We tested illegal missile, Baghdad tells inspectors

Iraq has admitted to testing a missile with a range that violates international weapons regulations. Thirteen test flights of the Al-Samoud ground-to-air missile, which uses imported components, had exceeded the UN-set limit of 150km (90 miles), the chief UN weapons inspector, Hans Blix, told the Security Council.

The greatest range achieved in the tests was 183km. Mr Blix, who briefed the council on Thursday on progress in finding banned weaponry, said the inspectors had ordered Iraq to suspend development of the missile.

Iraq was barred from developing missiles with a range of more than 150km after its 1990 invasion of Kuwait. Mr Blix told the 15-member council that Iraq's 12,000-page "full, final and complete declaration" on its weapons of mass destruction had little new information.

The revelation about the Al-Samoud missile was contained in a separate Iraqi report to the inspectors. There was speculation yesterday that Baghdad might have volunteered the information to pre-empt a challenge from the Americans, whose intelligence might have detected the tests.

Mr Blix criticised the US for failing to provide quality intelligence that would prove the US and British claims that Iraq was still concealing its weapons of mass destruction.

Although Washington has provided some tips to the inspectors, "they've not said 'Look behind this person's back shed'", one UN insider said. Another said: "They need locations, they need persons, they need a detailed picture of what's on the ground."

The Russian ambassador to the UN, Sergei Lavrov, challenged Britain and US to, in effect, "put up or shut up" by substantiating claims of "ironclad evidence" of Iraqi cheating. "There was no reply from either the British or the Americans," one diplomat said.

The hawks in the Bush administration fear that entrusting such sensitive information to UN inspectors might compromise sources, a European diplomat said. The withholding of the intelligence underscores the deep-seated distrust of the UN in Washington. The Bush administration may want to provide incontrovertible proof at a later date to ensure it keeps control of the countdown to war, rather than surrendering it to the UN; or it may not have any such proof.

The US issued a fact-sheet yesterday detailing what it considers to be glaring omissions in Iraq's declaration of 7 December that was meant to lay bare all of its weapons of mass destruction. The American document identifies the West African nation of Niger as the source of uranium allegedly imported by Iraq to feed what London and Washington assert is a clandestine nuclear weapons programme.

Speculation about the source of uranium imported by Iraq was first unleashed by Britain when it published a lengthy dossier of alleged Iraqi weapons activities two months ago. The UK report said the material had emanated from Africa but did not say where.

Niger is said to have produced 3,098 tons of uranium in 2001, but the material was not of weapons-grade quality and would have required processing. Other African nations that mine uranium are Namibia, South Africa and Gabon.

Even as the US was pointing the finger at Niger, inspectors from the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) returned for the seventh time yesterday to a site in Iraq that is known to have been the centre of its nuclear weapons efforts in the past. The facility is at Al-Tuwaitha, about 18 miles south-east of Baghdad.

In his preliminary report to the council on Thursday, the head of the IAEA, Mohammed al-Baradei, said his inspectors had not found any evidence of a nuclear weapons programme in Iraq but that they needed more time to complete the search.