Blair to plead for cabinet unity as Short breaks ranks on Iraq strikes

Tony Blair will appeal for cabinet unity today over Iraq as he presents his senior ministers with a dossier of evidence that Saddam Hussein is building up his arsenal of chemical and biological weapons.

Clare Short, the Secretary of State for International Development, became the second cabinet minister yesterday to make public their fears that Britain is being dragged into US-led strikes on Baghdad.

Robin Cook, the Leader of the Commons, has already stepped out of line by suggesting the United Nations could have a veto on military action in Iraq.

But Mr Blair will take a robust line in this afternoon's special cabinet meeting called to discuss the deepening Iraq crisis. Members will debate a 55-page dossier, Iraq and Weapons of Mass Destruction, to be presented to MPs before tomorrow's emergency recall of Parliament.

The Prime Minister will insist that ministers present a united front in public discussion of Iraq. A senior Whitehall source said: "He [Tony Blair] believes very firmly that everyone has to be pulling in the same direction."

The dossier is unlikely to include a "smoking gun" – evidence that Saddam Hussein has achieved nuclear capability or which firmly links Iraq to the al-Qa'ida network. But it will contain claims that his regime has attempted to rebuild its arsenal, including ballistic missiles, in the four years since the UN weapons inspectors left the country.

It will say that Iraq has spent billions of pounds on defence since then, including the stockpiling of biological and chemical weapons. To underline the point, the dossier will contain photographs of injuries inflicted on civilians by Iraqi forces in Iran and Saudi Arabia. In addition, the dossier will assert that Saddam has sought to acquire a nuclear capability.

Saddam is also understood to have hidden rocket launchers, and Russian-built short-range missiles that could reach Israel. Some British officials fear they could be easily adapted to carry nuclear missiles were Iraq to develop them.

Iraq is also believed to have several unmanned "drone" planes and the dossier is expected to allege that Iraqi agents hid their activities behind front companies in other states, paying for weapons with illegal oil transactions.

A Downing Street spokesman refused to be drawn on the dossier's contents. But he said: "It will be a sober and serious assessment of the threat."

Ms Short, interviewed on GMTV, confirmed that the widespread fears in Labour ranks over military action in Iraq extended to the Cabinet.

She said: "We cannot have another Gulf war. We cannot have the people of Iraq suffering again. They have suffered too much. That would be wrong. We have to find a way of enforcing, quite rightly, UN resolutions. Saddam Hussein should be frightened, and the élite around him. We should frighten them. We should be ready to impose the will of the United Nations on them if they don't co-operate but not by hurting the people of Iraq. Each one of them is as precious as the 3,000 people in the twin towers. We can't sacrifice them to putting it right."

Striking a very different tone, John Reid, the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland, said: "As far as the people of Iraq are concerned, our forces have been risking their lives for 11 years to protect the people of Iraq from their biggest threat who is Saddam Hussein."