White House National Security Adviser, Condoleezza Rice, has said that the US had fresh intelligence on Iraq's weapons of mass destruction, despite claims by congressional leaders that it had relied upon out-dated information.
Ms Rice, an advisor to the US President, dismissed the finding by leaders of the House of Representatives Intelligence Committee that much of the intelligence relied upon information dating back to before UN weapons inspectors left Iraq in 1998.
Democratic and Republican politicians expressed their concerns in a letter to the CIA director, George Tenet, last week.
Their letter claimed that the US lacked specific information about Saddam Hussein's plans to develop chemical and biological weapons and identified problems with the US spy network in Iraq.
US-led forces have not found such weapons since they ousted Saddam Hussein's regime.
