- WASHINGTON (Reuters) -- The
U.S. Central Intelligence Agency was wrong about Iraq's purported pre-war
mobile biological weapons laboratories, a key part of the case about suspected
weapons of mass destruction, Secretary of State Colin Powell said on Sunday.
-
- "I'm very concerned," he said in reply to a
question on the NBC program "Meet the Press" about having used
claims in a U.N. Security Council speech now known to have been "inaccurate
and discredited."
-
- "When I made that presentation in February 2003,
it was based on the best information that the Central Intelligence Agency
made available to me," he said.
-
- Last month, Powell described the assertions he made about
the purported labs as "the most dramatic" element of his Feb.
5, 2003, speech. He acknowledged on April 2 the information was suspect
but stopped short of drawing any public conclusions.
-
- In his comments on NBC, Powell went further.
-
- "It turned out that the sourcing was inaccurate
and wrong and, in some cases, deliberately misleading. And for that, I
am disappointed, and I regret it," he said.
-
- As recently as January, Vice President Dick Cheney cited
the discovery of two trucks as "conclusive" evidence of the mobile
labs described by Powell. But CIA Director George Tenet later told Congress
he had warned Cheney not to be so categorical about the discovery.
-
- A CIA spokesman declined comment.
-
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