CIA director George Tenet on Friday took responsibility for the now-discredited allegation in the president's State of the Union speech in January , but that did little to calm the political storm over the statement, which has taken a toll on President George W. Bush's popularity.

"It is ludicrous to suggest that the president of the United States went to war on the question of whether Saddam Hussein sought uranium from Africa," national security adviser Condoleezza Rice said.

"This was part of a very broad case that the president laid out in the State of the Union (speech) and other places," she told the "Fox News Sunday" television program.

The White House admitted on Tuesday that the remark by Bush, stating that Baghdad had sought "significant quantities of uranium from Africa," overstated Saddam's alleged efforts to obtain uranium for nuclear arms.

In his speech, Bush attributed the claim to the British government, but White House officials said Sunday that the intelligence information backing the statement was not strong enough to include in a major presidential speech.

The controversy over the statement has sparked a spirited debate in the United States over the reasons given by Bush for going to war, as well as over the quality of US intelligence and whether it was manipulated for political purposes.

Rice and Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, in a series of interviews Sunday, took pains to explain that while the statement should not have been included in the speech, it was technically correct in referring to British intelligence that London has not refuted.

"What the president said was technically correct, that the UK did say that and still says that. They haven't changed their minds, the UK intelligence people," Rumsfeld said.

But he also admitted that the statement should not have been included in the speech, as US intelligence had not confirmed it.

The Washington Post reported Sunday that a similar statement had been struck from a presidential speech in October 2002, three months before Bush mentioned it in his State of the Union address.

Tenet intervened personally with White House officials to have the reference deleted in October, arguing that it should not be used because it came from only a single source, a senior administration official told the Post.

The "National Intelligence Estimate" said Iraq tried to purchase up to 500 tons of uranium oxide for its nuclear program from the west African country of Niger.

But the White House said Tuesday that the charge stemmed from documents since discovered to be forgeries alleging that Iraq sought uranium "yellowcake" from Niger.

Officials insisted that Bush made the statement in good faith at the time.

But the political storm has only grown. Time magazine's cover story, appearing Monday, questions the damage caused to Bush's credibility and whether the president will be able to rally public support in the future.

"The next time Bush tells the nation where he wants to go, it may not be so quick to follow," the report said.

Meanwhile, Newsweek published a poll that found only 53 percent of respondents approve of Bush's handling of Iraq, down 21 percentage points since April.

The furor over the uranium claim only deepens the skepticism caused by US forces' failure so far to find any definitive proof of chemical or biological weapons in Iraq, which were one of Bush's main justifications for the war.

WAR.WIRE