The full extent of the damage caused by unexploded "bomblets" scattered by the weapons will probably never be known, it says. Ninety-eight per cent of the casualties it found were civilian. Of the 11,044 cases it discovered, 3,830 people were killed and the remainder injured.

Cluster bombs have been used in most major conflicts since the Vietnam war. Nato aircraft dropped them over civilian areas during the Kosovo conflict, British forces fired Israeli-made cluster weapons around Basra during the 2003 invasion of Iraq and the Israelis fired them at Lebanon this summer when Hizbullah guerrillas launched Chinese-made cluster weapons against six Israeli locations, according to Human Rights Watch.

"Cluster submunitions incidents involve more people at a time, are more fatal, and result in more multiple injuries, than mines," today's study says. It points out that military personnel in forces which fire cluster weapons themselves regard areas the submunitions land as dangerous minefields.

"Cluster munitions are wide-surface weapons contaminating more than the military target; they were used in indiscriminately high quantities, as in Laos; they were often used near civilian areas, as in Afghanistan; and they sometimes explicitly targeted civilian targets as in Chechnya," says the report.

In parts of south-east Asia unexploded cluster munitions continue to cause significant casualties more than 30 years after they were used by attackers, says the report entitled Fatal Footprint: The Global Human Impact of Cluster Munitions.

In some areas of Iraq, it says, casualties from unexploded cluster submunitions, account for between 75% and 80% of all casualties.

It was known from the outset, the study notes, that the most widely used submunition in the conflict in south-east Asia, the BLU-26, had a failure rate of 26% under optimal test conditions. One of the cluster submunitions in the Israeli stockpile used in Lebanon this summer was of the same type and age as those used more than 30 years ago in south-east Asia, according to Handicap International. The charity operates in 60 countries in the fields of rehabilitation, inclusion of disabled people, and disability prevention.

It says the failure rate of cluster submunitions has been far above the manufacturer specifications - as high as 80% by some estimates. The vast majority of casualties occurred when people were carrying out their normal daily activities such as farming or tending animals. In Lebanon most casualties happened near the home when people were inspecting bomb damage, trying to salvage crops or just walking around.

Over 80% of the casualties from cluster weapons were men. In Kosovo and Cambodia boys under 18 were the largest single casualty group, and in Afghanistan boys represented more than half of the victims of unexploded submunitions.

More than 2,000 people in Iraq were confirmed casualties of cluster submunitions between 1991 and this year, according to the report, which says the figures are far from complete.

Cluster bombs affect "young people going about their normal daily affairs and trying to make a living, families returning to their homes after a conflict, children just playing, as well as peacekeepers and those clearing failed submunitions to make communities safe," said Samantha Rennie, director of Handicap International UK.

Nuclear Watch New Mexico, an activist organization, reported that the memo appeared to be a summary of a briefing on the security breach, though the group said it could not verify the memo's authenticity.

Two officials with the federal agency that oversees the nation's nuclear weapons program said there were "significant errors" in the memo but did not reject it outright. The officials, who work for the Energy Department's National Nuclear Security Administration, spoke anonymously because of the ongoing investigation into the breach.

They said they could not confirm the briefing referred to by the author of the memo, which Nuclear Watch said it obtained through an intermediary.

"If true, this summary indicates that a very serious and compromising breach has occurred; perhaps the most serious" in the troubled lab's history, Nuclear Watch said in a news release.

Police seized three portable computer storage drives - called flash drives, among other names - and the papers Oct. 17 during a drug raid at the home of Jessica Quintana, the contract worker.

Quintana has not been charged. A man who was renting a room at her home was jailed on drug and probation charges.

Her lawyer, Stephen Aarons, told The Associated Press that the material included copies of front pages of various documents from the lab. Quintana, an archivist, had planned to use them to create an index of items she had converted to an electronic format, he said.

Aarons also said that one of the three portable computer storage drives contained lab-related material, but that the information wasn't transferred to another computer.

"It was downloaded, but it was never uploaded," Aarons said, adding that Quintana did not show the material to anyone.

The 22-year-old archivist took the material home in August because she faced a work deadline to create the index, then forgot about the documents, he said.

"Her intent was to destroy the hard copies, and she never did it," Aarons said.

Nuclear Watch said the memo on the security briefing at the lab said Quintana had a level of security clearance that would have given her access to documents that could have contained information on how to bypass the authorization process for using nuclear weapons.

"She doesn't know anything about nuclear weapons," Aarons responded. "She knows how to scan documents."

The Energy Department and the Nuclear Security Administration declined Thursday to discuss the scope of the security breach, citing the investigation.

But an official with knowledge of the government probe acknowledged there were "several hundred" pages of classified documents discovered during the drug raid in addition to the classified material found in three computer "thumb" storage devices.

"It is a sizable amount," said the individual, who spoke on condition of anonymity because the investigation is under way. He declined to characterize the documents and said the exact number had not been determined.

Said Energy Department spokesman Craig Stevens: "We're taking it (the security breach) very seriously." He added that Energy Secretary Samuel Bodman "was personally disturbed" that classified documents turned up during a drug raid.

"We want to know how this could happen," Stevens said.

However, the New York Times yesterday reported that the International Atomic Energy Agency had complained to Washington, saying the website contained diagrams, equations and other details for making a nuclear bomb.

The paper cited experts who said that around twelve documents relating to Iraq's pre-1991 covert nuclear research constituted "a basic guide to building an atom bomb."

Another diplomat called the information "a cookbook" for weapons of mass destruction which could provide countries like Iran with vital clues.

The New York Times said the documents provided information on building nuclear firing circuits and triggering explosives as the radioactive cores of atom bombs, all of which goes beyond what is available elsewhere on the internet and other public forums.

The United States' top intelligence official today said that the website, called "Operation Iraqi Freedom Document Portal," had been shut down while an investigation is carried out.

A spokesman for National Intelligence Director John Negroponte said his office has suspended access to the site "pending a review to ensure its content is appropriate for public viewing."

The spokesman said: "While strict criteria had already been established to govern posted documents, the material currently on the website, as well as the procedures used to post new documents, will be carefully reviewed before the site becomes available again."

Mr Negroponte's office set up the website following pressure by Republican members of Congress.

Conservative politicians hoped the documents would provide evidence of the danger Saddam Hussein had posed to America and so justify George Bush's 2003 invasion.

The archive, collected over more than a decade, ran to more than 48,000 boxes and millions of pages, most of them written in Arabic.

The pages were posted gradually, with a disclaimer from the US government saying it could not vouch for their accuracy.

The disputed pages were posted in recent weeks.

The New York Times report said the website had been questioned once before.

Earlier this year UN arms control officials complained that the documents included information on producing deadly nerve agents sarin and tabun.

As a result, the Cyberspace Command will be in charge of protecting the United States against vulnerabilities that include satellite communications, radar and navigational jamming, and Internet-based financial transactions. "This new way of war is data-dependent. We need to protect our data while detecting adversary data and then deny, disrupt, dissuade or destroy the source of that data or transmission as appropriate," said Wynn.

The Cyberspace Command will be based at the 8th Air Force at Barksdale Air Force Base in Louisiana. The 8th Air Force first gained wide acclaim for its daylight bombing campaigns of Europe during World War II. Currently, the 8th Air Force employs a workforce of 41,000 and operates such aircraft as the B-2 Spirit, B-52 Stratofortress (aka B.U.F.F) and the E-3C Sentry.

The Cyberspace Command will be run by Lt. Gen. Robert Elder who will ensure that all of the proper resources are acquired to make the new unit a success. "There will be careers and a strong future for the airmen whose work is in the cyberspace domain. Air Force military and civilian experts are working now forming the career and school paths that will ensure a full career with full opportunities for advancement to the highest ranks of the Air Force," said Wynn.

The Air Force is on tap to first seek funding for the new Cyberspace Command during fiscal year 2009.

The three new types of missiles, named Noor, Kowsar, and Nasr, have a range of about 170 kilometres and were built for naval warfare, TV reported.

The weapons are "suitable for covering all the Strait of Hormuz, the Persian Gulf and the sea of Oman" said Admiral Sardar Fadavi, the deputy navy chief of the Revolutionary Guard.

About 20 per cent of the world's oil supply passes every day through the strategic Strait of Hormuz.

The Revolutionary Guards began manoeuvres Thursday, shortly after a U.S.-led military exercise in the Gulf.