Baghdad's chemical arms chief surrenders

A British-educated top Iraqi weapons specialist surrendered yesterday in a major coup for US and British forces.

Lieutenant-General Amer Hammoudi al-Saadi, a prominent figure on the newly-issued American wanted list and the man widely supposed to have been in charge of Iraq's chemical weapons programme, spectacularly gave himself up in full uniform to US forces in the heart of Baghdad.

The general, whose wife is German, surrendered in front of a German television crew, saying he had no idea where Saddam Hussein was, and still denying Iraq held any chemical or biological weapons. He was driven away in a US military Jeep.

The urbane General Saadi, who had led the Iraqi delegation in weapons talks with the UN, is the most prominent figure in Saddam Hussein's regime in Allied hands. He is the "seven of diamonds" in the pack of 55 wanted regime members issued by US Central Command on Friday.

The general holds the key to the truth about Saddam's alleged arsenal of weapons of mass destruction. Before the war, the UN weapons inspectors suspected the Iraqis still had tons of lethal anthrax and nerve gas, and several ballistic missiles that could threaten Iraq's neighbours.

It is understood the general was approached before the war about defecting, as new rules for the weapons inspectors had allowed them to conduct interviews in private outside the country. No Iraqi scientists took up the offer.