Iraq may have destroyed its purported chemical and biological weapons before the US-led invasion in March, US defence secretary Mr Donald Rumsfeld has said in an effort to explain why none have been found. He told the Council on Foreign Relations he did not know why Iraq had not used chemical weapons against the invaders as Washington had predicted it would.
President Bush and British Prime Minister Tony Blair cited their belief that Iraq had banned weapons of mass destruction as the main reason for the March 20th invasion that ousted President Saddam Hussein's government.
Mr Rumsfeld said the speed of US advance may have caught Iraq by surprise, but added: "It is also possible that they decided that they would destroy them prior to a conflict."
Mr Rumsfeld told his audience of foreign policy analysts, diplomats and business leaders that he suspected "we'll find out a lot more information as we go along and keep interrogating people."
Mr Rumsfeld said Iraq was as large as California and search teams had only been working there seven weeks. He said there were hundreds of suspected sites to investigate.
"It will take time," said Rumsfeld.
On May 13th, Major General David Petraeus, commander of the Army's 101st Airborne Division, also raised the possibility that Iraq had destroyed its weapons stocks.
"I just don't know whether it was all destroyed years ago - I mean, there's no question that there were chemical weapons years ago - whether they were destroyed right before the war, (or) whether they're still hidden," he said.
Rumsfeld said US intelligence agents had confirmed that two trailers found in northern Iraq were mobile biological weapons laboratories. No actual biological weapons were found on either trailer, US officials have said.