President Bush's national security adviser, Condoleezza Rice, says she stands by her pre-war assessment that Iraq was trying to re-start its nuclear program.
Speaking on U.S. Sunday morning talk shows, Ms. Rice acknowledged that some intelligence leading to that assessment was flawed. But she said, given the overall body of evidence, the Bush administration was right to consider Saddam Hussein to be a threat.
Ms. Rice spoke as the New York Times cast doubt on one of the White House's key pre-war claims -- that Iraq had acquired thousands of aluminum tubes for use in a nuclear program.
The Times says government experts had concluded the tubes were more likely intended for use in small artillery rockets. Citing several CIA and Bush administration officials, it says Ms. Rice's staff was told this in 2001, some 18 months before the U.S. invasion of Iraq.
Information for this report is provided by Reuters.