Iraq improving weapons systems, warns US

Iraq’s pursuit of chemical and biological weapons threatens to become a serious problem, US Defence Secretary Donald H Rumsfeld has said.

Without monitoring by UN weapons inspectors, the Iraqis have been ‘‘working diligently to increase their capabilities in every aspect of weapons of mass destruction and ballistic missile technology,’’ he said.

‘‘And as they get somewhat stronger, the problem becomes some greater.’’

A CIA report delivered to Congress on Friday described the efforts of other countries to obtain weapons of mass destruction.

Iraq may again be producing biological warfare agents, the report said, although confirming that is difficult given the inspectors’ absence.

‘‘That problem, particularly biological weapons, over the coming decade is going to be an increasingly serious one,’’ Rumsfeld said.

‘‘It will have to be attacked from a whole range of methods,’’ including bombing. ‘‘Some of them are mobile. They can move them; they’re in vans. So it is not a simple thing. But it’ll have to be dealt with using a variety of techniques.’’

He commented a few hours before British and US planes attacked missile sites in southern Iraq as part of a pattern the Pentagon says is in response to recent Iraqi hostile threats against aircraft monitoring the so-called no-fly zone established over southern Iraq after the Persian Gulf War.

An announcement from the US Central Command in Florida, which oversees US military activity in southern Iraq, said the attacks were on two or more surface-to-air sites, but gave no further details.

A Pentagon spokesman said he had no further details, but had no reason to think the action was out of the ordinary. The most recent attacks were last Tuesday and the previous Friday, August 31.

Iraq often claims civilian injuries or deaths have occurred because of US attacks, but made no such assertions about Sunday’s activity.

The CIA report also said Iraq was working on an unmanned drone, called the L-29, that could deliver biological or chemical weapons.

Rumsfeld said other nations continue to trade with Iraq, allowing Saddam Hussein to improve his military technology and increasing the risk to US and British planes enforcing two ‘‘no-fly zones’’ over Iraq.

‘‘Then United States and the UK are forced to go in and take out those capabilities,’’ Rumsfeld said.