David Kay told a US Senate committee Wednesday "we were all wrong" about Iraqi weapons, after disclosing at the weekend that a six-month search had found no evidence Iraq possessed banned weapons before US troops invaded.

Japan, which on Monday ordered the dispatch of some 600 troops to provide humanitarian and reconstruction aid to Iraq, was among the first countries to publicly state its support for the war.

Japanese Chief Cabinet Secretary Yasuo Fukuda said Kay's testimony was not to be trusted.

"He may have been the former person in charge, but he is not so now," Fukuda told a regular press conference. "We don't have to believe everything he says."

About the possibility Iraq did not possess weapons of mass destruction, Fukuda said: "There is no guarantee it didn't have them. Rather, it is highly possible that it did."

SPACE.WIRE