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.

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.

An adviser to the CIA has hinted that US and coalition staff were close to a breakthrough in the search for weapons of mass destruction in Iraq.

QUESTIONS over the legitimacy of going to war are also being raised across the Atlantic, with US President George W Bush heavily criticised for making false claims about Iraq seeking to buy uranium from an African state.

FBI agents were arriving in Saudi Arabia today amid a row between Washington and the kingdom over security at the residential compounds attacked on Monday night by suspected al-Qaida suicide bombers.