American dossier claims Iraq is pursuing weapons of mass destruction

A dossier prepared by the American government claims that Saddam Hussein's regime is hastening its attempts to acquire weapons of mass destruction.

The document lists the United Nations resolutions Iraq has violated since the Gulf War and claims that Iraq is supporting international terrorism.

Like the much trailed report by the think tank, the International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS), published earlier this week, the report is a compilation of information already in the public domain, and is reliant on past UN weapons inspectors' reports and allegations made by Iraqi defectors.

On nuclear weapons, the document says Saddam Hussein has been meeting with his nuclear scientists and repeats the IISS statement thathe could build a nuclear weapon within months if he were able to obtain fissile material. However, the IISS report said that there was no evidence that Iraq had obtained the necessary help to do so.

The dossier repeats a claim, made originally in the New York Times, that in the last 14 months Iraq has sought to buy thousands of specially designed aluminium tubes which officials believe were intended as components of centrifuges to enrich uranium.

On chemical weapons the dossier refers to gaps identified by the United Nations Special Commission in Iraqi accounting, and says that production capabilities strongly suggest that Iraq maintains stockpiles of chemical agents, probably VX, sarin, cyclosarin and mustard. Iraq is also seeking to purchase chemical weapons agent precursors and applicable production equipment, and is trying to hide activities at a production plant used during the Gulf War.

On biological weapons, the dossier says that in 2001, an Iraqi defector, Adnan Ihsan Saeed al-Haideri, said he had visited twenty secret facilities for chemical, biological and nuclear weapons. After the defection of another senior Iraqi official, in 1995, the report notes that Iraq admitted to weaponising thousands of litres of anthrax, botulinum toxin and aflatoxin for use with Scud warheads, aerial bombs and aircraft. The al-Dawrah Foot and Mouth Disease Vaccine Facility, says the report, is admitted by Iraq to be a biological weapons facility. Iraq is also "believed to be developing ballistic missiles with a range greater than 150 kilometres" which is prohibited by UN resolutions.

The report also accuses Iraq of hosting a number of "terrorist organisations" including the MKO, which has carried out attacks in Iran, the Abu Nidal group, and the Palestine Liberation Front.