White House faulted on Iraq uranium claim

WASHINGTON, Dec. 24 (UPI) -- Suspect information that Iraq tried to get uranium from Africa was used by the White House to gain new support for using force against Iraq.

The now-discredited information came from British intelligence sources and was used by President George W. Bush in his State of the Union speech.

The Washington Post Wednesday, quoting unidentified sources, said the finding was made by the president's Intelligence Advisory Board, which he had asked to investigate how the information found its way into his January remarks before Congress.

The panel, headed by former national security adviser Brent Scowcroft, found no deliberate effort to fabricate the story, a source told the newspaper, but the administration was so keen to garner new support it disregarded intelligence community warnings the information was dubious.

The person responsible has not been discovered.

Bush had warned Saddam Hussein's weapons of mass destruction programs threatened regional and world security.