Allies 'close to breakthrough' in hunt for Saddam weapons

An adviser to the CIA has hinted that US and coalition staff were close to a breakthrough in the search for weapons of mass destruction in Iraq.

David Kay, the agency’s special adviser for the weapons search, said yesterday “solid progress” was being made and that Iraqi scientists involved in the weapons programmes were ”collaborating and co-operating”. He also said searchers were using documents from Saddam Hussein’s regime.

“The American people should not be surprised by surprises,” Kay said, echoing a remark made moments earlier by Senator Pat Roberts, chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee.

Kay spoke after he and Major General Keith Dayton, head of the Pentagon search team, gave a closed-door briefing to the Senate Armed Services Committee. He and Dayton were due to meet the intelligence panel last night, also in a closed session.

Kay, a former chief weapons inspector for the United Nations, said new evidence had been uncovered about how the Iraqis misled United Nations inspectors.

“The active deception programme is truly amazing once you get inside it,” he said. “We have people who participated in deceiving UN inspectors now telling us how they did it.”

The weapons of mass destruction were the Bush administration’s main argument for the war in Iraq, but none has been recovered. Questions have been raised about the quality of the pre-war intelligence and whether it was manipulated to help make the case for war.

The questions have grown with the administration’s acknowledgement that a reference in President Bush’s State of the Union speech on Iraqi efforts to acquire uranium from Africa was based on discredited intelligence.

Kay, Roberts and Armed Services Chairman John Warner, all urged patience in the search.

“We are determined to take this apart and every day I must say we are surprised by new advances that we are making,” Kay said.

He said details about the search would not be released until three criteria were met: “multiple Iraqis” who are willing to talk about the weapons programme; several documents are uncovered about the weapons; and physical evidence of the programme is obtained.

“We do not want to go forward with partial information that we have to retract afterwards,” he said.

“We’re building a solid case that will stand, and we welcome international scrutiny of that case after we have the evidence assembled.”

The Senate Intelligence Committee's top Democrat, Senator Jay Rockefeller, expressed concern that the searches were being diverted away from finding actual weapons.

“Signs of a weapons programme are very different than the stockpiles of biological and chemical weapons that were a certainty before the war,” Rockefeller said.

“We did not go to war to disrupt Saddam’s weapons programme, we went to disarm him.”

“It’s looking more and more like a case of mass deception,” Senator Edward Kennedy said after Kay briefed the Senate Armed Services Committee. “There was no imminent danger, and we should never have gone to war.”

The concerns surfaced as the Bush administration approved payment of $30m (€26m) to the informant who helped troops find Saddam’s two sons, the largest reward made under a US programme.

“It’s actually for services rendered,” State Department spokesman Richard Boucher said. “It’s a lump sum payment of 30 million.”

The informant’s tip led to the death of Uday and Qusay Hussein in a firefight on July 22 in a villa in Mosul in northern Iraq. For his protection the tipster was not identified by the government.

“We’re being very careful about the individual’s identity in every possible way,” Boucher said.

Secretary of State Colin Powell gave final approval to the award of $15m (€13m) each for the sons.

Boucher said the informant had provided the critical piece of information that led to the brothers and “took a risk in what is a very important development.”

The reward offered for Saddam is $25m (€22m), and Boucher urged anyone who knew where he was to turn him in.

Neighbours of Sheik Nawaf al-Zaydan Muhhamad, an Iraqi with ties to Saddam, have said he tipped off coalition forces that Uday and Qusay were staying with him and his family. They said they became suspicious when his wife and their four daughters left the house early on the morning of the shootings and did not return.