A claim by the British Prime Minister Tony Blair that Iraqi weapons of mass destruction could still be found has been branded "delusional" by the man who headed the search.
The British Prime Minister suggested recently that the Iraq Survey Group could produce evidence when it reports in several months time.
But David Kay, who led the ISG after the invasion, said the weapons simply did not exist so Mr Blair and other leaders should say sorry for being wrong.
"Anyone out there holding - as I gather Prime Minister Blair has recently said - the prospect that ISG is going to unmask actual weapons of mass destruction are really delusional," he said. "There is nothing there. There is a programme there. There was an intention of Saddam Hussein at some point to reconstitute it.
"There were clearly illegal activities, clear violations of UN Security Council resolutions. We have accumulated that evidence and really have accumulated that evidence to a considerable degree four months ago.
"There are not actual stockpiles of newly produced weapons of mass destruction."
Dr Kay's remarks came amid reports that Lord Butler's inquiry into intelligence failing has ranged much wider than expected.
The coalition's former chief weapons inspector conceded that Mr Blair and other leaders had "generally" started to talk about weapons programmes rather than actual stockpiles.
However, he told BBC Radio 4's Today programme: "It is amazing that occasionally they slip back into talking about it. The problem is the unwillingness to take the responsibility of saying a few simple words - we were wrong.
"We simply got it wrong. There were actually no weapons of mass destruction. Iraq was a dangerous country, Saddam was an evil man and we are better off without him and all of that. But we were wrong in our estimation."
PA