WASHINGTON, Jan 28: US Secretary of State Colin Powell will unveil “broad evidence” next week against Iraqi President Saddam Hussein, senior officials of the Bush administration told reporters in Washington on Tuesday.

They said the evidence would include new information about President Saddam’s ties with Al Qaeda, his weapons’ programme and efforts to hide his arsenal underground and in mobile facilities.

A senior US official told NBC News that Mr Powell would present fresh evidence some time after a meeting on Friday between President George Bush and British PM Tony Blair.

The White House is considering two options for releasing this evidence: Sending Mr Powell to the United Nations and reveal this information in the Security Council or do so at a news conference in Washington.

Observers say that the Bush administration needs something concrete to satisfy critics both at home and abroad who are demanding proof that President Saddam possesses weapons of mass destruction.

The Democratic Party has also intensified demands for proof against President Saddam.

In what was billed as a “pre-buttal” to Mr Bush’s State of the Union address, Senate Democratic leader Tom Daschle and Representative Nancy Pelosi, the party’s leader in the House, sharply criticized the president for taking what they said was a “hurry-up approach on Iraq” and charged that he was creating a credibility gap by saying one thing and doing another across a range of issues.

“If we have proof of nuclear and biological weapons, why don’t we show that proof to the world — as President Kennedy did 40 years ago when he sent Adlai Stevenson to the United Nations to show the world US photographs of offensive missiles in Cuba,” Daschle said at a news conference.