US widens Iraq weapons hunt

No weapons have been found yet

The Pentagon is widening its search to find weapons of mass destruction (WMD) in Iraq.

Instead of methodically visiting sites - which has so far produced no results - inspectors will also be interviewing low-ranking officials and relying on interrogations of alleged war criminals, Pentagon officials announced on Friday.

"There is a lot of information out there that hasn't been gathered yet," said Army Major General Keith Dayton, who has been appointed head of the new Iraq Survey Group.

Both the United States and United Kingdom governments are under pressure to produce evidence of the weapons amid accusations that the WMD threat posed by Iraq was exaggerated.

President George W Bush and Prime Minister Tony Blair both cited the alleged threat posed by Iraq's suspected arsenal as the main justification for waging war.

That doesn't mean they weren't there when we thought they were

Major General Keith Dayton

US Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld on Friday rejected the charge that the war against Baghdad was waged under a false pretext, saying he believed weapons would be found.

Prime Minister Blair's trip to Iraq has been overshadowed by claims that intelligence concerning Iraq's military capabilities was rewritten to make it "sexier".

Speaking in Poland, Mr Blair said Saddam Hussein's chemical, biological and nuclear weapons programmes were well documented by the United Nations and "not some invention of the British security services".

UK officials have denied a newspaper report on Saturday saying that Foreign Secretary Jack Straw and his US counterpart Colin Powell had serious doubts about the quality of intelligence they received on Iraq's weapons programme.

'Long process'

Some 1,400 Americans, Britons and Australians will make up the new inspection team which will be headquartered in Baghdad but will send its data to Central Command in Qatar.

General Dayton said he would not necessarily send a team to search a site just because it was on a list but would be looking at more creative ways to gather information, such as going to a village where people who worked at an alleged location live.

"It may be more important to find the guard or truck driver transporting from these areas," he said.

The Pentagon has a list of around 900 sites which may provide clues to Saddam Hussein's alleged chemical and biological arsenal. So far, around 200 locations have been searched, said Pentagon officials on Friday.

General Dayton said he believed they would find WMD but said it "would be a long process".

He also said they may have been destroyed or transported since pre-war intelligence reports were made public.

"That doesn't mean they weren't there when we thought they were," he said.