Powell to present 'proof' of Saddam's banned weapons

In a last attempt to win largely hostile world opinion to its side, America plans to divulge photographic and other evidence that it says will prove Saddam Hussein is pursuing banned weapons programmes, and buttress its claim of links between Baghdad and terrorist organisations, including al-Qa'ida.

The centrepiece will be a presentation next Wednesday by Colin Powell, the Secretary of State, to his fellow foreign ministers of the United Nations Security Council. The selection of General Powell, the senior administration official most trusted by foreign opinion, is deliberate.

But though Bush administration officials insisted yesterday that their case was convincing, debate continues over how to provide arresting new evidence without compromising intelligence sources. Mr Bush outlined the charges in Tuesday's State of the Union address, but disappointed many with the lack of hard detail.

The President had not made the case that the threat from Iraq was imminent, which would justify the use of force, said Senator Edward Kennedy, his leading Democratic critic, who will table a resolution demanding that Mr Bush present "convincing evidence of an imminent threat" to Congress before launching a war.

But General Powell himself has conceded that whatever he comes up with is unlikely to have the stunning impact of the photos of Soviet missiles in Cuba presented by Adlai Stevenson, then US ambassador to the UN, to the Security Council in 1962. The presentation was enough to convince the world that the US had just cause for its actions.

"[But] we do have a number of intelligence products that convince us that what we are saying is correct," General Powell said at the Davos economic forum last weekend.

America would make as much evidence available as possible. "But whether there will be a 'Stevenson photo' or 'Stevenson presentation' that would be as persuasive as Adlai Stevenson was in 1962, that I can't answer," he said. He would be making a "straightforward, sober assessment – nothing theatrical, but I think we can make the case," he told Channel 4 News yesterday.

The US dossier is based on satellite pictures, intercepted Iraqi communications, and other intelligence, as well as information provided by some of the 3,000 suspected terrorists captured since 11 September.

It might include photographs of material being removed from sites to be visited by the UN inspectors, suspicious building work, or trucks on the move, which US analysts say are mobile weapons laboratories keeping a jump ahead of the inspectors.

It may also include evidence that Baghdad has sent dozens of weapons scientists abroad to avoid the inspectors, and that, in some cases, Iraqi intelligence agents are posing as scientists due to be interviewed.

General Powell may present testimony from prisoners and defectors detailing links between Iraq and al-Qa'ida (including a chemical weapons specialist, Abu Musab Zarqawi, linked to the ricin plot uncovered in Britain this month). General Powell repeated Mr Bush's claim that President Saddam had helped al-Qa'ida in the past. "It's clear that there is a link. I'm not saying there is a 9/11 link, we haven't seen that yet, but I wouldn't to rule that out," he said.

Muddying the waters still further, some US officials say Iraq has interfered with the inspections process. One official quoted by USA Today said either the Iraqis "are finding out ahead of time where the inspectors are going, or they're darned lucky".

The Delaware Senator Joe Biden, the senior Democrat on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, said the information he had been given "was the kind of evidence I'd take to a jury and get a conviction. It won't be Adlai, but it will be compelling."

But he criticised Mr Bush for devoting too little effort to winning over opinion abroad. The image of Mr Bush as a trigger-happy bully could be highly damaging in the longer term, he said. The US would need other countries to help once President Saddam had been ousted, he said. "It's going to be rough sledding, that's why the President should change his tone."

Last night General Powell repeated that America would help President Saddam find a place of exile. "If he were to leave the country and take some of his family members with him ... we would, I'm sure, try to help find a place for them to go," he said. "That certainly would be one way to avoid war."