Washington ? Of the nearly 500 prisoners from the war in Afghanistan, the Pentagon says it has found none that might be suitable for the new military tribunals.

The CIA, FBI and other U.S. interrogators for months have been questioning prisoners captured in the war against Osama bin Laden and terrorist supporters.

And the Pentagon since November has been working on writing rules under which the tribunals could operate.

But so far, interrogations have aimed at getting intelligence on terrorist networks and possible future attacks rather than building cases against those in custody, Pentagon spokeswoman Victoria Clarke said Tuesday.

“Some people have said ‘What’s the holdup?’ Well, there is no holdup,” she said.

“It’s extraordinarily difficult new issues, situations” presented by the new war against terrorism that require the careful writing of new rules for any eventual tribunals, Clarke said.

“But there’s also not a sense that we’ve got a person or two people that we feel are really likely candidates,” she told a Pentagon briefing.

President Bush in early November approved the use of special military tribunals that could put accused terrorists on trial faster and in greater secrecy than an ordinary criminal court. The Pentagon says it will be up to Bush to decide who goes to the tribunal, and Pentagon lawyers have been working to write rules for anyone Bush might choose.

Asked if information from interrogations was being shared with potential prosecutors to attempt to build cases against detainees, Clarke said: “It is strictly intelligence purposes right now.”

She said there has been “a lot of work and a lot of conversations there’s still more work to be done” on setting tribunal guidelines.

“The focus … of the discussions and the work has been on coming up with all the right policies and procedures and the guidelines,” she said. “Come up with the practice first and then take a look at the ones you have.”

Thousands of Taliban and al-Qaida fighters have been captured by Afghan forces, Pakistan, U.S. forces and others since the campaign started Oct. 7. The United States has sorted through some and taken custody of several hundred. Some have been released.

American forces now hold 494 that’s 300 in Afghanistan and 194 at a newly constructed high-security jail in Guantanamo, Cuba, Clarke said.

Officials have declined to name those held, saying it is hard to establish their true identities because they have aliases and lie.

The United States has on its State Department wanted list some two dozen figures within Laden’s al-Qaida terrorist organization. American officials also have said they were interested in catching Afghanistan’s former Taliban leaders who have harbored bin Laden for several years as he plotted terrorist attacks against U.S. interests, including the Sept. 11 attacks in New York and Washington.