WASHINGTON U.S. officials acknowledged on Sunday that their stocks of state-of-the-art smart bombs had been depleted by the war in Afghanistan, but the nation's top general said his forces had other weapons they could use if necessary.

Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and Gen. Richard Myers, chairman of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff, said in appearances on Television talk shows that the United States was boosting its capacity to make the precision-guided 1,000 pound (454-kg) "Joint Direct Attack Munitions", or JDAMs.

The *** Washington Post *** reported on Sunday that the United States, which has issued repeated threats against Iraq over its weapons of mass destruction program in recent months, was running "dangerously low" of the weapons.

According to Reuters, the paper quoted unnamed Pentagon planners as saying it would take six months to produce enough JDAMs to contemplate an attack on Iraq.

Asked about the report, Rumsfeld said on NBC's "Meet the Press" that the Pentagon had used more JDAMs in Afghanistan than it thought it would.

"We engaged in an intensive activity in Afghanistan. We used weapons, we used supplies. You need to replenish those, that's true...

"Indeed, the infrastructure is being expanded so that we are able to replenish, not just to the old requirement level, but if we found, as we did, that we used a higher number of weapons, certain types of weapons in a period, then the requirement changes to that new level."

Asked if he was saying it would take some time for the United States to get ready for a new war, Rumsfeld replied: "We are rapidly replenishing the things we need. And we have no intention of trying to do things we're not capable of doing."

U.S. officials have said in recent weeks that Washington is determined to oust President Saddam Hussein from power, but have sought to dispel speculation that military action against Iraq is imminent.

Gen. Myers, on ABC's "This Week", said the United States had used "a lot" of JDAMs in its war on the Taleban and Al- Qaeda, describing the smart bomb as "one of the preferred weapons".

"It is a relatively new weapon, so in terms of supply, we didn't have a lot of these on hand when we started the effort in Afghanistan," Myers said.

Asked about the ** Post**'s estimate of six months to resupply, Myers said the availability of JDAMs would not dictate the timing of any attack.

"We have other weapons, as well. This is the preferred weapon, but we have other weapons as well," he said.