Times
In the most comprehensive assessment to date of Saddam Hussein's nuclear,biological and chemical arsenal, the International Institute for Strategic Studies warns that Iraq may be one step away from building a nuclear bomb.
It has examined every scrap of evidence in the public domain. Paul Beaver, of Jane's Defence Weekly, describes its findings as the best document available. Yet it does not contain a new "killer fact". Nevertheless, the report lends itself easily to alarm and, overall, to the case for attack, favouring the stance of Bush and Blair.
In the choice of a single soundbite -"nuclear wildcard" -the analysis will have won itself apocalyptic headlines, although it does also soberly make clear just how unlikely is this "wildcard". The report may even prove to be more influential than Blair's "dossier", when that appears, because of the IISS's high reputation for military analysis and its non-political stance.
All the same, the most surprising point of the report is the bottom line: Saddam's weapons capability is broadly the same as in 1991, or, if anything, further back. The 1991 War, the UN inspections and then sanctions have "reversed and retarded" every part of his weapons programme.
In particular, his nuclear capability and missiles have stalled or shrunk, the IISS says. The greatest immediate threat comes from biological weapons, it surmises, although they are hardest to detect. The threat from chemical weapons is real, but limited.
Asked whether the IISS has any evidence of any new Iraqi activity in the past year to justify a new sense of urgency in attacking Saddam, the authors of the report say bluntly "no". If there is new urgency, it is in his intentions, not his present capabilities.
So for those who oppose war, and even more for those who back a new bid to restart UN inspections, the report will seem like vindication. But although politically neutral, this is not a report that offers much room for complacency, hence the likelihood that it most helps those who favour attack. The menace Saddam presents derives as much from intentions as capability, the IISS argues. Although containment has worked so far, we should assume that it would fail.
The IISS is straightforward about the limits of its information. The analysis is essentially an extrapolation from the last findings of the UN inspectors when they were blocked in December 1998. But it has augmented this with interviews with many of the inspectors themselves, and with declassified Pentagon material, "of which there is a great deal", the authors say.
The technical analysis, first written by those with direct experience of Iraq's programme, has been bounced off others in the field; where there were disagreements, they have been recorded.
The report is, in short, the best compilation so far publicly available of information that is not top secret but nonetheless derived from experience on the ground.
Much of the attention, inevitably, will be on the nuclear section -and inevitably, the conclusions may be misinterpreted or misappropriated. Of all Iraq's weapons ambitions, the nuclear domain is where analysts are most confident, the IISS argues, because imports and sites are most easily detected.
The IISS's main conclusion is that Saddam is several years away from being able to produce highly enriched uranium needed for a nuclear weapon -and even that would depend on being able to get considerable foreign help.
In making a nuclear bomb, making the highly enriched uranium (or plutonium) is by far the hardest step. Making a bomb itself is not trivial, requiring precise tooling of the ordinary explosive charges that compress the nuclear material to the point where it will sustain a chain reaction. But the principle is hardly a secret, having changed little since 1945.
So the IISS tells us that Saddam's nuclear capability is exactly where it was at the end of the 1991 war, or even behind.
Of course, his ambitions have not faded, we know that. This weekend brought reports that Iraq has been trying to import aluminium tubes that could be used to make a centrifuge to enrich uranium.
Centrifuges are the most efficient way to enrich uranium. The reports suggest that Saddam has now settled on them as his preferred means, compared to 1991, when he was trying all three main methods at once. But this focus alone does not suggest a radical leap forward.
There is, of course, the IISS's "wildcard". This is the risk that Saddam might persuade someone to sell him uranium already enriched to weapons grade. Then he could have a nuclear bomb within months, the IISS says. Well, sure. Inspectors from the UN and IAEA (the civil nuclear watchdog), poring over Iraqi plants in 1991, said the same.
But however much this phrase grabs attention, we should bequite clear just how high a hurdle it represents. It is only a small step short of saying "if someone gave him a nuclear bomb, then he'd have a nuclear bomb". However, it is fair to say that since 1991 stockpiles of enriched uranium have become harder to control, particularly in the former Soviet Union.
What of other weapons? Biological is most worrying, the IISS says, but solid information is hard to get. "In theory", Iraq could have produced enough to cause mass casualties it says (by "mass" it means deaths in the hundreds or thousands, not greater). In practice "the magnitude of the threat depends on its delivery capability, which appears limited", the IISS says.
Iraq's chemical weapons capability "is better known and less threatening" than the biological, the IISS says. Almost certainly, it is far behind 1991, although it would be a threat to attacking troops. Iraq's missile capabilities are also "very modest compared to...1991", the IISS says. Yes, they pose a threat to Turkey and Israel. But many of the locations are known and would be the first target of an attack, although the West could not count on smashing every one.
This report will make no one sleep more easily, although it does give the decade-long attempt to contain Saddam more credit than critics do. It also argues that containment is imperfect and will eventually fail.
Bush and Blair could no doubt use this document to make a case for war, but they would have to lean hard on the menace posed by Saddam's intentions, rather than by his present capabilities.
