Iraqi officer ‘source of dossier 45 minute claim’

AN Iraqi officer said he was the source of the controversial claim in the Government’s Iraq dossier that some weapons of mass destruction could be deployed within 45 minutes, it was reported yesterday.

The officer, identified only as Lieutenant Colonel al-Dabbagh, said he had provided several reports to British intelligence on Saddam Hussein's WMD plans from early 2002.

He said these included details of how frontline units including an air defence unit which he commanded in the western desert had been supplied with cases of WMD warheads towards the end of last year.

The devices, which were said to have been known by Iraqi officers as "the secret weapon", were said to have been made in Iraq and designed to be launched by hand-held rocket-propelled grenades.

"I am the one responsible for providing this information," he was quoted as saying. "Forget 45 minutes, we could have fired these within half-an-hour."

Col al-Dabbagh does not specify whether the warheads contained chemical or biological agents.

He said he believed they had now been hidden at secret locations by Saddam's fedayeen militias still in Iraq.

Downing Street last night refused to comment on the report.

A spokesman said the British Government would urge all those involved to pass on any information they believed they had to the Iraq Survey Group which is conducting the hunt for Saddam's WMD.

Meanwhile, guerrillas blew apart a US Humvee with a roadside bomb in the northern Iraq city of Mosul yesterday, killing one US soldier and wounding two in the latest deadly strike on occupying forces.