BBC News
Downing Street has described a report by an independent think-tank on Iraq's military threat as highly significant and a very serious piece of work.
The International Institute of Strategic Studies - the IISS - has, in effect produced a dossier using all the available information on Saddam Hussein's nuclear, biological, and chemical weapons capabilities, and his ability to deliver such weapons against his enemies.
The assessment -- by the International Institute for Strategic Studies -- also claims Iraq could build a nuclear bomb within months, if it could acquire enough raw materials from abroad. But one of the report's authors, Dr Dennis Gormley, tells us that he's more concerned by Baghdad's stockpile of biological weapons.
It's not yet clear how much more information might be made available in the official US-UK dossier, to be released in the not too distant future. But the shape of Mr Blair's approach is becoming clearer: he believes that the United Nations has to be given the chance to impose its authority over Iraq with a resolution which Saddam Hussein cannot ignore.
If members could be persuaded to agree, it would basically demand that Iraq accept total capitulation to the will of the international community, or face the consequences.
The former chief UN inspector in Iraq - Rolf Ekeus - has proposed one way for the UN to deliver: a regime of what he calls "coercive inspections" - weapons inspections backed by military force. But Donald Anderson, chair of the Commons Foreign Affairs committee, believes the idea of coercive inspections would just lead to full war.
