//DTD HTML 4.01 Transitional//EN">THE American who led the hunt for Saddam Hussein’s weapons of mass destruction (WMD) for the past eight months resigned last night, saying he did not believe Saddam Hussein had possessed such an arsenal for a decade.

“I don’t think they existed,” said David Kay. “What everyone was talking about is stockpiles produced after the end of the last [1991] Gulf War and I don’t think there was a large-scale production programme in the Nineties.

“I think there were stockpiles at the end of the first Gulf War and a combination of UN inspectors and unilateral Iraqi action got rid of them. I think the best evidence is that they did not resume large-scale production, and that’s what we’re really talking about, is large stockpiles, not the small.”

Dr Kay’s comments will be deeply embarrassing for both President Bush and Tony Blair, who went to war last year to eliminate what they called the imminent threat posed by Saddam’s alleged chemical, biological and nuclear weaponry. They are also bad timing for the Prime Minister, coming days before the publication of the Hutton report.

Robin Cook, the former Foreign Secretary, told The Times that Tony Blair must now admit he was wrong about Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction.

Mr Cook said: “I have never doubted that Tony Blair acted in good faith but he cannot now go on insisting he was right, Next week, in his response to the Hutton report, is a good opportunity to put the record straight and to recognise that mistakes were made.”

Just two days ago Dick Cheney, the US Vice-President, repeated his conviction that the weapons existed, telling a radio interviewer: “It’s going to take some additional considerable period of time in order to look in all of the cubby holes and ammo dumps in Iraq, where you might expect to find something like that.” But last night the Administration signalled a significant downgrading of the hunt when it appointed a replacement for Dr Kay who has said publicly that he does not believe any weapons of mass destruction will be found.

Charles Duelfer, a former top UN weapons inspector in Iraq and a frequent critic of Dr Kay’s approach, said in a TV television interview this month: “The prospect of finding chemical weapons, biological weapons is close to nil at this point.” He added that the CIA-led Iraq Survey Group (ISG) headed by Dr Kay had been “talking to a lot of Iraqi scientists - anyone who has known where they are, they’ve spoken to. They’ve had every incentive to show them where they are, and they have come up with nothing.”

In what would be a big climbdown, the Administration also appeared to be on the verge of bowing to Shia pressure by changing its plans for choosing a government to assume power in Iraq this summer.

The White House said it wanted the United Nations to send a team to Iraq to examine the feasibility of holding elections so soon. Under Washington’s existing plans, power would be handed to a transitional government appointed by caususes on July 1, with proper elections next year.

Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, the spiritual leader of Iraq’s Shia majority, ordered a halt to recent street demonstrations in favour of elections to encourage the UN to send a team. “Direct elections are possible,” said Ahmad Chalabi, a member of the US-appointed Iraqi Governing Council with very close ties to Washington.

Washington has been quietly reducing the size of the 1,400-strong ISG, and has reassigned dozens of linguists to the counter-insurgency effort.

Dr Kay was viewed as a hawk who expected to find stockpiles of chemical and biological weapons in Iraq. In a report to Congress last October, he presented evidence of illicit weapons programmes in Iraq but said his team had found no actual weapons of mass destruction (WMD).

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