Iraq wants the United States to help it recover millions of Saddam-era documents that were seized by US troops or looted in the mayhem following the former leader's ouster in 2003, officials said.

The files include intelligence papers on Iraqis kept by Saddam Hussein's feared secret police, information on weapons arsenals, detailed plans of massacres of the regime's enemies and even tapes of songs praising Saddam, officials said.

Many were pored over by US officials in the aftermath of the invasion as they sought evidence of the weapons programme that had been the main justification for the war - weapons of mass destruction that proved to be nonexistent, culture and library officials said in a news conference.

Others just went missing in the chaos and looting in the early months of the US-led invasion which toppled Saddam.

Taher al-Humoud, deputy minister for culture, said that Iraq wanted to keep all the files in a national archive that would be made available to the public.