US Treasury seeks probe into O'Neill interview

O'Neill, who resigned a year ago in a shake-up of Bush's economy team, told the CBS programme "60 Minutes" broadcast on Sunday night that he had seen no "real evidence" during his two years in the administration that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction.

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He said Bush had been intent on ousting Saddam Hussein since well before the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, and he described the president's management style as disinterested and unengaged.

Bush, in his first public response, brushed aside O'Neill's comments on Monday, telling a news conference in Mexico that "like the previous administration, we were for regime change" in Iraq.

Treasury spokesman Rob Nichols told reporters the department had asked its Inspector General's office to investigate how a document marked "secret" had come to be shown during the "60 Minutes" interview with O'Neill.

"We're asking them to simply look into the '60 Minutes' segment and then take appropriate steps, if necessary," he said, adding that the legal threshold for asking for an inquiry was "very low."

Asked if the Treasury risked being seen as vindictive in seeking the probe, Nichols said, "We don't view it in that way."

The Inspector General's office investigates possible violations of agency laws or regulations. The office received the request late Monday afternoon and was evaluating it, a source told Reuters.

A spokesman for "60 Minutes" said the program had not been given access to any secret documents.

"We have no secret documents. We merely showed a cover sheet that alluded to ... a secret document," the spokesman said, describing the secret document as dealing with a post-Saddam Iraq.

The program was aired in conjunction with publication of a book based on O'Neill's experiences in the Bush administration, "The Price of Loyalty," written by journalist Ron Suskind.

Suskind, who also appeared on "60 Minutes," said O'Neill had given him access to thousands of administration documents.

In the book the former Treasury secretary, the first major Bush administration insider to attack the president, described Bush during Cabinet meetings as being like "a blind man in a room full of deaf people."

The book was likely to provide fodder for attacks on Bush from Democratic presidential candidates who have accused him of using faulty intelligence on the extent of Iraq's weapons program as a pretext for war.

O'Neill could not immediately be reached for comment on the Treasury probe request.

Bush, giving a joint news conference with President Vicente Fox in Monterrey where they are attending a regional summit, avoided a direct answer on whether he felt betrayed by O'Neill.

He said early in his administration Iraq policy was geared toward "regime change" but after Sept. 11, 2001, he began an effort to force Saddam to disarm. He did not address the fact that the weapons of mass destruction that the war was fought over have never been found.

"Now he (Saddam) is no longer in power and the world is better for it," Bush said.

White House spokesman Scott McClellan said O'Neill's criticism "appears to be more about trying to justify personal views and opinions than it does about looking at the results that we are achieving."

The Bush administration has previously been accused of acting vindictively toward a critic of its invasion of Iraq -- former ambassador Joseph Wilson.

Last year Wilson accused administration officials of compromising his wife's safety by leaking the fact that she was an undercover agent for the CIA in retaliation for his criticism.