However, the embattled head of the Central Intelligence Agency in closed-door testimony before the Senate Intelligence Committee said he took responsibility for Bush's controversial statement because a CIA official had approved it, lawmakers told the daily.

Tenet on Wednesday was grilled for five hours by lawmakers probing Bush's claim, made in his January 28 State of the Union address to Congress, that Iraq had sought to buy uranium from Niger.

"Members were stunned because he said he basically wasn't aware of the sentence until recently," one Democratic senator who attended the briefing told the Post.

However, Tenet's testimony did not dispel the suspicions of some lawmakers that the real reason for the erroneous claim was the eagerness of the White House to provide justification for its war against Iraq.

Of special interest to the Senate panel, the Democratic senator told the daily, asking not to be named, was why the CIA authorized the dubious intelligence after Tenet had pressed the White House to remove a more detailed reference to the same claim from a Bush speech on October 7.

Tenet on Friday had admitted blame for Bush's allegation after White House officials said the reference, based on British intelligence claims, should have been omitted because it had not been corroborated by US intelligence.

British Prime Minister Tony Blair, who has also been under intense fire for the claim, said Wednesday in London that it was not based on the discredited documents.

"We had independent intelligence to the effect," said Blair, who is expected in Washington Thursday to discuss Iraq, the Middle East peace process and other issues with Bush and top US officials.

Meanwhile, Rome's left-leaning daily La Repubblica on Wednesday published documents indicating that Italy's military intelligence service, the SISMI, was the source for the now discredited information passed to Britain and later to the United States.

The Italian daily's two-page report has heaped embarrassment on Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi, who has strongly denied the SISMI's involvement in the affair, only days before his visit to visit Washington.

Before Tenet's testimony, the Senate panel's top Democrat, Senator John Rockefeller, said the major issue was not just the allegation that Iraq tried to acquire nuclear material from Niger -- a claim long refuted by US intelligence -- but the intent of those in the administration who repeated it, and cleared the president to repeat it, in the key speech to the nation.

"Was there any attempt to take what was either accurate or inaccurate intelligence and shape it in a way which helped the president makes his case that he wanted to go into Iraq?" Rockefeller asked.

"It's an integrated investigation. We're looking not just at the intelligence but also the way it made its way up to the policymakers," the West Virginia Democrat said.

"There has to be an accountability on this," Kennedy said.

Senate Democrats on Wednesday outlined their proposal for an independent, bicameral commission to probe the Iraq intelligence controversy.

Under Democrats' plan, the panel would consist of 12 lawmakers with experience in intelligence, governmental service, armed services, and other relevant areas.

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