US Secretary of State Colin Powell last night defended his arguments that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction that justified a war against Iraq.
Mr Powell insisted that though post-war investigations have not found unconventional weapons, the Iraqi regime had possessed both the arms and the intention to use them.
He was speaking after it was revealed that the 400-member US military team sent to find the weapons have withdrawn empty-handed from Iraq.
But Mr Powell defended his February 2nd, 2003 UN speech, which laid out the US administration's case for invading Iraq. He said he was "confident of what I presented last year; the intelligence community is confident of the material they gave me. And this game is still unfolding."
Yesterday the prestigious Washington-based research foundation, the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, published a scathing report on President Bush's case for war, calling it "deeply flawed" and exaggerated.
According to the report the US "systematically misrepresented the threat from Iraq's WMD and ballistic missile programs."
Officials exaggerated the threat by minimising uncertainties and caveats, and insisting, without evidence, that Saddam "would give whatever WMD he possessed to terrorists," the report said.
But Mr Powell noted that the report did acknowledge that Iraq had possessed the capability to produce weapons of mass destruction.
PA