Britain: Downing Street has refused to be drawn on "speculation" that the Iraq Survey Group has so far failed to find Saddam Hussein's alleged weapons of mass destruction (WMD).
In an apparent confirmation a spokesman for the CIA said the initial report from former UN weapons inspector Dr David Kay, who has been leading the search for weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, would "reach no firm conclusions".
"Dr Kay is still receiving information from the field. It will be just the first progress report, and we expect that it will reach no firm conclusions, nor will it rule anything in or out," CIA spokesman Mr Bill Harlow said.
It was uncertain when Dr Kay, who has been at the CIA this week working on the report, would brief members of US Congress about the progress made, but some congressional aides were reported as saying it could be as early as next week.
On the anniversary of the publication of the British government's controversial Iraqi weapons dossier - and on the eve of the closing statements to the Hutton inquiry this morning - the BBC yesterday quoted a Bush administration source citing this as the main conclusion of the survey group's interim report.
Andrew Neill, the presenter of the BBC's Daily Politics show, said the source told him that the report - which is not yet finalised, and could be subject to amendment - will say its inspectors have not yet discovered even "minute amounts of nuclear, chemical or biological weapons material".
According to the source, the interim report would also say that they had uncovered no laboratories, infrastructure or delivery systems for WMD.
But Neill also stressed that the 1,400-strong group of scientists and military and intelligence experts had not come up "empty-handed".
The interim report was expected to include computer records, files, pictures and paperwork showing that Saddam's regime was attempting to develop a WMD programme.
It would also support previous British government claims that Saddam mounted a programme of deception intended to hinder the work of UN weapons inspectors. Speaking on BBC Radio 4's PM programme, Neill said he understood this included evidence that Saddam had actually built "fake" facilities, which left unresolved the question of why the regime had engaged in such deception if it had nothing to hide.
The Prime Minister, Mr Tony Blair, has consistently professed confidence that the group would eventually discover evidence of WMD "programmes" and actual "product", and rejected as "an unlikely hypothesis" the idea that Saddam dismissed UN weapons inspectors and then set about a programme of disarmament without telling anyone.
Mr Blair's spokesman last night urged people to "wait and see" the terms of the published interim report and the final report from the survey group, describing the BBC report as speculation. The Foreign Office likewise refused to confirm or deny the report, saying that the survey group's preliminary findings were not yet in circulation in Britain and had not been seen by the British government.
However, the former Conservative defence secretary, Mr Michael Portillo, said if the details of the BBC report were true it would be "a savage blow" for the Prime Minister. And the Liberal Democrat conference in Brighton renewed the party's call for a full judicial inquiry into the case for war with Iraq.
Foreign Secretary Mr Jack Straw also dismissed the BBC's "speculation" and insisted the case for military action had been made when the UN and the international community concluded that Iraq was a threat to world peace.
An opinion poll published yesterday suggested that more than half of Britons believe the United Nations has "lost its relevance."