LONDON/BAGHDAD, 10 September — Iraq could build a nuclear bomb soon if it imports the right material, but its ability to use other weapons of mass destruction has dwindled, a key think tank said yesterday as the United States drummed up world support for action against Baghdad.

Stepping up a diplomatic offensive, US President George W. Bush called European and other leaders ahead of his meeting with Canadian Prime Minister Jean Chretien at the US-Canadian border. The White House said there was growing support in the international community for toughening earlier UN demands that Iraq give up its suspected stockpile of weapons of mass destruction.

Those comments came after French President Jacques Chirac proposed a two-stage plan that could lead to UN authorization of military force against Iraq.

Chirac told the New York Times that the UN Security Council should consider two resolutions, one giving a three-week deadline for admitting inspectors and a second on possible military action if Baghdad refused.

The London-based International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS) offered Bush some ammunition by saying that if Iraq acquired enriched uranium with foreign help, it could put a nuclear warhead on a missile capable of hitting Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Israel, Turkey, Jordan and Iran within a year.

But the IISS study said Baghdad did not have nuclear arms and probably lacked means to deliver any remaining chemical and biological weapons effectively enough to cause massive loss of life.

Iraq dismissed the IISS findings, saying they were a "distortion of facts" to justify an attack. Iraqi officials took reporters on a tour of a former nuclear facility, 20 km south of Baghdad, saying it was now used for agricultural and medical research. Saeed Al-Mussawi, a senior Foreign Ministry official, told foreign reporters at Tuweitha nuclear plant the new charges were a "distortion of facts".

He showed a satellite picture of the plant which he said had been recently produced by the West to prove that Baghdad was developing a nuclear bomb. "The site was completely destroyed and it cannot be used (for any nuclear activity) any more," the head of the site, Fa’iz Hussein, said. Reporters touring the site saw piles of debris and damaged structures and equipment, as well as buildings which Iraq erected in 1994. (The Independent)