A Senate Intelligence Committee report found inadequate evidence that Hussein, when he was president of Iraq, had been rebuilding his nuclear weapons program. But it cited various reports that Iraq had sought uranium in Africa. So although Bush cited only British evidence that was determined to have been inconclusive, other intelligence files contained inconclusive evidence about the assertion.
The committee chairman, Senator Pat Roberts, said he believed last year that the White House was correct in repudiating the uranium assertion. "Now I don't know whether it's accurate or not. That's the whole question," Roberts, Republican of Kansas, said in an interview.
The repudiation by the White House occurred after The New York Times published an op-ed column by former ambassador Joseph Wilson, who was sent by the CIA to Niger to determine whether Iraq had been acquiring uranium. Wilson said it was unlikely that a uranium transaction had taken place and the administration appeared to have been manipulating the intelligence.
Republicans said Wilson was trying to boost John Kerry's presidential campaign.
Columnist Robert Novak, citing two unidentified Bush administration officials, wrote that Wilson's wife, CIA officer Valerie Plame, had recommended Wilson for the trip. That has led to a criminal probe into the leak of Plame's identity.
The Senate report challenges Wilson's denial that his wife had a role in the selection and questions his account of the intelligence available at the time of his trip. It also said that his trip, rather than discrediting the Iraq-Niger link, bolstered the views of some analysts who suspected Hussein was seeking uranium.
In an addendum to the report, Roberts and two other Republicans accused Wilson of providing "inaccurate, unsubstantiated, and misleading" information. In a letter to committee leaders Thursday, Wilson said a thorough reading of the report supports his public comments.
He told CNN's "Late Edition" he wants committee members to reinterview a CIA officer whose testimony, Wilson said, had muddled the record about his mission.
