Brigadier General Vincent Brooks, spokesman for the US Central Command, said bottles labelled with chemical agents were discovered at the building in western Iraq during a raid by special forces.

But he said initial investigations did not suggest it was a site for the manufacture of weapons of mass destruction.

"What we discovered in the west ... where a special operations raid was ongoing, was a building which we think now was probably an NBC (nuclear, biological, chemical) training school," he told reporters.

"Our conclusion at this point is that it's not a WMD (weapons of mass destruction) site per se, and in this case it proves to be something far less than that."

The United States and Britain allege the Iraqi regime is hiding weapons of mass destruction but have failed to find any since they launched a war of disarmament and "liberation" on March 20.

SPACE.WIRE