Search for WMD in Iraq has ended: Report

Officials who served with the group charged with hunting banned weapons said the violence in Iraq, coupled with a lack of new information, led them to fold up the effort shortly before Christmas, the newspaper reported.

Charles Duelfer, the CIA special adviser who led the hunt, has returned home, and analysts serving in his Iraq Survey Group (ISG) have returned to CIA headquarters in Virginia, the report said, citing unnamed intelligence officials.

The Post said the findings of an interim report that Duelfer submitted to Congress in September will stand as the ISG's final conclusions, according to a senior intelligence official.