Few revelations in this dossier, but enough detail to stoke the fears that Saddam poses a serious danger

Although the government dossier on Iraq's weapons of mass destruction contains few new claims, its revelations were sufficient to renew fears among former arms inspectors that Saddam Hussein remains a clear and present threat to his neighbours.

The British report, whose conclusions were said by experts to be credible, details Iraq's continued production of lethal chemical and biological agents that can be loaded into warheads and launched by missiles that could reach beyond Israel to Cyprus.

The deadly payloads could be made ready at 45 minutes notice if a military order was given. But what is equally alarming, according to the weapons experts, is Iraq's attempt to procure "significant quantities" of uranium from an African country.

The report accuses Iraq of concealing 20 missiles with a range of 650 kilometres from United Nations weapons inspectors – eight more missiles than the UN tally. Iraq is also working to extend the range of its missiles to more than 1,000 kilometres, "enabling it to threaten other regional neighbours". The UN-approved range is 100 kilometres.

The new information concerns the period since the departure of the UN weapons inspectors from Iraq in December 1998. It will have come from a variety of intelligence sources: satellite pictures, information from defectors and communications intercepts, as well as human intelligence.

Vital details on procurement, such as the attempted uranium purchase, will have been provided somewhere along the trail of sources contacted by the Iraqis in their search for fissile material. The report says that "there is intelligence that Iraq has sought the supply of significant quantities of uranium from Africa".

It does not give further details on the source, the quantity or the date of the find, but Terence Taylor, the head of the US office of the International Institute for Strategic Studies, said the report was "very worrying. That is a very, very big concern".

South Africa, Niger and Namibia are the three African countries that produce uranium. Niger legally provided 2,800 kilos of uranium to Iraq for its nuclear programme in 1981 and 1982, when President Saddam was still the darling of the West.

Mr Taylor, a former UN inspector, said that the uranium mentioned in yesterday's report "could have come from anywhere in Africa", given the number of black-market channels that exist.

But the significance of the find, he said, was that "the strategic objectives of the regime are unchanged. He (Saddam) has spent billions of dollars on weapons of mass destruction".

A nuclear expert cautioned that if Iraq was at the stage where it was still buying non-enriched uranium, it was in fact "very close to zero" in assembling a nuclear bomb. Other procurement activities mentioned in the report, such as the reference to a large filament-winding machine, also show that President Saddam...-'s clandestine programme, which was virtually dismantled by the UN inspectors in the 1990s, remains in its early stages.

However Mark Gwozdecky, a spokesman for the International Atomic Energy Agency, said that IAEA inspectors would follow up the British government's information with interest, if they are allowed back inside Iraq. "We are studying the dossier carefully," he said.

Also on the procurement front, an Indian engineering company is named as having helped the Iraqis rebuild its missile production infrastructure. Indian authorities have now suspended the company's export licence, the report says, "although other individuals and companies are still illicitly procuring for Iraq".

Tony Blair says that the Government is "satisfied as to the authority" of the intelligence. A former weapons inspector pointed out that the report's information should be considered credible as the intelligence would have been "quality cross-checked" from more than one source.

But intelligence – particularly satellite imagery – also has its limitations. And the government report is essentially a cogent argument for the return of weapons inspectors to check the latest reports through intrusive no-notice visits.

One big drawback is the fact that chemical and biological agents are produced in facilities known as "dual use" sites that may have a civilian as well as a military purpose.

Mr Taylor, who inspected 86 known biological sites in Iraq in the 1990s, said: "The challenge is dual use. That's why we caught them out before, by looking at every place that could possibly have a military connection."

The report warns that President Saddam is already working on how to conceal documents and weaponry from the anticipated next round of inspections.

One of the threads running through the report concerns the effectiveness of the UN sanctions, which have been in force since the 1990 invasion of Kuwait. The report notes that "while sanctions remain effective, Iraq would not be able to produce a nuclear weapon". If they were lifted, Iraq could, with foreign help, produce a nuclear weapon "in between one and two years".

The UN has promised to suspend the sanctions once all Iraqi weapons of mass destruction have been eliminated. But it remains doubtful whether the United States would agree to easing the sanctions as long as President Saddam remains in power.

Patrick Cockburn, whose book Saddam Hussein, an American obsession has just been published, commented yesterday: "The dossier is a good case for rigorous inspections, but not for war".

"Weapons of mass destruction mean that Saddam can massively destroy. In fact, the evidence in there is to say there may be some residual weapons left, but the ability to massively destroy really isn't there. And to say that British bases in Cyprus might be in danger is to exaggerate it all," he said.

One former weapons inspector said: "What the dossier indicates is that Saddam has a case to answer. The ball is in Saddam's court."

Blair's secret service advisers

A combination of the country's most senior secret service chiefs and Whitehall policymakers under the umbrella of the Joint Intelligence Committee (JIC) co-ordinated the work that formed the basis of yesterday's report.

The JIC, formed in 1936, meets every week in the Cabinet Office to give ministers security updates. Its chairman is John Scarlett, a former MI6 officer. Members include Sir Richard Dearlove, chief of the Secret Intelligence Service, commonly known as "C" at MI6; Sir Francis Richards, director of GCHQ; Sir Stephen Lander, director general of the Security Service, or MI5; and Air Marshal Joe French, Chief of Defence Intelligence. From next month, Sir Stephen will be replaced by Eliza Manning-Buller, a counter-terrorism expert and the second woman to head MI5, the domestic secret service. The committee also contains officials from the Home Office, Foreign Office, the Ministry of Defence and other departments.

The JIC was criticised by a committee of MPs for failing to give a clear warning about al-Qa'ida's plans before 11 September. The JIC had drawn up a report which "suggested" attacks were in the "final stages of preparation".

The committee drew up a six-page dossier on Iraq's weapons in March but it was not published after concerns by ministers that it contained "old" information.

Paul Waugh