Wolfowitz admitted to the magazine Vanity Fair that the weapons of mass destruction issue was never the United States' prime reason for launching a war on Iraq to overturn the regime of Saddam Hussein.

"For bureaucratic reasons, we settled on one issue, weapons of mass destruction, because it was the one reason everyone could agree on," Wolfowitz said in the interview.

Another reason for the war, which slipped by "almost unnoticed, but huge" was that the Iraq war would allow a withdrawal of US troops from Saudi Arabia.

The presence of US troops there has been one of the main bones of contention for the terrorist network al-Qaeda, the official said.

"Just lifting that burden from the Saudis is itself going to open the door" to a more peaceful Middle East, Wolfowitz said.

Seven weeks after the Iraq war ended, no weapons of mass destruction have been found, nor evidence linking the Saddam regime with al-Qaeda -- two of the main reason given publicly by Washington and London for launching the war.

Wolfowitz's comments illustrate the desire of US President George W. Bush and his administration to play down the issue of weapons of mass destruction -- while nonetheless insisting that finding those weapons in Iraq is still a priority.

On Tuesday, US Defense Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld said it was possible the Iraqis may have decided to destroy any such weapons before the conflict started.

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