WASHINGTON - The Bush administration and the U.S. intelligence community have had some success in finding Saddam Hussein's weapons of mass destruction, Sen. Pat Roberts said Thursday.

Roberts, chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, told reporters on a telephone conference call that he couldn't go into detail because the news is classified.

"It's classified information now - I am urging the administration and the intelligence community to make at least portions of that public," Roberts said. "We've had some success; I'm sorry I can't go into detail about that."

Roberts, R-Kan., traveled this week to Iraq and the Middle East with members of the Senate Armed Services Committee.

When Congress returns from the July Fourth holiday next week, Roberts will continue Intelligence Committee hearings into prewar intelligence on Iraq's weapons program and whether the Bush administration manipulated the information.

At issue is the administration's failure, so far, to find the Iraqi weapons. Roberts, already a staunch defender of the U.S. intelligence community, defended the White House.

"It's going to take some time to uncover Saddam Hussein's weapons programs, and let me emphasize the term `programs,'" Roberts said. "This was a program designed to be hidden, hidden by people who knew what their fate would be if they revealed it.

"You can't dig up every rosebush in Iraq," he added. "We need people who are familiar with the program to show us where they are hidden."

Roberts said an aggressive effort is under way to piece together documents and find people with knowledge of the program.

He also defended President Bush's warning on Wednesday that he would find and punish "anybody who wants to harm American troops."

"There are some who feel like that the conditions are such that they can attack us there. My answer is bring them on," Bush said. "We've got the force necessary to deal with the security situation."

Roberts said he took the comments as a message to U.S. troops, not potential attackers.

"In talking with representatives of the Pentagon, I think that message was delivered to our troops saying we know we have the ability to take the fight to the enemy," Roberts said. "Perhaps he could have said it another way, but I think the message was not to the enemy so much, but it was to our troops."