WASHINGTON, Jan 8: US President George Bush's administration "systematically" exaggerated the threats presented by Iraq's weapons of mass destruction (WMD), according to a report released on Thursday by an influential Washington think-tank.

The Carnegie Endowment for International Peace said the United States also misrepresented the findings of UN weapons inspectors in a bid to justify its case for invasion of Iraq last year.

"Administration officials systematically misrepresented the threat from Iraq's WMD and ballistic missile programmes," the report said. It added that the US intelligence community "appears to have been unduly influenced by policymakers' views".

The foundation said the US government should enlist United Nations help to draw up "a complete history and inventory" of Iraq's WMD and missile programmes and establish an independent commission to establish what intelligence services knew about Iraqi weapons.

It said the United States should also revise its national security strategy allowing pre-emptive wars. The 100-page report - "WMD in Iraq: Evidence and Implications" - took six months to compile and examined claims made by the White House in the run up to the March 20 invasion.

The Carnegie said the US administration misrepresented UN "inspectors findings in ways that turned threats from minor to dire". It said inspections by UN weapons experts "were on track to find what was there" and that international sanctions and import/export controls seem to have been "considerably" more effective than was thought.

The foundation said there was "no solid evidence" to back administration claims of a close relationship between Saddam Hussein and the Al Qaeda network.

In launching the invasion, Mr Bush had said Saddam's former government had presented a direct threat to the United States and the world. The United States has failed to uncover any chemical, biological or nuclear weapons since the war. Hundreds of experts are still scouring Iraq in the hunt. But media reports have said the head of the US hunt, David Kay, plans to stand down this year.

The foundation said there were at least two options "preferable to a war undertaken without international support".

The United States could have allowed inspections by the United Nations to continue until completed or imposed "a tougher programme of 'coercive inspections'."

The foundation said that on top of revising the national security policy to eliminate the possibility of more pre-emptive wars, the United States should also "make the security of poorly protected nuclear weapons and stockpiles of plutonium and highly enriched uranium a much higher priority". -AFP