The Prime Minister, proclaimed that it showed how Saddam's WMD programme was up and running.



But today, a CIA source confirmed that the weapons inspectors sent into Iraq after the war had still reached no firm conclusions.



Their interim report - to be published next month but already leaking out of Washington - will say they've yet to find any weapons or weapons facilities.



It does say that Saddam Hussein's regime was developing a WMD programme.



The leak came as George Bush remained out of town - in New York - appealed to an already sceptical international community to help rebuild Iraq.





There are two sources here today telling us that, in effect, the team George Bush sent to Iraq to find weapons of mass destruction haven't got the goods as of now.



"There's no wow there" to quote one intelligence source who's seen the paper trail. It should be stressed that this is so far because this is only the interim findings of the team. It must be said that the CIA is saying strongly this afternoon the report will not rule anything in or out.



It should be stressed as well that the report, due out next month, will include details of computer programmes, secret files and pictures which prove that Saddam Hussein was developing a weapons programme after the UN inspectors left in 1998.



But as yet, it seems, no smoking gun.



So the Iraq survey group -- hundreds of scientists and intelligence agents backed by US troops -- has not found even traces of nuclear, chemical or biological weapons so far, we're being told.



And despite the discovery of serious programmes of deception, no delivery systems discovered as yet, or laboratories for the development of such weapons.



The head of the team, veteran weapons inspector David Kay, a man who's always believed Saddam was concealing a massive programme, has said all along he's a partisan in this investigation.



Today, at the United Nations, Mr Bush was holding, at last, a face-to face meeting with German chancellor Schroder. The two have been avoiding each other for months.



The stakes for Mr Bush at home and abroad on the issue of WMD are rising all the time.



What's undeniable is that the ground is shifting now in Washington. You have a retired general running for the White House saying it bluntly. You have senior Republicans questioning the military as they did today. And in Baghdad another roadside bomb, once again aimed at US troops, tearing through two commuter buses, killing one civilian and wounding more than 20.



I gather, off the record, there are a few frayed nerves at the White House. In the past few days, to quote one White House source, some folks are beginning to sense events moving out of our control.



In the circumstances, expect to see this report from the weapons investigation team be handled very carefully. Indeed there's a real prospect, if it doesn't have damning evidence of Saddam's weapons, then it will be classified and not made public.



And given the stakes for Prime Minister and President, on that London and Washington already agree, we're told.