David Kay questions intelligence failure

David Kay told the New York Times in an interview published yesterday that he now believes US intelligence agencies missed signs of disarray in Iraq's nuclear, biological and chemical weapons programmes.

"I'm personally convinced that there were not large stockpiles of newly produced weapons of mass destruction," he told the daily. "We don't find the people, the documents or the physical plants that you would expect to find if the production was going on.

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Kay said the Central Intelligence Agency and other intelligence agencies did not realize Iraqi scientists had presented ambitious but fanciful weapons programmes to Saddam -- whose regime had become increasingly more corrupt and out of touch -- and had then used the money for other purposes.

Asked Sunday if he thought President George W. Bush owed the American public an explanation for the failure to find banned chemical or biological weapons, Kay told National Public Radio: "The intelligence community owes the president rather than the president owing the American people.