An Iraqi who says he was the private secretary of the son of President Saddam Hussein, has alleged that Iraq has a secret arsenal of chemical and biological weapons.

The Iraqi, Abbas al Janabi, said he worked for Uday Hussein for fifteen years before defecting to the west earlier this year.

In an interview with the Guardian newspaper, he said that the Iraqi government can import anything it wants, although the Iraqi people were suffering from the results of economic sanctions.

He predicted that the regime of Saddam Hussein was coming to an end, with the president an increasingly tired, isolated figure concerned only about his own security.