The US Defence Secretary has said the intelligence on Iraq was not politicised and that the assessment Baghdad had weapons of mass destruction will prove correct.
Mr Donald Rumsfeld said: "We haven't found Saddam Hussein either, but no one's doubting that he was there." He was on the way to Portugal at the start of a four-day European visit that will include stops in Albania, Germany and Brussels for NATO meetings.
"The intelligence work that was done in this country and other countries and which we have watched become richer, fuller over the years, will end up proving to be correct," Mr Rumsfeld said.
All US intelligence agencies were in "broad agreement" and any differences were laid out in National Intelligence Estimate reports, he said.
"Any indication or allegation that the intelligence was in any way politicised, of course is just false on its face, we know that," Mr Rumsfeld said. "So I think it just takes some time".
A controversy has erupted over whether top US officials took a harder line on Iraq allegedly having biological, chemical, and nuclear weapons programmes - the main reason given for going to war against Baghdad - than the intelligence actually supported.
Mr Rumsfeld also said recent attacks on US forces in Iraq were not part of a national Iraqi campaign but were Saddam sympathisers in the north who had not been engaged in as heavy battles as those in the south during the war.