Iraq 'close to Nuclear Bomb Goal'

Saddam Hussein will have enough weapons-grade uranium for three nuclear bombs by 2005, a former Iraqi nuclear engineer told senators yesterday, as the US Congress held hearings on whether to go to war.

Launching what it called a "national discussion" amid frequent reports that the Bush administration is honing its plans for an assault on Iraq, the Senate foreign relations committee was also warned by an expert on the Iraqi military not to underestimate the strength of Saddam's army and air defences and not to doubt that any invasion would require overwhelming force.

A succession of expert witnesses at the high-profile hearings argued that the danger posed by Saddam to the US and the rest of the world was constantly increasing as the Iraqi dictator attempted to build chemical, biological and nuclear weapons.

Khidir Hamza, who played a leading role in Iraq's nuclear weapon programme before defecting in 1994, cited German intelligence in saying: "With more than 10 tonnes of uranium and one tonne of slightly enriched uranium...in its possession, Iraq has enough to generate the needed bomb-grade uranium for three nuclear weapons by 2005."

He also claimed: "Iraq is using corporations in India and other countries to import the needed equipment for its programme and channel it through countries like Malaysia for shipment to Iraq."

Mr Hamza, who now works for a New York thinktank, said that the chemical and biological weapons programmes were making strides and Baghdad was "gearing up to extend the range of its missiles to easily reach Israel".

His pessimistic assessment was echoed by other witnesses, including the former UN chief weapons inspector, Richard Butler.

However, experts with dissenting views, such as Scott Ritter, another former UN inspector, had not been invited.

There were also calls for caution as the media reported that the Bush administration might be considering a lightning assault on Baghdad and other command centres using fewer than 80,000 troops.

Anthony Cordesman, a senior analyst at the Centre for Strategic and International Studies in Washington and the author of a new assessment of Iraqi military strength, had bitter criticism for hawks in the administration who portrayed the 400,000-strong Iraqi army as an easy opponent.

"Iraq might be a far easier opponent than its force strengths indicate," he said, "but it is also potentially a very serious military opponent indeed, and to be perfectly blunt, I think only fools would bet the lives of other men's sons and daughters on their own arrogance and call this force a 'cakewalk' or a 'speed-bump'."

He said that though regular army units had less than 70% manning levels, Iraq still had 2,200 battle tanks, 3,700 other armoured vehicles and 2,400 major artillery weapons.

He also warned that US warplanes attacking Iraqi cities would fly into a blizzard of anti-aircraft fire from "one of the most dense air defence networks around urban and populated areas in the world".

The US defence secretary, Donald Rumsfeld, continued to insist yesterday that no final decision had been taken, but made it clear that he believed that other initiatives, such as renewed UN weapons inspections, would not work because Iraq would not agree to a "thoroughly intrusive inspection regime".

At talks in Vienna last month, the Iraqi government and the UN failed to agree on terms for the return of inspectors, and Baghdad has since maintained a defiant stand.

Mr Rumsfeld also said air power alone was unlikely to be enough to destroy Iraq's chemical and biological weapons programmes as many sites were hidden and mobile biological warfare laboratories were being used.

Congress has grown uneasy with the slide towards war. On Tuesday, two Democrat senators, Dianne Feinstein of California and Patrick Leahy of Vermont, introduced a resolution opposing the use of force against Iraq without congressional authorisation or a formal declaration of war.

Chairing yesterday's committee hearings, Senator Joseph Biden urged the Bush administration to put more thought into how to deal with the aftermath of Saddam's fall if a military operation were successful. "If we participate in Saddam's departure, what are our responsibilities the day after?" he said.