CIA chief may testify to Congress over intelligence on Iraq weapons

NEW YORK (AFP) Jun 22, 2003
CIA director George Tenet may appear this week before a Senate committee investigating whether the White House distorted intelligence information about Iraq's alleged weapons programs, Time magazine reported Sunday.

The Senate Intelligence Committee has begun a closed-door review of the data, which US President George W. Bush used to justify the war on Iraq.

A US official told the news magazine that the chief of the Central Intelligence Agency could be called to answer questions about whether the CIA overstated the evidence on Iraq's chemical and biological weapons.

The magazine quoted White House chief of staff Andy Card as defending the administration's use of intelligence, while admitting that some of the information turned out to be wrong.

"It would be great if I, or the president, or the vice president could be all-knowing. But we're not," Card said.

"I am not as spun up over this as other people suggest we should be. It's hard for me to keep track of everything that's going on at the White House -- let alone what's happening at the CIA," he said.

WAR.WIRE