Alarm over cargo ships tracked by intelligence

Ministers will face questions in Parliament next week over fears that Saddam Hussein could be evading United Nations inspections by hiding chemical and biological weapons on the high seas.

Security experts and senior MPs expressed alarm last night at the prospect that three giant cargo ships are being tracked by Western intelligence agencies because they could be carrying deadly Iraqi weapons.

In response to a report in The Independent yesterday, the Government will also be questioned over Britain's defence against illegal maritime trafficking in arms, people and drugs. Shipping industry sources said the three vessels set sail three months ago, spending much of their time in the Indian Ocean.

John Eldridge, the editor of Jane's Nuclear, Biological and Chemical Defence, said he was not surprised President Saddam might have decided to hide his illicit weapons at sea. He said: "It seems an extremely elegant scheme with a view to hiding these things until the heat is off."

Mr Eldridge said the Iraqi regime could easily have smuggled out the weapons in sealed containers through neighbouring countries. He said: "There's no way you could detect what they were without boarding the ship.

"Saddam never ceases to surprise the West with some of his off-the-wall actions."

Stuart Syrad, a maritime security consultant and former senior officer with the Special Boat Service, agreed the report was credible. "It's such a simple answer for Iraq to put the stuff at sea so that inspectors don't have the opportunity of looking at it – it's just taken a while for people to work that one out."

Mr Eldridge said an alternative "al-Qa'ida navy", thought to number some 20 ships, which are suspected of supplying arms and explosives to terrorist groups, was already being monitored.

"There's a great unholy alliance between these organisations because gun-running is big business," he said.

Paul Keetch, the Liberal Democrat defence spokesman, pledged to pursue the issue with ministers when the Commons returned next week.

"The report in The Independent demonstrates that the seas are still a potential threat," he said.

"The fact that Iraqi shipping would appear not to be properly monitored is very worrying. We have had forces surrounding Iraq since the last Gulf War. This demonstrates once again the danger of letting our eye go off the ball."

He said Britain's status as an island nation made it particularly vulnerable to threats from international shipping.

Bernard Jenkin, the shadow Defence Secretary, said: "This is completely consistent with Saddam's defiance of the international inspectors. He is hiding weapons of mass destruction."

The Labour MP Kevan Jones, who sits on the Commons Defence Select Committee, said members would discuss the revelation at their next meeting. It was also likely to be raised next week when they privately met Geoff Hoon, the Secretary of State for Defence. He said: "This is worrying. It just demonstrates the possibility that the weapons Saddam clearly has are being transported."

David Cockroft, the general secretary of the International Transport Workers' Federation, said he had no knowledge of any vessels carrying Iraqi weapons. But he warned that smuggling of weapons, drugs and people by sea was rife, with unscrupulous ship owners operating under flags of convenience.

Reports from Washington in December indicated that up to 15 ships were being operated by al-Qa'ida.

But Mr Cockroft warned that intelligence services did not know where ships were or what were their destinations.

He said: "Everybody knows it is normal to be able to buy a qualification certificate for a ship's officer from the right people."

The three giant cargo ships left port in late November, a few days after UN weapons inspectors began their search for the alleged Iraqi arsenal of weapons of mass destruction.