WASHINGTON, Sept 17: A draft report by the top US weapons inspector in Iraq offers a detailed examination of Saddam Hussein's intentions to produce chemical, biological and nuclear weapons , but no evidence stockpiles existed at the time of the US invasion, a US official said on Friday.

The 1,500-page report, by Charles Duelfer, offers the most complex picture yet of Iraq's weapons of mass destruction programme, the official said in confirming a New York Times story that said the report concluded Saddam intended to resume production of the weapons if UN sanctions were removed.

A CIA spokesman declined to comment on the Duelfer report, saying it was not yet completed. Charles Duelfer had said he would focus on the Iraqi government's intentions when he took over the weapons hunt from David Kay, who concluded in an interim report last year there was no evidence Iraq had stockpiles of chemical or biological weapons at the time of the US invasion.

The Times said documents signed by senior leaders and debriefings of former Iraqi scientists and other officials were used to support the judgment that Iraq intended to produce chemical, biological and nuclear weapons if UN sanctions were weakened or lifted.

The most specific evidence of an illicit weapons programme has been uncovered in secret laboratories operated by the Iraqi intelligence services, which could produce small quantities of lethal chemical and biological agents, though probably for use in assassinations, not for mass destruction, the newspaper said.

Asked about the Times's account, the official said the newspaper "pretty much got it right". Kay found no weapons stockpiles and no sign that Iraq took significant steps after 1996 to build nuclear weapons or produce fissile material, and he concluded that Baghdad's capacity to produce chemical weapons on a large scale appeared to have been reduced or destroyed in US air strikes before the war.

But he also reported the discovery of a clandestine network of labs managed by the Iraqi intelligence service suitable for biological warfare research and development. He highlighted clandestine work on long-range missiles, as well. -AFP