The two men leading the hunt for weapons of mass destruction (WMD) in Iraq will tell US senators they have found evidence of programmes to develop such weapons but no "smoking gun".
Mr David Kay, a former UN weapons inspector sent by the CIA to Iraq as a special adviser to develop a strategy for finding WMD, and Army Major General Keith Dayton, who heads the US military's Iraq Survey Group searching for such weapons, will testify at closed-door hearings of the Senate Armed Services Committee and the Senate Intelligence Committee.
"They are going to be very optimistic about some of the stuff that they have come across, but certainly no smoking gun," one US official said today.
They will detail "promising leads" and brief lawmakers that there was "certainly evidence of a programme" to develop biological, chemical and nuclear weapons, the official said.
US defence secretary Mr Donald Rumsfeld told reporters on Wednesday he had met with Mr Kay, who recently returned from Iraq. "He's told me that he has a greater degree of confidence today than when he first arrived. And the rest of it's classified," Mr Rumsfeld said.