"The intelligence officials offered a less alarming view.

They said the old munitions had been found in groups of one and two, indicating that they'd been discarded, not that they were part of an organized program to stockpile banned weapons.

One of the declassified key points says the munitions - apparently dating from Iraq's 1980-88 war with Iran - could be sold on the black market.

But one intelligence official said there was "no evidence that any element of the insurgency in Iraq is in possession of these kinds of munitions."

Duelfer's report said that while the old munitions might be effective as terrorist weapons they didn't pose a "militarily significant threat" and couldn't cause mass casualties.

No evidence has surfaced to support the Bush administration's prewar contention that Saddam was reconstituting his nuclear, chemical and biological weapons programs.

Duelfer's predecessor, David Kay, said in January 2004 that "we were almost all wrong" in thinking that Iraq had such weapons. Duelfer reported that Saddam was planning to reconstitute his programs once U.N. sanctions were lifted, but hadn't done so."