Ousting Saddam could spread weapons warn analysts

Toppling Saddam Hussein could send his weapons tumbling into rogue hands and make it even harder to combat global terrorism, analysts warned today.

Far from making progress in the “war on terror”, an invasion of Iraq could give hostile forces an opportunity amid the confusion to steal Saddam’s weapons for themselves and move them out of the country.

They could exploit the vacuum created by any invading force, which would only slowly seize control of the country, said experts at the Washington think tank the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.

Analyst Joseph Cirincione told New Scientist magazine that many of Saddam’s hiding places for weapons would not be known and could not be secured.

There were plenty of customers for weapons in the region and there might be more willingness to use them in terrorist attacks after a foreign invasion of Iraq.

Mr Cirincione said: “What would these people do after a regime change? Wait around to be taken prisoner?”

They could use weapons on invading forces but he believes it more likely they would be smuggled out of the country through suddenly uncontrolled borders.

He told the magazine: “A major biological attack on Tel Aviv could provoke a nuclear response from Israel. That would open the gates of hell.”

Mr Cirincione is working on a detailed proposal for “coercive” inspections by UN weapons teams who could call on armed back-up, without recourse to the UN, in the face of non-cooperation.

Iraq earlier this week told the UN it would “unconditionally” accept the return of weapons inspectors, barred since 1998 from the country.