The goal of the secret labs, set up after 1996, was to rebuild Iraq's banned weapons programs once United Nations sanctions were lifted, the source -- described as a brigadier general who insisted on anonymity -- told the Times.

Each team had up to four scientists unknown to UN inspectors, and worked on computers and conducted "crude experiments in bunkers and back rooms in safe houses around Baghdad," according to the Times.

Although the general's accounts could not be independently verified, the Times wrote, he "appeared highly knowledgeable about the development, production and deployment of Iraq's chemical and biological weapons and missiles in the past."

The general, who granted granted the interview in exchange for placing a satellite phone call on a line that would not be traced, insisted that Iraq did not produce any chemical or biological weapons, but that plans were in place to quickly develop them.

"We could start again anytime," the officer told the Times. "It's very easy. Especially biological."

"The point was, the Iraqis kept the knowledge," said the general, who said he feared for his life. But US weapons inspectors "will never find anything here. Only oil."

The general also said that some Iraqi defectors interviewed by US and other intelligence agencies were Iraqi double agents.

"They let the Americans think they were anti-Saddam," he told the Times. "But they were still reporting back to Saddam."

The Times described the officer as a "barrel-chested man with a harsh voice from chain-smoking" who says he has a doctorate in electronics from the University of Kiev, and uses a fake identification papers because he is hiding from US forces.

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