"We're very close to agreement on new initiatives to dramatically expand the international community's efforts to go after WMD," said White House spokesman Jim Wilkinson, using the acronym for weapons of mass destruction.

Officials said seven new countries would join an international scheme to halt the spread of weapons of mass destruction by destroying stockpiles and retraining scientists in non-military fields.

They said the summit would also announce the expansion of US President George W. Bush's year-old Proliferation Security Initiative to stop the spread of unconventional weapons by intercepting them in transit.

Other measures include strengthening the United Nation's nuclear watchdog, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA).

A senior US official, speaking on condition of anonymity, read from a document saying that the G8 will agree "to suspend for one year all new transfers of enrichment and reprocessing equipment and technology."

The G8 will also "work to implement more permanent controls before the 2005 G8 summit to keep this capability from terrorists or states seeking to use it to manufacture nuclear weapons," the official said.

Agreement "is imminent," the official said.

In other areas, US officials said, the G8 will pledge to implement tougher airline passenger screening measures, boost information-sharing among law enforcement agencies, and speed the destruction of shoulder-fired missiles.

In February, Bush appealed for global support for battling the spread of nuclear weapons-related technology and expertise, taking aim at North Korea, Iran, and black-market sales by Pakistan's former top atomic expert.

US officials pressed the drive at the three-day summit opening Tuesday with the leaders of Britain, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Canada and Russia.

A senior US official, who asked not to be named, said seven nations would join the G8's two-year-old Global Partnership Against the Spread of Weapons and Materials of Mass Destruction.

Washington is courting G8 support for expanding to Iraq and Libya an initiative that aims to retrain or employ former arms experts republics that once belonged to the Soviet Union, said Bolton.

"Tomorrow, the leaders will announce that seven new countries have joined the global partnership, those being Australia, New Zealand, South Korea, Belgium, Denmark, Ireland and the Czech Republic," one official said.

The announcement, along with the adoption of the one-year freeze on new sales or transfers of uranium enrichment and reprocessing equipment and technology, "will be the most significant statement on weapons of mass destruction that the G8 leaders have issued," the official said.

US Undersecretary of State John Bolton also said the United States is in a "race against time" to find jobs for some 400-500 Iraq weapons scientists left idle by Saddam Hussein's ouster last year.

It's unclear whether any of those experts have been yet courted by extremist groups or states eager to acquire chemical, biological, or nuclear weapons, Bolton, whose brief is arms control, said in an interview Tuesday with AFP.

But "the pattern we've seen is scientists from the former Soviet Union as the economy collapsed were without a livelihood and they were offered salaries in Iran and other places and they took it," he said.

"It's a perfectly natural reaction," he said. "We want to try to head that off in this case, and it's a race against time."

WAR.WIRE