Baradei says US reports were false

In their low-key way, the two UN chief weapons inspectors once again seriously undermined the credibility of American and British assertions about Iraq's attempts to rebuild an illegal arsenal of weapons of mass destruction.

The most devastating blow yesterday came from Mohamed al-Baradei, the head of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), who asserted that British and US reports about Iraqi attempts to smuggle uranium out of Niger were fake.

"Based on thorough analysis, the IAEA has concluded ... that these documents, which formed the basis for the reports of recent uranium transactions between Iraq and Niger, are in fact not authentic," he told the UN Security Council. "We have, therefore, concluded that these specific allegations are unfounded."

Demolishing another American claim, Mr Baradei said extensive investigations of high-strength aluminium tubes Iraq attempted to purchase had confirmed they were not suitable for a uranium enrichment centrifuge programme. He added, in another contradiction of US assertions, that IAEA experts had concluded that none of Iraq's declared high-strength magnets could be used directly to enrich uranium for nuclear weapons.

For his part, Hans Blix cast doubt on the US intelligence claims that weapons of mass destruction were being moved around Iraq by trucks and that there were mobile production units for biological weapons.

Colin Powell, the US Secretary of State, had made much of the mobile production units, complete with diagrams, during a presentation to the Security Council on 5 February.

Mr Blix noted that the Iraqis had denied any such activities, and said that several inspections had taken place to test whether the mobile laboratories really existed.

But while "food-testing mobile laboratories and mobile workshops" and containers with "seed-processing equipment" had been spotted, Mr Blix said there had been no evidence of any banned activities so far.