A US military team found the substance buried in the sand, thanks to information provided by an Iraqi scientist who claimed to have worked in Iraq's chemical weapons' program for more than a decade, the daily said.

The Times envoy who reported the story, Judith Miller, was permitted to watch the scientist indicating sites where chemicals were buried to US officials only from a distance.

She said she was not allowed to interview him, but was permitted to examine a letter written in Arabic, which her sources said he had slipped to US soldiers, offering information and requesting protection.

She was made to wait three days before publishing the information, and was required to submit her report to military officials for review.

Those officials asked her to delete details of what chemicals had been discovered, saying it could help identify the scientist and expose him to reprisals.

The report described them as "precursors for a toxic agent that is banned by chemical weapons treaties," and said the scientist claimed to have buried them in his backyard and elsewhere as evidence of Iraq's weapons program.

The United States to date has not announced the discovery of any banned weapons in Iraq, although the existence of Saddam Hussein's alleged weapons programs was the main reason given for launching the US-led invasion one month ago.

Coalition officials have said they are certain they will find the weapons and that, once they do, they will take every precaution to demonstrate they did not plant the evidence.

They said Iraqi officials dismantled their illegal weapons and hid the bits and pieces all over the country -- and that Iraqi assistance was crucial in helping solve the "thousand-piece jigsaw puzzle" of Iraq's weapons program.

According to the Times report Monday, the scientist told US officials that Iraq destroyed chemical and biological weapons equipment before the war began.

Four days before President George W Bush on March 17 gave Saddam Hussein 48 hours to go into exile or face war, Iraqi officials set fire to a warehouse where biological weapons research and development had taken place, the report said.

US officials quoted the scientist as saying he had watched other Iraqis bury sensitive materials during the months before the war, to hide and preserve them for future use, the Times said.

SPACE.WIRE