The specifications of the al-Samoud 2 missile appear to have been designed so that it could be fitted with a second engine, making it a much more potent threat than previously realised, the experts have told The Times.

Hans Blix, the chief UN weapons inspector, has demanded that Iraq should begin destroying the missiles by Saturday, and UN sources say he is ready to call an emergency meeting of the Security Council this weekend if it fails to do so. If Dr Blix reported a violation to the Security Council it would be tantamount to finding Iraq in “further material breach” of UN demands and would transform the diplomatic landscape at a stroke. Even France, the leading opponent of a war, has insisted that Iraq follow Dr Blix’s order to destroy the missiles.

The UN inspectorate has dispatched Demetri Perricos, its chief of operations, from New York to Baghdad to oversee arrangements for dismantling the missiles. He is due to arrive in Iraq on Thursday.

Tony Blair predicted yesterday that Iraq would destroy the missiles at the last minute. “Of course Saddam will offer concessions,” he told MPs. “This is a game with which he is immensely familiar. As the threat level rises so the concessions are eked out.” But Saddam Hussein indicated in an interview with CBS television on Monday that Iraq would resist. “Iraq is allowed to prepare proper missiles and we are committed to that,” the Iraqi President said. “We do not have missiles that go beyond the permitted range.” Until now the missiles appeared a poor casus belli because the threat they posed seemed limited.

Dr Blix’s inspectors have said that the al-Samoud 2 flew over the maximum permitted range of 150km in only 13 of 40 test flights, reaching a maximum distance of 183km.

But experts say that the specifications of the al-Samoud 2 and its use of a Russian-designed Volga SA2 engine suggest that Iraq might be trying to develop a missile with a much longer range that could threaten the entire region.

In building the new missile, Iraq ignored a 1994 UN letter restricting the missile’s diameter to less than 600mm. The UN issued the order with the express intent of preventing Iraq equipping the missile with two engines. Baghdad also violated a 1997 UN letter prohibiting the use of engines from certain surface-to-air missiles, such as the Volga SA2, in surface-to-surface missiles.

UN inspectors in Iraq have determined that the al-Samoud 2 has a diameter of 760mm, which would make it possible to equip it with two Volga engines instead of one. Moreover, the diameter of the “fat Samoud” — as inspectors call it — was mysteriously increased from its original 750mm design in 1994, possibly better to accommodate two engines.

“You can put two engines in there,” said Tim McCarthy, a former UN missile inspector now with the Monterey Institute of International Studies, which has studied the al-Samoud 2. “You indeed can carry a larger payload or go a longer range . . . There is no question it can go proscribed ranges. It would increase by a factor of two or three the range of this thing.”

One source close to Dr Blix said the inspectors suspect that Iraq is copying India’s Prithvi single-stage missile. The Prithvi, which is a metre in diameter, can carry a 1,000kg payload, sufficient to transport a nuclear device and has a similar twin-engined design based on SA2 technology. Adding to suspicions is the fact that a new missile test stand at al-Rafah is capable of testing rocket engines above the permissible thrust. Iraq has said that it built a bigger stand after the site was bombed so that it could test two rocket engines side by side. Dr Blix has ordered that the test stand be placed under UN supervision.

Other independent experts say that the al-Samoud 2 may be intended as a two-stage missile like Iraq’s previous al-Tammuz project. The al-Tammuz used a Scud as the first stage and a Volga engine as the second stage to reach a range of up to 2,000km.

Iraq first admitted making a “paper study” of the al-Tammuz, but later conceded that it had actually constructed mock-ups of the missile.

Colin Powell, the US Secretary of State, told the Security Council this month that Iraq “has programmes that are intended to produce ballistic missiles that fly over 1,000km”. One liquid fuel system was intended to reach 1,200km, he said.

“Saddam Hussein’s intentions have never changed,” General Powell said. “He is not developing the missiles for self-defence. These are missiles to project power — chemical, biological, and, if we let him, nuclear weapons.”

The UN’s 150km limit was imposed on Iraq’s missiles as a condition of the ceasefire that ended the Gulf War to make it hard to reach Kuwait City, which lies about 100km from the Iraqi border. Israel is about 300km away and Tehran just over 500km away.

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