Senior officials defended Tenet, a holdover from the administration of former president Bill Clinton who survived a similar storm over intelligence failures before deadly September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.

In a surprise statement Friday, Tenet took responsibility for inclusion in Bush's January 28 State of the Union Address of an erroneous allegation that Iraq sought to buy nuclear materials in Niger.

Administration officials have said the reference, based on British intelligence claims, should not have been included in the president's speech to Congress and the nation, and pointed out that it had not been corroborated by Washington's intelligence network.

"Somebody ought to be accountable," Richard Shelby, the ranking Republican on the powerful Senate Intelligence Committee, told CNN. "If I were the president, he wouldn't be there."

Other lawmakers said they would await the findings of an investigation into the matter before taking a position on Tenet's future. The Senate, by voice vote, has approved a probe into the matter.

"Well, I would like to wait for the end of the investigation to reach a conclusion as to whether Tenet should go. I'm obviously dissatisfied with him in this regard, but also in other aspects as well," Senator Carl Levin, the ranking Democrat on the Senate Armed Services Committee, told CNN.

White House national security adviser Condoleezza Rice defended Tenet, saying he "is a fine director."

Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld also voiced his support for the spy chief.

"George Tenet's an enormously talented public servant. And the intelligence community does a darn good job," Rumsfeld told ABC television.

Bush also defended Tenet Saturday before returning to Washington from a trip to Africa.

"I've got confidence in George Tenet, I've got confidence in the men and women who work at the CIA. I look forward to working with them ... as we win this war on terror," Bush said.

It is not the first time the 50-year-old spy chief has been in the hot seat since he took over the helm of the secretive intelligence agency from John Deutch in July 1997.

Tenet has survived many prior spats with Congress and has won praise from some quarters for his bid to rehabilitate the CIA after several high-profile spy scandals and morale problems.

Some in the intelligence community had expected Tenet to resign following the agency's failure to foresee the September 11 attacks on the United States, in which more than 3,000 people died.

Tenet weathered that storm, bolstered by Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney, and went on to garner favor with conservatives as the CIA deployed specialist teams into Afghanistan during the subsequent war that ousted the Taliban militia, but has so far failed to locate al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden.

WAR.WIRE