Iraq war intelligence 'flawed' - Rice

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

Condoleezza Rice defended Bush’s decision to go to war but said the United States may never learn the whole truth about Iraq’s weapons capabilities because of looting.

“No one will want to know more than the president the comparison between what we found when we got there and what we thought was there going in,” Rice said on NBC television’s Today show.

When asked if she thought Americans had a legitimate concern about whether intelligence was manipulated to justify the decision to go to war, Rice replied: “The president’s judgment to go to the war was based on the fact that Saddam Hussein for 12 years had defied UN resolutions” regarding his stock of weapons.

Saddam “had been considered a danger for a long time and it was time to take care of that danger,” she said.

Rice’s comments came after former chief weapons hunter David Kay said the allegation Iraq had weapons of mass destruction was wrong, deepening controversy over whether the war was justified.

“I think that what we have is evidence that there are differences between what we knew going in and what we found on the ground,” Rice said, brushing aside calls for an independent investigation.

The Bush administration, opposed to such an investigation, noting that the CIA is conducting its own intelligence review and the weapons hunt had not ended.

Rice reiterated that position, saying that existing efforts to learn the extent of Saddam’s weapons arsenal were sufficient.

The United States and Britain cited Saddam Hussein’s alleged possession of chemical and biological arms as the main reason for invading Iraq last March.

After months of fruitless searching by inspectors, senior US and British officials have backed away from claims that the weapons would definitely be found.

Kay and some Democrats, including Senate minority leader Tom Daschle, have also stated the need for an outside investigation into the intelligence community.

Along with the Senate inquiry, several retired intelligence officers have delivered a review to CIA Director George Tenet on the performance of the CIA and other agencies.