Washington - After visiting 230 sites, American troops have run out of new places to check for Iraq's alleged chemical and biological weapons.
This is despite new assertions by United States President George Bush and Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld on Tuesday that they do in fact exist.
This latest dead end will only increase pressure for a full congressional investigation into what critics say is a massive US intelligence failure.
Now John McCain, the influential Republican senator from Arizona and a strong supporter of the war to topple Saddam Hussein, has added his voice to the chorus of demands.
A US military commander in Baghdad, expressing frustration about a hunt under way since coalition forces entered Iraq, said: "It doesn't appear there are any more targets at this time."
Now officials are hoping the capture of two more senior figures on the Pentagon's "deck of cards" of wanted Iraqi officials may lead to a breakthrough.
Guantanamo officials are ready to provide a courtroom, a prison and an execution chamber if the order comes to try terror suspects at the Cuban base, the mission commander says.
Sapa-AP reports that although no new directive has been given and no plans have been approved, experts are looking at what it will take to try, imprison and, if need be, execute detainees accused of links to Afghanistan's fallen Taliban regime or to the al-Qaeda terror network. - Independent Foreign Service
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