US PRESIDENT George W Bush has his eye firmly on history, believing he and his actions will be vindicated in the coming years and decades.

CIA director Michael Hayden, testifying in secret before the US Senate Intelligence Committee, failed to answer key questions about the destruction of secret videotapes showing harsh interrogation of terror suspects, the panel’s chairman said.

THE Iraqi defector code-named Curveball, whose false tales of biological weapons labs bolstered the US case for war, wasn’t the prominent chemical engineer he claimed to be and invented stories to help his case for asylum in Germany, a new report says.

CIA chiefs failed to use their available powers, never developed a comprehensive plan to stop al-Qaida and missed crucial opportunities to thwart two hijackers in the run-up to September 11, the agency’s own watchdog said in a scathing report.

AN editorial this week in the Wall Street Journal provided a frightening insight into US thinking about the behaviour of European governments in relation to extraordinary rendition.

Broadcaster ABC made editing changes to its controversial mini-series The Path to 9/11, after former Clinton administration officials complained that scenes about them were fabricated.

The CIA’s independent watchdog has recommended disciplinary reviews for current and former officials who were involved in failed intelligence efforts before the attacks of September 11, 2001.

The CIA’s independent watchdog has recommended disciplinary reviews for current and former officials who were involved in failed intelligence efforts before the attacks of September 11, 2001.

FORMER CIA director George Tenet yesterday said he regretted assuring President George Bush in 2002 that he had “slam dunk” evidence Iraq had weapons of mass destruction.

Former CIA Director George Tenet said he regretted assuring President George Bush in 2002 that he had “slam dunk” evidence that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction.

US INTELLIGENCE on Iraq was “dead wrong”, dealing a blow to American credibility that will take years to undo, a presidential commission reported yesterday.

The CIA is to send more spies on dangerous missions in enemy territory rather than rely on diplomats under flimsy cover in foreign embassies, it emerged today.

US PRESIDENT George W Bush yesterday nominated Republican Porter Goss of Florida to head the CIA, saying the former undercover operative “knows the CIA inside and out” and can bolster its spy network.

President Bush today nominated Florida congressman Porter Goss to head the embattled Central Intelligence Agency, saying the former agent “knows the CIA inside and out”.

US president George W Bush has chosen Porter Goss, head of the House Intelligence Committee, to be the new director of the Central Intelligence Agency.

The CIA scrapped an audacious plan to kidnap al-Qaida chief Osama bin Laden from an Afghan compound, according to a report into the September 11 terror attacks.

Invading Iraq made America safer, President George Bush said, defending his war decision in the face of a Senate report debunking White House justifications for attacking Saddam Hussein’s government.

A Senate report detailing serious flaws in US intelligence-gathering highlights the urgent need for a permanent CIA director given the current terrorist threat, leaders of the Senate Intelligence Committee said.

DEPARTING CIA director George Tenet was blasted in the Senate Intelligence report, which accused him of skewing advice to top policy-makers with the CIA’s view and elbowing out dissenting views from other intelligence agencies overseen by the State or Defence Departments.

US intelligence agencies fell victim to false “group think” when assessing Iraq’s weapons capabilities and ended up giving the Bush administration overstated or incorrect conclusions before the 2003 invasion, a scathing Senate Intelligence Committee report says.

The CIA is today expected to face heavy criticism by the US Senate for its flawed analysis of the alleged threat posed by Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction in the run-up to the Gulf War.

Draft portions of the September 11 commission’s final report offer a stinging rebuke of the FBI and intelligence agencies, but refrain from assigning blame to individuals in government to avoid the appearance of partisanship, several commissioners say.

CIA director George Tenet has resigned for “personal reasons”, US President George Bush said today.

US PRESIDENT George W Bush issued a strong endorsement yesterday of embattled Secretary of Defence Donald Rumsfeld, telling him after a meeting at the Pentagon: “You are doing a superb job.”

President George Bush issued a strong endorsement of embattled Secretary of Defence Donald Rumsfeld today, telling him after a meeting at the Pentagon: “You are doing a superb job.”

US President George Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney today answered questions for over three hours from September 11 commissioners trying to learn how followers of Osama bin Laden pulled off the worst terrorist attack in US history.

US officials knew the al-Qaida terrorist network was interested in hijacking planes, but never thoroughly analysed the threat to try to work out ways to prevent it, the panel looking into the September 11 attacks found.

CIA director George Tenet predicted yesterday it will take “another five years of work to have the kind of clandestine service our country needs” to combat terrorist threats.

CIA director George Tenet predicted today it will take “another five years of work to have the kind of clandestine service our country needs” to combat al-Qaida and other terrorist threats.

THE Bush administration's former counter-intelligence chief yesterday told a national commission investigating the September 11 attacks that the president did not take the threat of terrorism seriously enough.

Defending his decision to invade Iraq, US President George W Bush said that although stockpiles of biological and chemical weapons have not been found, Saddam Hussein had the capacity to produce such arms and could have developed a nuclear weapon over time.

The hunt for middlemen who worked with the father of Pakistan’s nuclear programme to supply rogue regimes with weapons technology has widened to Japan and Africa, diplomats said.

IN HIS first public defence of pre-war intelligence, CIA Director George Tenet yesterday said US analysts never claimed Iraq posed an imminent threat.

CIA director George Tenet said today Saddam Hussein’s Iraq posed “no imminent threat” in the months leading up the invasion.

President Bush’s national security adviser has admitted that intelligence given to the administration before the Iraq war was probably flawed.

The CIA named a new inspector to lead the search for Iraqi weapons of mass destruction, choosing a veteran investigator who has expressed scepticism that Saddam Hussein possessed banned weapons that posed an immediate threat.

The top United States weapons inspector in Iraq is stepping down, it was announced the evening.

BEHIND the tragedy of Monday’s suicide bombings on the headquarters of the Red Cross in Baghdad, which killed 35 people and wounded 230 others, there lurks the potential for another disaster: the United States might pull out of Iraq too soon.

The Bush administration has hit back at accusations by leaders of the House of Representatives’ intelligence committee that the United States went to war in Iraq on the basis of outdated and vague intelligence.

US PRESIDENT George W Bush yesterday accepted responsibility for a discredited portion his State of the Union address that suggested deposed Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein was shopping for nuclear material in Africa.

President George Bush today accepted responsibility for a discredited portion his State of the Union address that suggested deposed Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein was shopping for nuclear material in Africa.

Al-Qaida suicide squads may try to hijack commercial airliners in the US, Europe or Australia this summer, possibly using “common items carried by travellers, such as cameras modified as weapons”, it was reported today.

US president George W Bush yesterday hailed the deaths of Saddam Hussein’s two sons as the clearest sign yet that “the former regime is gone and will not be coming back.”

President George W Bush’s deputy national security adviser became the second US official to apologise for allowing a tainted intelligence report on Iraq’s nuclear ambitions to find its way into a major speech by Bush before Congress in January.