Separately, the daily also highlighted another now discredited claim that Bush made in the run-up to war with Iraq -- that Saddam Hussein could launch a biological or chemical attack in 45 minutes.

Bush made the assertion in September 2002 in remarks at the White House Rose Garden and in one of his weekly radio addresses, attributing it to the British government.

The White House did not consult the CIA about using the claim, the report said, quoting a senior White House official who said that radio addresses are usually not vetted by agencies outside the White House.

The claim is at the heart of a crisis in Britain, where Prime Minister Tony Blair is under siege amid claims it embellished a dossier on the threat posed by Saddam in order to make the case for joining the United States in the attack on Iraq.

The crisis deepened in the past few days with the death in an apparent suicide of the arms expert David Kelly, who advised the government on biological weapons and was a former UN weapons inspector in Iraq.

Meanwhile, new details emerged in a parallel row on this side of the Atlantic that has focused primarily on US use of a claim that Iraq tried to buy uranium from Niger.

"A wide circle of intelligence and diplomatic personnel" had discounted the claim months before Bush included it in his annual State of the Union address, a Post report said.

"Everyone knew" documents supposedly proving Iraq had tried to acquire uranium in Niger "were not good," a source described as a "senior administration decision-maker" was quoted as saying.

Days after Italian journalist Elisabetta Burba delivered documents about such a sale to the US Embassy in Rome, in October 2002, US intelligence officials had almost completely discounted their authenticity, the report said.

But "long before the journalist came up with the documents, there were broader concerns that the government couldn't verify," the senior administration official was quoted as saying.

US officials had already heard about the possible Iraq-Africa link in 2001, from "two western intelligence sources" and elsewhere, it said.

Based on that information, the CIA sent former ambassador Joseph Wilson to Niger in February 2002 to investigate the feasibility of an intelligence report citing a memorandum of agreement between Iraq and Niger documenting the sale.

Wilson's conclusion that "it was highly doubtful that any such transaction had ever taken place" confirmed previously held doubts and as such was "not memorable," several US officials said.

There is considerable doubt in London and Washington over the strength of the US and British intelligence case for ending UN arms inspections and launching the March 20 invasion to topple Saddam as Iraqi president.

WAR.WIRE