Baghdad, June 04: The first members of a new team intended to step up the hunt for weapons of mass destruction amid mounting criticism of London and Washington's original pretext for war, have begun arriving in Iraq, the coalition's top commander here said today. "The lead elements of the Iraq survey group are already here," Ground Forces Commander Lieutenant-General David Mckiernan said here. "Initial elements are on the ground. They won't be fully operation until the end of this month." Mckiernan said the 1,300-1,400-strong team of specialists would add extra technical and analytical skills to the coalition's 75th Exploitation Task Force, which has been leading the search for Saddam Hussein's alleged banned arsenal so far. "It is a much more robust capability, which will be over here for as long as it takes," he said. The US commander defended the coalition's failure to find any trace of banned weapons a full eight weeks after Saddam's overthrow. "Following up on all the leads on WMDs if going to take some time," he said. He also defended the coalition's pre-war planning assumption that such weapons might actually be used, saying it had been based on the best intelligence available. The intelligence had been gleaned from a "variety of sources" and assessed by "our best analytical minds. In his assessment, "there was a threat not only of possession but also of the use of weapons of mass destruction so we planned for that eventuality." Bureau Report