Doubts over recent arms programme

The long-awaited dossier on the threat posed by Iraq, to be released by the British government on Tuesday, is expected to provide new evidence of Iraq's efforts to acquire destructive weaponry - but it is unlikely to provide much new information about what Saddam Hussein's weapons makers have achieved recently.

From 1991 to 1998, weapons inspectors built exhaustive dossiers on Iraq's efforts to build nuclear, biological and chemical weapons, together with the missiles to deliver them. The inspectors established the seriousness of Iraqi intentions to obtain such weapons, and its success in building biological and chemical arms.

When inspectors left the country in late 1998, they harboured doubts that Iraq's entire stockpile of chemical and biological weapons had been found. Significant amounts of materials were unaccounted for, and the manufacturing plants were small and easy to hide.

The inspectors were more certain they had got rid of most of Iraq's missile programme. This month's report from the International Institute for Strategic Studies suggested Iraq could probably assemble a small number of Al-Hussein missiles with a 650km range - sufficient to hit Israel - and a few with shorter range.

The inspectors reported that most infrastructure to build nuclear weapons had been dismantled, but the know-how and expertise required to restart a weapons programme was still in the country, and the time taken to build a weapon could be shortened considerably if Iraq could buy or steal fissile material from abroad.

Since 1998, uncertainty has grown. Satellites have shown activity at some sites used in the past for its weapons programmes - for example, the Al-Qaim phosphate plant and uranium extraction facility in north-west Iraq - but, in the absence of inspections, it has not been possible to say what this activity indicates.

Intelligence agencies have also uncovered evidence of Iraqi networks to obtain weapons technology and materials. Iraq has set up procurement networks in the eastern bloc and the former Soviet Union similar to those it had built up in western countries in the 1980s. Indeed procurement is the area where the UK document is likely to shed the most new light.