US aide apologises for uranium claim blunder

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.

Stephen Hadley, in a rare on-the-record session with reporters, said that he had received two memos from the CIA and a phone call from agency Director George Tenet last October raising objections to an allegation that Iraq was seeking to buy uranium ore from Africa to use in building nuclear weapons.