Many of the Navy's most crucial weapons systems - including Trident nuclear missiles - rely on computers and experts say the millennium bug could leave the UK defenceless on 1 January 2000.

Key Trident missiles could be put out of action by the millennium bug

A US defence official told the Sunday Telegraph newspaper: "If Saddam Hussein wanted to attack, 1 January 2000 would be the day to do it."

The paper says the Ministry of Defence's latest quarterly report to the Cabinet Office makes grim reading.

It says 82% of the MoD's computer systems in Whitehall are also "millennium unsafe".

'Very worrying'

Bruce George, chairman of the House of Commons defence select committee, said: "This is very worrying."

The MoD is spending £200m - and employing 700 computer experts - overhauling its computers in readiness for the millennium.

But the quarterly report says it does not have enough skilled staff to complete the Year 2000 programme in time and is having trouble recruiting.

Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament spokesman William Peden said: "The government needs to come clean about the dangers.

"It is behaving like a captain standing on the bridge while the ship sinks around him."

But an MoD spokesman told the BBC most of its computers would be reprogrammed and ready to cope with the millennium by the end of 1999.