``Asked why the Bush administration, if it had known about the information since April or earlier, didn`t advertise it, Hoekstra conjectured that the president has been forward-looking and concentrating on the development of a secure government in Iraq.

Offering the official administration response to FOX News, a senior Defense Department official pointed out that the chemical weapons were not in useable conditions.

``This does not reflect a capacity that was built up after 1991,`` the official said, adding the munitions ``are not the WMDs this country and the rest of the world believed Iraq had, and not the WMDs for which this country went to war.````