President George W. Bush's statement that US intelligence agencies had cleared his January State of the Union address -- which included a false claim that Iraq tried to procure uranium from Niger -- has only deepened the embarrassment of the agencies, known collectively in Washington as the "intelligence community."

In a surprise statement late Friday CIA Director George Tenet took responsibility for the Niger statement.

The critical statement that eventually raised the furor was: "The British government has learned that Saddam Hussein recently sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa."

"These 16 words should never have been included in the text written for the president," said Tenet.

But the alleged Niger uranium is only one of many controversial issues.

The discovery of trucks that were said to be mobile laboratories, and claims of links between al-Qaeda and Saddam Hussein's regime have added to the domestic inter-agency battle and to the confusion for outsiders.

No proof has been given that the trailers were used for biological or chemical weapons, though US experts said they see no other use for them. And foreign intelligence agencies have said they see no sign of serious links between al-Qaeda and Saddam.

"I believe, along with an increasing number of others, that the administration made its case for going to war by misrepresenting intelligence findings as well as citing discredited intelligence information," said Daryl Kimball, director of the Arms Control Association, a Washington-based study group.

After the White House admitted that Bush should not have accused Iraq of having attempted to purchase enriched uranium in Africa, intelligence experts put distance between themselves and the faulty information.

CIA analysts seemed less convinced of Baghdad's nuclear ambitions, according to sources quoted anonymously by The Washington Post.

Central Intelligence Agency analysts had since September tried to dissuade London from bringing up the Nigerian uranium because the evidence was too flimsy, according to the Post.

The CIA even sent former US ambassador Joseph Wilson to Niamey in February 2002 to investigate the rumored uranium deal.

"Based on my experience with the (Bush) administration in the months leading up to the war, I have little choice but to conclude that some of the intelligence related to Iraq's nuclear weapons program was twisted to exaggerate the Iraqi threat," Joseph Wilson wrote in a New York Times opinion piece.

The State Department, which has its own intelligence service, made it clear early this week that it had discounted the reference to uranium purchased in Africa.

Spokesman Philip Reeker said that the State Department had changed references to attempts to purchase uranium "from abroad," and not from Africa.

"The December 19 fact sheet, that particular line, by December 20 has been changed in subsequent editions, because it wasn't felt that they were fully satisfied with the report about Niger," he said.

The divergent opinions about the Iraqi menace had already surfaced last month in a report by State Department experts, which cast doubts on the CIA's conclusions about mobile laboratories found in Iraq.

The CIA said that the trucks could have no other purpose than the production of biological weapons, despite questioning from State Department analysts.

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