IRAQ: One of the Bush administration's leading sources of pre-war intelligence has admitted information it supplied to the US was intended to start a war and may have contained inaccuracies.
Dr Ahmed Chalabi, head of the Iraqi National Congress, suggested the congress's reports about Saddam's ability to deploy weapons of mass destruction were exaggerated but that the ends justified the means.
"Our objective has been achieved. That tyrant Saddam is gone and the Americans are in Baghdad. What was said before is not important," said Dr Chalabi.
He reacted scornfully to the INC, one the largest groups of Iraqi exiles with a powerful Washington lobby, for being singled as providing partisan information. "The Bush administration is looking for a scapegoat," Dr Chalabi told The Irish Times.
The INC supplied dozens of former Iraqi officials to American intelligence agencies and those officials gave lurid accounts of Saddam's WMD capacity. But despite months of searching in Iraq, no WMDs have been found.
Last week, US State Department officials admitted much of the first-hand testimony it had received was "shaky". "What the INC told us formed one part of the intelligence picture," a senior official in Baghdad said. "But what Chalabi told us, we accepted in good faith. Now there are going to be a lot of question marks over his motives."
Dr Chalabi was once seen as Iraq's natural leader after Saddam but his lack of support has disappointed US officials.