Progress seen in hunt for Iraqi arms

WASHINGTON — Chief U.S. weapons inspector David Kay on Thursday said his team was making "solid progress" in the hunt for prohibited arms in Iraq.

U.S. inspectors are looking for weapons, Kay said, as well as assembling captured documents into a comprehensive picture of Saddam Hussein's arms programs before the U.S.-British invasion toppled the regime in April.

The hunt for weapons has so far been fruitless.

Still, Americans "should not be surprised by (future) surprises," Kay told reporters after briefing members of the Senate Armed Services Committee in a closed-door session. He added that "we are surprised by new advances that we're making."

Army Maj. Gen. Keith Dayton, the uniformed head of the inspection team who also attended the Senate hearing, echoed Kay's show of confidence. "It is phenomenal what we're finding, and I'm much more optimistic and confident every week that we're going to come to a very good resolution of this in due time," he said.

Kay declined to give specific details of what his team has uncovered so far. Inspectors intend to compile a full picture of Saddam's weapons and weapons programs rather than release information piecemeal, he said.

Seven weeks after CIA Director George Tenet appointed him as a special adviser, Kay returned to Washington to brief the White House and reassure lawmakers, many of whom are growing increasingly skeptical about pre-war Bush administration claims that Iraqi weapons capabilities posed an imminent threat.

Kay said the inspection team — known as the Iraq Survey Group — would uncover what he termed "the full extent and nature of Saddam's program."

Kay, a former chief U.N. weapons inspector, briefed President Bush on Tuesday at the White House. Failure to find chemical, biological or nuclear weapons is at the core of rising public concern about whether Bush pumped up claims about Iraqi weapons to justify war.

Recent polls show a decline in public confidence on Bush's handling of Iraq, so the inspection team's assurances about finding weapons at a minimum buys the White House some time.

Bush appeared to recognize that Wednesday at a news conference where he told reporters: "Look, in my line of work, it's always best to produce results, and I understand that."

On Thursday, Kay said Iraqis were actively collaborating in the weapons search.

"Almost every (new suspected weapons site) is one that we did not know about until we were led to it by Iraqis or the documentation we have seized," Kay said.