A report by Iraq Survey Group chief Charles Duelfer said there were no chemical or biological weapons in Iraq before the March 2003 invasion. Bush had used the weapons threat to justify the conflict.

The report said only that Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein had wanted to pursue weapons programmes.

"The administration's case for going to war against Iraq rested on the twin arguments that Saddam Hussein had existing stockpiles of weapons of mass destruction and that he might give weapons of mass destruction to Al-Qaeda to attack us -- as Al-Qaeda had attacked us on 9/11," Senator Carl Levin told the Senate Armed Services Committee.

"So the fundamental conclusion of the ISG effort means that the administration's two major arguments for going to war against Iraq were incorrect. We did not go to war because Saddam had future intentions to obtain weapons of mass destruction."

"Despite the efforts to focus on Saddam's desires and intentions, the bottom line is Iraq did not have either weapon stockpiles or active production capabilities at the time of the war," said Senator John Rockefeller, a top member of the Senate intelligence and foreign relations committees said in a statement.

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