A United States Senate committee report says most key pre-war judgments by U.S. intelligence on the existence of Iraqi weapons of mass destruction were overstated or not supported by evidence.
The Senate Intelligence Committee report released today (Friday) accuses the intelligence community of what it calls "group think" in treating ambiguous evidence as conclusive and not challenging assumptions about Iraqi weapons.
The report singles out the Central Intelligence Agency, saying it prevented the sharing of some data with other agencies.
The Senate report adds that the intelligence community was right in finding no link between Iraq and al Qaida. Such a link has been used by the White House in justifying the Iraq war.
At the C.I.A. today (Friday), Deputy Director John McLaughlin acknowledged there were shortcomings in the agency's pre-war intelligence.
Information for this report is provided by AP and AFP.