US search for WMD in Iraq is over: Report

Officials said that the ongoing violence in Iraq led to the decision to wrap up the search for WMDs.

The search for weapons of mass destruction in Iraq ended before Christmas and an interim report by top US weapons inspector Charles Duelfer saying that there are no weapons to be found will likely stand, The Washington Post said on Wednesday.

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"The September 30 report is really pretty much the picture," a senior intelligence official who asked not to be identified told the daily.

"We've talked to so many people that someone would have said something. We received nothing that contradicts the picture we've put forward. It's possible there is a supply some place, but what is much more likely is that (as time goes by) we will find a greater substantiation of the picture that we've already put forward," he added.

The daily said officials who served in the Iraq Survey Group, tasked with the search of biological, chemical and nuclear weapons in Iraq, wrapped up their job shortly before Christmas.

The ongoing violence in Iraq together with the lack of new information, they said, led to the decision.