David Kay has quit his post as leader of the hunt for weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, which so far has failed to find any actual arms, and will be replaced by former UN weapons inspector Charles Duelfer, the CIA said on Friday.
The search has so far not found any actual stockpiles of such weapons, which critics say is an indication that the White House exaggerated the threat from Iraq in making its case for war last year.
CIA Director George Tenet praised Kay for his "extraordinary service under dangerous and difficult circumstances," and said Duelfer would continue the efforts to determine the status of Iraq's programs to develop weapons of mass destruction.
Kay was hired as CIA adviser last June to oversee the Defence Department's Iraq Survey Group that was hunting for stockpiles of chemical and biological weapons and evidence that Iraq had restarted its nuclear weapons program - the main justification for the US-led war against Baghdad.