Bypassing the United Nations, Washington and London sent the team to set up base in Kuwait a week before the war on Iraq began on March 20, the paper said, adding that the information was disclosed by David Kay, the former head of UNSCOM -- the UN arms inspections team that left Iraq in 1998.

The paper said the team, led by Charles Duelfer, a former deputy head of the UNSCOM, has travelled extensively in Iraq, carrying out three inspections in the past two weeks but without finding any weapons.

It was called in to inspect weapons and papers found at an airbase in Iraq's western desert a fortnight ago, while in the past week, it has made two separate visits to sites on the road between Kuwait and Baghdad.

Kay, meanwhile, described the team as a "robust group of people."

"There are special forces teams that carry out (immediate) inspections. But they are not as technically based as the Kuwait team who are heavily science-based civilians," he told The Guardian.

He said the inspectors were drawn from beyond the ranks of former UNSCOM staff.

"You have people drawn from national laboratories in the United States. There are a number of Brits from defence and weapons establishments," Kay said.

The secret team has been dubbed US-movic because it is an American-led rival to the current UN disarmament agency UNMOVIC, The Guardian said.

News of the secret team will infuriate the United Nations, the paper claimed, especially since UN Secretary General Kofi Annan believes UN weapons inspectors still have a valid mandate to search for weapons once war in Iraq is over.

"Their mandate is still valid. It is only suspended because it became inoperable on account of the war," Annan said Thursday.

Ewen Buchanan, spokesman for Hans Blix -- the chief UN weapons inspector -- said the secret inspections team had tried and failed to recruit some of Blix's staff.

"Dr Blix has said we are the body assigned to carry out this inspection. We believe we have the capability and the existing legal mandate," The Guardian quoted Buchanan as saying.

The United States and Britain say they launched war on Iraq to enforce UN resolutions banning weapons of mass destruction in the country.

Meanwhile, officials in London and Washington have said that weapons inspections are currently being carried out by coalition forces and that so far no weapons have been found.

SPACE.WIRE