Duelfer, a former deputy director of pre-war UN inspections of Iraq, was expected to be named the head of the 1,400-member Iraq Survey Group in an announcement planned for later in the day, an official told AFP, speaking on condition of anonymity.

Under Kay, the Iraq Survey Group failed to find any chemical, biological or nuclear weapons in Iraq, the prime rationale for the US-led invasion of Iraq last year.

In Duelfer, Tenet appears to have selected an expert with deep experience in tracking Iraqi weapons of mass destruction programs but also one who in recent comments has expressed doubt that any weapons would ever be found.

"The prospect of finding chemical weapons, biological weapons is close to nil at this point," he said this month in an interview with PBS, the public television network.

"There has been every incentive in the world for the Iraqi people and the Iraqi scientists to come forward and say this is where the weapons are. That hasn't happened. So I think the problem right now is what is the extent of the problem and where was it headed? What were the intentions of the regime?"

From 1993 to 2000, Duelfer served as the number two in the UN Special Commission (UNSCOM) formed to disarm Iraq after the 1991 Gulf War.

A former diplomat, he specialized in arms control and security issues over a ten year period at the State Department.

"He's intimately familiar with the whole issue of weapons of mass destruction, and should be able to come right up to speed," a defense official said.

His views contrast sharply with those of Vice President Dick Cheney who argued in an interview with National Public Radio this week that the discovery of two tractor trailers with equipment were "conclusive evidence" that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction programs.

Although the CIA presented the trailers as a likely mobile biological weapons lab after they were found last year, Kay in an interim report last October said that had not been corroborated.

Kay's interim findings fueled a still raging controversy over pre-war US intelligence estimates that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction and whether the intelligence findings had been exagerated by the administration to make its case for war.

The ISG, Kay reported, found no stockpiles of chemical or biological weapons.

Kay's team uncovered dozens of WMD-related program "activities," including a missile program, according to the October report, but little or no evidence of a capacity to produce chemical weapons and no evidence Iraq took significant steps after 1998 to produce nuclear weapons or fissile material.

Another interim report is scheduled to made to Congress in February.

It was unclear whether that task will fall to Kay or his successor.

Kay let it be known in December he wanted to step down for personal and family reasons, returning to Iraq for discussions at the CIA on what would come next.

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