Almost four months after the United States and Britain invaded Iraq, a senior British official said Thursday it would be "extremely difficult" to find banned weapons they said justified war.

A British soldier watches oil wells on fire in Southern Iraq. US civil adminstration was requesting a total of 1.2 billion dollars to repair the country's oil fields, considered the cornerstone of Iraq's revival. [AFP]

The British official, who has closely monitored Iraq's military capability, said it was more likely Iraqi scientists or army officers would eventually come forward with evidence to support the US-British charges -- instead of leading them to the weapons themselves.

"The fact that the Iraqis did not use any (weapons of mass destruction) during the conflict clearly indicates that they decided to do something else with the weapons that we genuinely believe that they had," he told Reuters.

"So they've either hidden, destroyed or dismantled them. And it's going to be extremely difficult to come up with the evidence. Not impossible, but it would be difficult."

"On the other hand, it is much more likely that scientists, military officers, over time will come forward to say what was happening in respect of the programs that we believe were being developed in Iraq," added the official, who declined to be identified.

But Prime Minister Tony Blair's spokesman insisted weapons "programs and products" would be found in Iraq.

"The prime minister has absolute confidence that we will find evidence, not only of the programs but also concrete evidence of the products of those programs" of weapons of mass destruction, Blair's spokesman told reporters.

The failure to discover such lethal arms in Iraq has raised questions about the case for war. The row has undermined Blair's credibility and dented his popularity.

NO EVIDENCE

A diplomat close to the U.N's nuclear watchdog said Thursday that Britain has never provided evidence to back up its continued insistence that Iraq tried to buy uranium from Africa.

"The U.N. followed up with Britain to obtain additional evidence they said they had, backing allegations Iraq tried to buy uranium from Africa," the diplomat familiar with the International Atomic Energy Agency told Reuters. "It was never provided."

Blair and President Bush both accused Iraq of having tried to buy uranium from Africa as part of a campaign to show that Iraq was an imminent threat to world stability.

The White House National Security Council has since admitted that Bush's claim, made in a State of the Union address, was based on forged documents. But Blair's spokesman said Britain had "different knowledge" from the United States to back up the charge, set out in Blair's September 2002 dossier on Iraq's alleged weapons of mass destruction.

The British Broadcasting Corporation said Thursday senior figures in London no longer believed banned missiles or chemical weapons would be found in Iraq.

Some observers have detected a tactical retreat in Blair's reference to "weapons programs" rather than just "weapons."

But Blair's spokesman said the prime minister believes proof will be found that would have convinced the United Nations Security Council to back the war if inspectors had found it.

ACRIMONIOUS DISPUTE

In a bid to win public support for possible war, Blair published a dossier in September saying Iraq had chemical and biological weapons that could be deployed at 45 minutes notice.

Blair's government is now locked in an acrimonious dispute with the BBC over a claim the government "sexed up" the dossier. The BBC quoted an anonymous intelligence source.

In the latest twist, the Ministry of Defense has challenged the BBC to say whether the source for the claim was former U.N. weapons inspector David Kelly -- who the government says played only a limited role in compiling the September dossier.

Blair's spokesman said the government now assumes Kelly was the BBC's source since the broadcaster will not name names.

A parliamentary committee said this week Blair's government did not mislead parliament or doctor evidence to justify the war on Iraq. But the foreign affairs committee said it gave undue prominence to the 45-minute claim and said "the jury is still out" on the quality of intelligence used to make Blair's case.

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