Press Association
Saddam Hussein could assemble a nuclear weapon "in a matter of months" if he managed to buy or steal raw materials from outside Iraq, a defence analyst warned today.
Dr John Chipman, the author of a new document on Saddam's capabilities being published by the International Institute for Strategic Studies, said Saddam had been working hard on his nuclear capacity.
He told BBC Radio 4's Today programme: "We certainly confirm that it would be difficult for him in the absence of substantial foreign assistance or the lifting of sanctions soon to be able to develop his own fissile material.
"He is attempting to build gas centrifuge machines that would be able to make fissile material, but he hasn't yet been able, we feel, to develop the feed material for that.
"However, were he able to obtain fissile material from abroad, steal it or buy it in some way, we certainly believe he has the ability to put together a nuclear weapon very quickly, in a matter of months."
Dr Chipman also cautioned that the Iraqi leader had a limited missile capacity to deliver such a weapon.
"Certainly we believe he has retained a small force of 650-kilometre range ballistic missiles. Those could hit Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Israel, Iran, Turkey.
"I think it would take a little bit of time once he had got his fissile material and put together the physics package, so to speak, to be able to arm a warhead on a ballistic missile.
"So until that time, he would have to deliver them from a plane or through some other terrorist (route)."
Earlier Terry Taylor, Washington director of the IISS, said Iraq was a threat to the world.
"I have no doubt that Saddam Hussein's regime has nuclear, biological and chemical weapons programmes and missile programmes which they are advancing and are a threat to the region and a threat to the world," he told GMTV.
"That has to be dealt with properly."
