Mowaffaq al-Rubaie also said the Iraqi interim government had approved the transfer of all radioactive material in its possession to the United States, but said he could not be sure more material was not hidden inside Iraq by Saddam Hussein (news - web sites).

Rubaie did not provide any evidence that unconventional weapons materials had crossed the border, or of attempts by militants to acquire them in Iraq.

U.S. and U.N. officials said Wednesday Washington had transported about 1.8 tonnes of enriched uranium out of Iraq for safekeeping more than a year after looters stole it from a U.N.-sealed facility left unguarded by U.S. troops.

Artillery shells found by Polish troops in Iraq in June contained the deadly nerve agent cyclosarin, the Polish army said last week.

"Just imagine if these weapons of mass destruction or any of these capabilities of making a dirty bomb or a chemical weapon or anything like this, if it falls in the hands of Zarqawi's gangsters and Zarqawi's people and these global terrorists or Saddam's former regime, what will happen?" he said.

"I have no shadow of doubt that..., with his evil mind, he (Zarqawi) will try to acquire these unconventional weapons," he told a news conference.

Zarqawi is Washington's top militant target in Iraq and has offered a $25 million reward for his capture. Zarqawi's group has claimed responsibility for bombings in Iraq and the beheadings of an American and South Korean.

MISTAKES

Asked if unconventional weapons material may already be in the hands of Zarqawi or others like him, Rubaie said: "We don't know. We have no intelligence information on that."

But he said "many mistakes" were made in failing to secure sensitive sites after the U.S.-led war that toppled Saddam.

Rubaie said the transfer of about 1.8 tonnes of low enriched uranium and almost 1,000 radioactive sources to the United States involved everything collected in Iraq. But he said he could not be certain Iraq was free of weapons of mass destruction.

"Whether he (Saddam Hussein) has smuggled these through the borders during the conflict of last year, whether he has hidden these weapons of mass destruction... we don't know," he said.

The United States and Britain have failed to uncover any stockpiles of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, even though the possession of such weapons was one of the reasons cited for launching the March 2003 invasion.

Rubaie said there were indications that some unconventional materials had crossed borders into neighboring states, and said Iraq would seek to have it returned if so.

"There are some indications that these (unconventional materials) have gone that way during the conflict and immediately after the conflict," he said but gave no details.