WASHINGTON (CNN) -- Libya's nuclear weapons program was "much further advanced" than U.S. and British intelligence agencies had thought, and included centrifuges and a uranium-enrichment program, all necessary components in making a nuclear bomb, a senior Bush administration official said Friday.
"Libya admitted to nuclear fuel-cycle projects that were intended to support a nuclear weapons program, weapons development, including uranium enrichment," this official said.
The acknowledgment of a nuclear program marked the first time Libya has ever done so. The U.S. and British governments said Friday that Libya has agreed to abandon its weapons of mass destruction programs and to allow international weapons inspectors into the country.
The Bush official said Libya also showed a team of United Nations and British inspectors "a significant amount of mustard" gas -- a lethal nerve agent that can cause internal and external bleeding. The gas was produced more than a decade ago, the official said.
In addition, those inspectors visited medical and agricultural facilities that could be used in the development of biological weapons, this official said.
But it was Libya's nuclear program that most alarmed officials.
"We were not surprised on the chemical side," the official said. "On the nuclear side ... my understanding is that they did have a much further advanced program, including centrifuges."
This official said the inspectors saw completed centrifuges, as well as "thousands of centrifuge parts."
Another senior administration official said Libya's weapons programs are robust "in every area."
"It's enormous," the official said. "We have grave concerns about the program."
The first official said Libya approached British and U.S. officials in mid-March, about the same time the war in Iraq began. But that official stressed there was nothing to indicate the nuclear or chemical weapons materials came from Iraq....
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