Washington, June 08: Washington remains convinced that Iraq's alleged weapons of mass destruction programme will be found, US National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice said today, despite growing doubts that such weapons exist. "I believe we will find them," Rice told NBC's "Meet the Press."

"We will put together this whole picture and when the story is told, we will know how Saddam Hussein managed to deceive the world for the length of time he did."

"I don't see how anyone can say that there wasn't a true danger here, when the (UN) weapons inspectors themselves were saying that there were thousands of tons of missing VX, missing anthrax, missing sarin gas," she said.

"No one ever said that we knew precisely where all these agents were, where they were stored," Rice added.

President George W Bush's administration has been on the defensive as US-led forces in Iraq have yet to find the banned weapons that Washington accused him of hiding.

Bush made Iraq's alleged possession of chemical and biological weapons central to his case for launching the invasion that toppled Saddam Hussein.

But now US lawmakers have launched investigations into whether the US administration distorted intelligence information in order to justify military action, which faced strong opposition from traditional allies like Germany and France.

Critics, including some columnists in prominent newspapers, have alleged that Bush and top aides like Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld exaggerated Saddam's arsenal in order to convince the US public to support the war.

Bureau Report