Saddam Hussein could be only "months" away from launching a nuclear bomb, a shocking report on Iraq's military capabilities reveals.
The Iraqi leader possesses almost all the technology needed to build his own A-bomb and join the super-league of nuclear powers, said the respected International Institute of Strategic Studies.
All he needs is weapons grade nuclear material - which he could feasibly buy on the international black market or be given by a friendly foreign power, it warned. This week's report is the most comprehensive study yet of Saddam's secret programme to arm himself with nuclear, chemical and biological weapons.
It comes as Tony Blair and George Bush step up the international effort to persuade the world that Saddam must be stopped even if it means war.
Mr Blair, who held talks with President Bush over the weekend, is making clear that Britain and America will go into action alone if other countries refuse to support them. Tomorrow he will confront his own critics in the Labour Party and the unions head-on in a speech to the TUC, where he will argue that action to contain Saddam cannot be ducked.
Last night, in a further sign of war preparations, US aircraft bombarded an Iraqi anti-ship missile battery near Basra. The action removed a potential threat to ships carrying troops and tanks to the area.
The report by the London-based IISS will be seized on as the most compelling evidence yet that Saddam is guilty of breaching-UN resolutions and acquiring weapons of mass destruction. The organisation is one of the world's most authoritative analysts of military capabilities.
Called Iraq's Weapons of Mass Destruction - A Net Assessment, the report contains 100 pages of detailed analysis of Saddam's likely capability to use chemical, biological and nuclear devices.
It concludes that Saddam already possesses stockpiles of biological and chemical weapons, including thousands of litres of anthrax, hundreds of tonnes of mustard gas, "a few hundred tonnes" of deadly sarin nerve gas and VX agent and, crucially, the means to produce more. Saddam probably has a dozen al-Hussein missiles with a 400-mile range, capable of firing a warhead of toxic gas or lethal virus at Israel, hidden after the 1991 Gulf War. He also possesses shorter range al-Samoud and Scud missiles which could be used to bombard a US and British invasion force with chemical and biological weapons. In addition, he could attack western cities with CBW using special forces or terrorist squads.
The IISS, an independent body, dismisses some of the most alarming claims about Saddam's military capabilities. Suggestions that he could strike directly at Britain with long-range weapons of mass destruction, strongly implied by Mr Blair over the weekend, are rejected.
But it is what the IISS calls "the nuclear wildcard" - the terrifying possibility that Saddam could boast a nuclear bomb capable of razing an entire city - that will most alarm western leaders.
Although the authors confirm that Saddam's main nuclear programme was eradicated by the 1991 bombings and later UN inspections, it adds: "Against this scenario, however, there is a nuclear wildcard. If, somehow, Iraq were able to acquire sufficient nuclear material from foreign sources, it could probably produce nuclear weapons on short order, perhaps in a matter of months.
"While Iraqi acquisition of fissile material on the black market is not a high probability, it has to be seen as a real risk that could dramatically and quickly shift the balance of power."
The disclosure comes a day after US vice president Dick Cheney revealed that Saddam has been secretly attempting to buy aluminium tubes used to produce weapons grade fissile material.
Saddam would need to obtain either highly enriched uranium or separated plutonium. Both were being produced in Iraqi factories destroyed in 1991 and, but for the Allied bombings, would have been producing enough for two nuclear bombs a year since the mid-Nineties.
"Nonetheless, Iraq salvaged its most vital nuclear assets: knowledge and personnel," states the report. "Most likely, some level of nuclear weapons-related research and development continued during the UN inspections regime, plausibly resulting in the design, testing and fabrication of key components for a small number of nuclear weapons, minus the essential fissile material."
The report says it is unlikely that Saddam could produce his own fissile material without detection. It also describes his long-range missile capability as "very modest" but says short-range chemical and biological weapons could be deployed against neighbouring countries or invading troops.
If an invasion was launched, Allied Forces would be protected from mass casualties by protective suits and air cover.
It speculates that, if attacked, Saddam would fire al-Hussein missiles with chemical or biological warheads at Israel in the hope of provoking an Israel-Arab conflagration and warns: "Some could get through. With nothing to lose, Baghdad may also seek to mount CBW - chemical and biological weapons attacks with special forces and sympathetic terrorist groups in the US and allied countries."
The report concludes all the evidence shows Saddam has retained weapons of mass destruction since 1991, in breach of UN resolutions, and is developing more powerful ones.
The IISS says the West has a massive dilemma when deciding whether to disarm Saddam by force or by diplomacy. It says: "Wait and the threat will grow. Strike and the threat may be used."
