President George W Bush on Friday announced a seven-member independent commission to look into intelligence reports on weapons of mass destruction in Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein's possession.

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Several months after the US led a coalition force into a war with Iraq based on these reports and dethroned Saddam, not a single WMD has been found in Iraq.

Co-chaired by Governor and former Democratic senator Chuck Robb and retired Judge Laurence Silberman, the commission will "compare what the Iraq Survey Group learns with the information we had prior to our Operation Iraqi
Freedom," Bush said.

It will examine intelligence on weapons of mass destruction and related 21st century threats and issue specific recommendations to ensure that American capabilities are strong," he said adding that it would also review US intelligence on weapons programmes in North Korea and Iran.

"It will also examine our intelligence on the threats posed by Libya and Afghanistan before recent changes in those countries," the US president said.

Directing all departments and agencies, including intelligence agencies, to assist the commission's work, he said it would issue its report by March 31, 2005.

Other members of the commission are Senator John McCain; Lloyd Cutler, former White House counsel to presidents
Carter and Clinton; Rick Levin, the president of Yale University; Admiral Bill Studeman, the former deputy director
of Central Intelligence Agency; and Judge Pat Wald, a former judge on the DC Court of Appeals.

Two more members, Bush said, would be named later.