UNITED NATIONS, Feb 7: Secretary of State Colin Powell said "no apologies" were needed for intelligence used to justify the Iraq war but UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan warned that the questionable US weapons data could jeopardize future similar actions.

Annan and Powell spoke to reporters on the sidelines of a UN conference on Friday that pledged $520 million to finance reconstruction in Liberia, $200 million from Washington.

"The bar has been raised," Annan said. "People are going to be very suspicious when one talks to them about intelligence. And they are going to be very suspicious when we try to use intelligence to justify certain actions."

A year ago, on Feb. 5, Powell made a dramatic presentation to the UN Security Council, arguing that Iraq had stockpiles of chemical and biological weapons and was reconstructing its nuclear arms programme as well as building advanced missiles.

"I don't think any apologies are necessary," he said when asked about the quality of intelligence used during his unsuccessful attempt to persuade council members of the need to invade Iraq.

Powell said President George W. Bush's action to go to war, was totally justified by the information that he was provided. "We don't have to worry about now is whether there are any weapons of mass destruction or a Saddam Hussein in Iraq to use them," he said.

Bush is scrambling to limit the political fallout after the former chief US weapons hunter David Kay concluded that prewar intelligence about Iraq's having stockpiles of weapons of mass destruction was wrong.

Powell said in a Washington Post interview this week he did not know if he would have supported the invasion if he had been told Iraq had no banned weapons.

But in New York Powell said "the intelligence base on which our decision rested was a solid intelligence base." What the United States was not sure of was "the nature of the stockpiles and these were still being examined," he said.-Reuters