but has so far produced nothing. Mr Hamza's evidence is likely to form a key part of any document eventually released by the government.
