NEW YORK, May 26: The New York Times publicly took itself to task Wednesday for its pre-Iraq war coverage, admitting it was taken in by spurious information from Iraqi exiles with their own agenda to oust Saddam Hussein.

"We have found a number of instances of coverage that was not as rigorous as it should have been," said a message from the editors, titled "The Times and Iraq" and printed prominently in Wednesday's newspaper.

The lengthy and unusual mea culpa said that information that seemed controversial in the prelude to war and questionable now, had been "insufficiently qualified" or allowed to stand unchallenged.

"Looking back, we wish we had been more aggressive in re-examining the claims as new evidence emerged - or failed to emerge." While the articles in question were written by different reporters and about varied subjects, the Times said most shared a common feature in that they depended in part on information from Iraqi defectors or exiles bent on regime change.

The credibility of these sources has since been called into question, the newspaper acknowledged, citing the example of the current Iraqi Governing Council member Ahmed Chalabi, who had been named as a source in Times' articles stretching back to 1991.

"Complicating matters for journalists, the accounts of these exiles were often eagerly confirmed by United States officials convinced of the need to intervene in Iraq," the Times said.

"Administration officials now acknowledge that they sometimes fell for misinformation from these exile sources. So did many news organisations - in particular this one," it said. -AFP