US: The White House, under fire from Democrats, yesterday defended its number two security aide, Mr Stephen Hadley, who accepted blame for President Bush's now-discredited charge that Iraq sought African uranium.
"Steve Hadley is someone with great experience and expertise and the president has great confidence in the job he's doing," the White House spokesman, Mr Scott McClellan, told reporters.
Democratic criticism continued, however, with US Senate Minority Leader Tom Daschle calling on Mr Bush to end the "confusion" over the controversy.
Democratic presidential hopeful Mr Howard Dean insisted that anyone who had misled Mr Bush should resign and urged an independent investigation of the disputed charge in the president's January State of the Union address that Iraq tried to buy African uranium.
Mr Hadley, who as deputy national security adviser is responsible for reviewing security issues in Mr Bush's speeches, acknowledged on Tuesday that he had overlooked previous memos from the CIA which cast doubt on the intelligence underlying the charge Mr Bush used to bolster his case for invading Iraq.
In the run-up to the US-led invasion Mr Bush cited Saddam Hussein's weapons of mass destruction programmes in making the case for war, although no such weapons have been found since the regime was toppled on April 9th.
Earlier this month, the CIA Director, Mr George Tenet, said that the CIA had cleared the State of the Union speech and should have removed the claim that Iraq was seeking uranium from Africa for nuclear weapons.
Documents backing the claim were shown to be forged, although Britain, cited by Mr Bush in the speech as the source for the accusation, has said that it had additional sources substantiating the claim.
Mr Hadley said that one CIA memo containing doubts about the African uranium claim had also been addressed to the national security adviser, Ms Condoleezza Rice. Ms Rice has said that any reference to the uranium claim would have been removed from the January speech if the CIA had objected.
It was not clear whether Ms Rice read the memo, but she also feels responsible, Mr Hadley said. "The national security adviser also wants . . . it clearly understood that she feels a personal responsibility for not recognising the potential problem presented by those 16 words," Mr Hadley said.
The Democratic National Committee accused Mr Bush of failing to accept personal responsibility. "Apparently, at the Bush White House, the buck stops everywhere but the president's desk," it said.
White House communications director Dan Bartlett said that Mr Hadley had spoken with Mr Bush, who had expressed his confidence in the aide.
Mr Bill Clinton, the former president, said that the controversy should now be dropped.
"I thought the White House did the right thing in just saying 'Well, we probably shouldn't have said that.' And I think we ought to focus on where we are and what the right thing to do for Iraq is now," Mr Clinton said on CNN's Larry King Live programme on Tuesday. - (Reuters)