Iraq Threat Growing, Germans Say

BERLIN — Saddam Hussein may be able to menace Iraq’s neighbors with nuclear weapons in three years and fire a missile as far as Europe by 2005, according to a German intelligence assessment made public Saturday.

The Federal Intelligence Service has gathered evidence that Baghdad is also stepping up efforts to produce chemical weapons and has increased buying abroad the ingredients needed to make biological weapons.

Details of the assessment were published in German newspapers. A spokesman at the service’s headquarters confirmed that selected correspondents had been briefed on Iraq by intelligence officials Friday.

Reports on the threat that Germany believes Iraq poses to the world came eight days after U.S. and British planes hit Iraqi air defense targets near Baghdad. Iraq said two people died.

Iraq barred U.N. weapons inspectors from doing their work in 1998, making it difficult to keep track of what the West believes are Baghdad’s efforts to menace the Middle East and beyond with atomic, biological and chemical weapons.