Small chance of Iraqi WMD find: UK official

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

The 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.

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

Prime Minister Tony Blair, facing charges his government exaggerated intelligence warnings about the threat posed by former Iraqi president Saddam Hussein, insisted this week evidence he had banned "weapons programs" will still emerge.

Some observers detected a tactical retreat in his careful choice of words, but his Downing Street office said it was a formula he had used in the past. Last September, in a bid to win public support for possible war, Blair published a dossier saying Iraq had chemical and biological weapons that could be deployed at 45 minutes notice.

Blair's government is now locked in an acrimonious row with the BBC over accusations that it "sexed up" the dossier to make the case for war.

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

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.

Opinion polls suggest the British public is no longer convinced of the need for war and members of parliament from all parties are demanding proof of banned weapons in Iraq.

Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said on Wednesday the United States did not go to war with Iraq because of dramatic new evidence of banned weapons, but because it saw existing information in a new light after the September 11 attacks.