Powell, Rice defend US intelligence on Iraq

Top Bush administration officials yesterday rejected accusations they exaggerated threats posed by Iraq's weapons, calling the charges "outrageous" and the results of "revisionist history."

Appearing on morning news programs, Secretary of State Colin Powell and national security advisor Condoleezza Rice said there was broad consensus in the intelligence community that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction, and they believe that intelligence was sound.

"We have no doubt whatsoever that over the last several years, they have retained such weapons or retained the capability to start up production of such weapons," Powell said on CNN's Late Edition.

"We also know they are masters of deceit and masters of hiding these things, and so a little patience is required," he said. Powell called it "really somewhat outrageous on the part of some critics to say that this was all bogus."

Concerns have been rising worldwide that the arsenal of weapons of mass destruction described by the administration has not been found in the weeks after the war that toppled former Iraqi President Saddam Hussein.

Critics questioning whether the administration used faulty or manipulated intelligence as grounds for war point to a Defense Intelligence Agency report from September of 2002, disclosed last week, that said the agency did not have enough "reliable information" on Iraq's alleged chemical weapons.

Powell and Rice said that quote was taken out of context, giving a misleading impression of the report.

A line "talked about not having the evidence of current facilities and current stockpiling. The very next sentence says that it had information that (chemical) weapons had been dispersed to units," Powell said on Fox News Sunday.

According to the Washington Post's Saturday editions, the report said that "although we lack any direct information, Iraq probably possesses chemical agent in chemical munitions" and "probably possesses bulk chemical stockpiles, primarily containing precursors, but that also could consist of some mustard agent and VX," a deadly nerve agent.