CIA director Mr George Tenet today defended US intelligence on Iraqi weapons, saying the agency never said "there was an imminent threat".
Mr Tenet denied the CIA tailored information to build a case for war: "No one told us what to say or how to say it."
"When the facts of Iraq are all in, we will neither be completely right nor completely wrong," Mr Tenet told a gathering at Georgetown University.
He said analysts differed on several important aspects of Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein's weapons programs, but added, "They never said there was an imminent threat".
Instead, he said, "They painted an objective assessment for our policy-makers of a brutal dictator who was continuing his efforts to deceive and build programs that might constantly surprise us and threaten our interests."
Mr Tenet said CIA analysts were "generally on target" about Iraq's missile program, while on nuclear materials, "We may have overestimated the progress that Saddam was making."
He also noted that the search for banned weapons is continuing and "despite some public statements, we are nowhere near 85 per cent finished".
That was a direct rebuttal to claims made by Mr David Kay, Mr Tenet's former top adviser in the weapons search.
Since Mr Kay resigned two weeks ago, his statements that deposed President Saddam Hussein's purported weapons didn't exist at the time of the US invasion have sparked an intense debate in the United States and Britain over the pre-war intelligence the Bush administration used to justify the war.