CIA chief defends US Iraq weapons intelligence

Tenet fired back in a speech at Georgetown University at critics who said the White House pressured intelligence analysts to skew their findings to support an intent to go to war.

"They (the analysts) never said there was an 'imminent' threat," Tenet said. "Rather, they painted an objective assessment for our policymakers of a brutal dictator who was continuing his efforts to deceive and build programs that might constantly surprise us and threaten our interests."

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Tenet added: "No one told us what to say or how to say it."

President Bush did not use the word "imminent" to describe the threat from Iraq leading up to the war, but called it a "grave and gathering danger."

Administration officials in making the case for a pre-emptive strike said the United States could not afford to wait until the threat was on its doorstep.

Democrats who are trying to win the White House away from Bush in this year's presidential election seized on Tenet's comments as a sign that the administration had hyped the threat from Iraq.

"Today, the CIA Director, George Tenet, admitted that the intelligence agencies never told the White House that Iraq posed an imminent threat," Sen. John Kerry who is running for president said, "But that's not what the Bush White House told the American people."