WASHINGTON, Jan 8: A 400-strong US military team that has been searching for illicit weapons in Iraq have been withdrawn after finding nothing of substance, although a separate group looking for weapons of mass destruction still remains in the country , The New York Times reported on Thursday.

"They picked up everything that was worth picking up," one US official told the daily, referring to the Joint Captured Materiel Exploitation Group, made up of technical experts headed by an unidentified Australian brigadier.

The team's task included searching weapons depots and other sites for missile launchers that might have been used with illicit weapons, another also unidentified Defence Department official was quoted as saying.

The withdrawal of the 400-member military team was seen by some military officials as a sign that the US government may no longer expect to uncover chemical or biological weapons in Iraq, the daily said.

A separate military team tasked with disposing of chemical or biological weapons in Iraq remains part of the 1,400-member Iraq Survey Group that has been searching for weapons of mass destruction in Iraq since Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein was overthrown, a member of the survey group said.

However he told the paper that the group in question, known as Task Force D/E, for disablement and elimination, was "still waiting for something to dispose of."

In October, an interim report by Iraq Survey Group leader David Kay said his search had yielded no weapons of mass destruction, which President George W. Bush had cited as justification for war against Iraq.

Mr Kay, however, said documents found in Iraq indicated that Saddam intended to develop illicit weapons and may have retained the capacity to do so. The Washington Post on Wednesday said interviews with Iraqi scientists and investigators indicate that Saddam's regime concealed arms research that never went beyond the planning stage, although it engaged in "abundant deception" about its ambitions.

"The broad picture emerging from the investigation to date," said the Post, "suggests that, whatever its desire, Iraq did not possess the wherewithal to build a forbidden armoury on anything like the scale it had before the 1991 Persian Gulf War."-AFP