White House releases secret files on Iraqi weapons

The White House has released excerpts from a secret October 2002 intelligence document to demonstrate how flawed intelligence on Iraq’s nuclear weapons ambitions wound up in a speech by President George Bush.

The document cites “compelling evidence” of such a programme – but it also reflects pre-war divisions within the US intelligence community, including a State Department dismissal of reports that Saddam Hussein was shopping for uranium ore in Africa as “highly dubious”.