New York: The Bush administration is expected to declare on December 19 that Iraq has violated the UN resolution requiring it to disclose all its weapons of mass destruction, senior administration officials said on December 18.

At a national security meeting scheduled for December 18, President George W Bush will consider whether to declare Iraq in "material breach" of its obligations, the officials told the 'New York Times'.

A senior State Department non-proliferation official, John S Wolf, met on December 18 morning with Hans Blix, the head of the UN inspection team for chemical and biological weapons, to describe the deficiencies that American intelligence agencies say they have found in the Iraqi declaration that contends that Iraq does not possess weapons of mass destruction or long-range missiles.

The issues confronting Bush, particularly the question of whether the time is right to declare a "material breach", which could provide what Washington sees as a legal justification for going to war, were discussed in detail at a meeting of his senior national security advisers in the White House situation room, the paper quoted several officials as saying.

Bush did not attend the meeting of the group, known as "The Principals", which includes the Secretaries of State and Defence, Vice President Dick Cheney and other officials.

The officials, however, refused to say what options the group had decided to present to Bush.

American intelligence officials say the extensive arms documentation that Iraq issued earlier this month lacks evidence that it disposed of chemical and biological weapons that UN inspectors had identified prior to 1998, or that the inspectors suspected still existed when they left Iraq.

Administration officials have not produced evidence that Iraq has nuclear weapons, but say President Saddam Hussein is thought to have acquired equipment that would aid in the development of such arms, the paper said.

PTI