SADDAM HUSSEIN had plans to start producing weapons of mass destruction, a new report has revealed.
The Iraq Survey Group (ISG) reported that while no chemical, biological or nuclear weapons, were found in Iraq, the former dictator did have plans to break United Nations sanctions and renew their production.
The head of the American-led survey g
roup, Charles Duelfer, was setting out his findings in his final report to the United States Senate today.
Officials close to the 1500-word report said the document did not describe any specific plan by Iraq to produce WMD. But it did include what they described as "significant new disclosures" about Iraqi efforts to subvert the sanctions and to whittle away international support for them.
The officials said the evidence went well beyond longstanding American accusations that Iraq was seeking to evade the sanctions.
US national security adviser Condoleezza Rice said she would "argue to this day" Saddam had posed a threat.
White House spokesman Scott McClellan said the report would conclude "that Saddam Hussein had the intent and the capability; that he was pursuing an aggressive strategy to bring down the sanctions imposed by the United Nations through illegal financing procurement schemes".
Saddam was importing banned materials, working on unmanned aerial vehicles in violation of UN agreements and maintaining industrial capability that could be used to produce weapons, officials have said.
Secretary of State Colin Powell last week provided what other officials described as a preview of how the White House and other agencies would depict the new report.
He said the report would make "very, very clear" that "what Saddam Hussein was trying to do was to break out of the sanctions" imposed by the United Nations.
"He was trying to break the sanctions for the purpose of going back and developing these kinds of weapons," he said.
The failure to find stockpiles of WMD had been anticipated since the former head of the ISG, David Kay, quit in January.
But the report will be a further blow to Tony Blair, who last week urged the Labour Party to put aside its differences over Iraq and focus on winning a third term in power.
It will be particularly damaging to the Prime Minister because of his reliance on WMD as the justification for going to war. He has already accepted intelligence suggesting Saddam had WMD was wrong.
Speaking last week at the Labour Party conference, Mr Blair accepted the evidence about Saddam having "actual biological and chemical weapons, as opposed to the capability to develop them, has turned out to be wrong".
"I simply point out such evidence was agreed by the whole international community, not least because Saddam had used such weapons against his own people and neighbouring countries," he said.
"And the problem is, I can apologise for the information that turned out to be wrong, but I can’t, sincerely at least, apologise for removing Saddam. The world is a better place with Saddam in prison not in power."
Shadow defence secretary Nicholas Soames said it would be "no great surprise" if the ISG reported that no evidence of chemical, biological or nuclear weapons had been found.
And on Tory leader Michael Howard’s accusation that Mr Blair did not tell the truth over the case for war, Mr Soames said: "It does matter that the Prime Minister quite clearly was less than frank is the politest way of possibly putting it."
Mr Soames defended the appointment of John Scarlett, the former chairman of the Joint Intelligence Committee, to head MI6.
"I am not so cynical that I believe John Scarlett would have been appointed unless it was quite clear that he was the right man for the job."
The full article contains 633 words and appears in Edinburgh Evening News newspaper.
