Weapons inspector tells Senate of weak US intelligence

Speaking at a meeting of the Senate armed services committee, Mr Kay, who quit his job last week, admitted: "We were all wrong," in believing that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction.

His admission is the latest in recent days to undermine assertions from both London and Washington that deposed Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein had stockpiles of nuclear, chemical and biological weapons, a claim used by both governments to support the need to go to war with Iraq.

"We’ve had a number of surprises," Mr Kay said after meeting the Senate intelligence committee. "It’s quite clear we need capabilities that we do not have with regard to intelligence."

Later, he told the Senate armed services committee that "we were almost all wrong - and I certainly include myself here" in believing that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction.

But Mr Kay denied suggestions by Democrats that intelligence analysts felt pressured by the administration to shape intelligence to help the US president, George Bush, make the case for war.

Mr Kay also said despite finding no evidence of weapons stockpiles, Iraqi documents, physical evidence and interviews with Iraqi scientists revealed that Iraq was engaged in weapons programmes prohibited by UN resolutions.

Senators have been anxious to speak to Mr Kay, one of a number of US officials who have recently adjusted their positions on Saddam Hussein’s military capabilities.

Mr Kay resigned last Friday, saying he was stepping down because resources were being shifted away from the search.

He then announced he did not believe any large stockpiles of chemical and biological weapons ever existed in Iraq.

"I don’t think they existed," he said. "What everyone was talking about is stockpiles produced after the end of the last [1991] Gulf war and I don’t think there was a large-scale production programme in the Nineties."

Charles Duelfer, Mr Kay’s successor as head of the Iraq Survey Group, has also expressed doubts about the existence of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. Speaking just weeks before he was appointed, Mr Duelfer said: "I think that Mr Kay and his team have looked very hard. I think the reason that they haven’t found them is they're probably not there."

Doubts about the accuracy of pre-war intelligence that Saddam possessed banned weapons grew on Sunday when Lewis Moonie, a British defence minister at the time of the Iraq war, said the government may soon have to concede it was wrong in its claims.

"If it’s the case that the intelligence that we had was deficient, as is increasingly looking likely ... sooner or later we may well have to say ‘yep, the intelligence was faulty and the decisions we took were based on the best evidence available and the best evidence available wasn't good enough’," Mr Moonie said.

He added: "Sooner or later if nothing turns up, and it's very clear that there’s nothing there and that he [Saddam Hussein] did destroy them after the 1991 conflict and carried out a huge bluff ever after, well he paid the price for his bluff."

On Monday the White House signalled a further dramatic retreat on Saddam’s weapons of mass destruction when it dropped the repeated assertion that banned weapons would be found in Iraq.

Asked if the US still believed there were banned weapons in Iraq, Scott McClellan, the White House press secretary, did not repeat past statements that they would be found.

"We want to compare the intelligence before the war with what the Iraq Survey Group learns on the ground," he said. "We believe it’s important for the Iraq survey group to complete its work so that we have as complete a picture as possible. It will help us learn the truth."

Even President Bush this week refused to restate his earlier claims that weapons of mass destruction would still be discovered in Iraq.