IRAQ

Independent: Bush Now Blames Looters For Failure To Find WMD

It has taken more than two months. But belatedly, from his Democratic challengers for the White House and in committee rooms on Capitol Hill, President George W Bush is starting to feel the heat of the controversy over Iraq's missing weapons stockpiles.

In his weekly radio address yesterday, Mr Bush was forced to produce a new explanation of why the US has not found Iraq's alleged chemical and biological weapons. He told listeners that suspect sites had been looted in the closing days of Saddam Hussein's regime.

But this rationale is no more likely to still the gathering debate than the President's dismissal last week of the "revisionist historians" who doubt the administration's pre-war claims that Iraq not only possessed a huge chemical and biological weapons arsenal and an active nuclear weapons programme, but had close links with the al-Qa'ida terrorist organisation.

"Nach Umfragen glauben 1/3 aller Amerikaner es seien im Irak Massenvernichtungswaffen gefunden worden. 83% glauben Sadaam habe Atombomben entwickeln lassen "