June 7, 2003	Saturday	Rabi-us-Sani 6, 1424

WASHINGTON, June 6: As the Bush administration was pushing last fall for an invasion of Iraq because of alleged weapons of mass destruction, a defence department report said it did not have enough “reliable information” that Baghdad was amassing chemical weapons, an official said on Friday.

News of the classified Sept 2002 report by the Defence Intelligence Agency has added to claims the White House and Pentagon slanted US intelligence on Baghdad’s alleged weapons programme to justify the invasion.

No such weapons have been found since Iraqi President Saddam Hussein was ousted in April.

Reacting to the report, National Security Council spokesman Mike Anton said any charges the United States slanted intelligence were “nonsense”.

“The White House and the Pentagon did not slant intelligence ... This report is consistent with the judgment of the intelligence community, with what the president was saying, with what the UN was saying, with what foreign governments believed and assessed about Iraq,” said Anton.

Around the time of the DIA report, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld went to Congress to press his case that Iraq was stockpiling chemical and biological weapons.

“What this report is saying is that there’s not enough reliable information to move things into the category of things we know (about WMDs in Iraq),” said a defense official of the report, a summary of which was leaked to US media this week.

However, he said the 80-plus page report said intelligence indicated Iraq probably did have chemical and other weapons but that there was just not enough reliable intelligence to fully back up this claim.—Reuters