US Iraq inquiry deadline looms
The Bush administration faces a looming deadline to hand over files to a Senate committee investigating the quality of pre-war intelligence on Iraq.
The White House, Defense Department and State Department have until noon Washington time (1700GMT) to turn over documents and allow relevant interviews to be scheduled.
The Senate Intelligence Committee has given the CIA the same deadline.
The accuracy of information on Iraq and its alleged weapons has become a highly-charged political issue in the United States.
Credibility at stake
Members of the Senate Intelligence Committee sent out bluntly worded letters on Thursday to National Security Adviser Condoleeza Rice, Secretary of State Colin Powell and Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld.
Incomplete answers... will haunt us for years
Senate letter
They were asked to provide previously requested documents and to allow officials from their departments to contact the committee to arrange interviews.
"We must take whatever steps are necessary to assure our nation that US intelligence is accurate and unbiased," said the letters, signed by the Committee Chairman, Republican Senator Pat Roberts, and senior Democrat Senator John Rockefeller.
The credibility of the US Government with its people and the credibility of the nation with the world were at stake, they wrote.
"Incomplete answers and lingering doubts will haunt us for years."
A similarly worded demand was sent to the CIA on Wednesday.
The deadline is not binding but correspondents say failure to comply or to explain delays will fuel the criticisms.
Complaints
The accuracy of pre-war intelligence on Iraq and its alleged weapons of mass destruction has become a major political issue just a year away from the 2004 US presidential election.
President Bush is under pressure, especially as US losses mount in Iraq.
Critics accuse the Bush administration of exaggerating the threat posed by Saddam Hussein's Iraq to gain support for the war.
The Senate committee is trying to establish how solid the pre-war intelligence on Iraq was, whether mistakes were made in interpreting it, and whether the information was manipulated.
The senators complain that numerous requests for files have gone unanswered and their attempts to interview certain officials have been unsuccessful.
In their letter to Ms Rice, they say: "You must lift your objection to the Central Intelligence Agency providing the committee with certain documents and allowing us to interview individuals involved in briefing senior administration officials."
A senior White House official said they were surprised by the tone and substance of the letter as they had made both officials and documents available to the committee investigators, "even though the committee does not have jurisdiction over the White House".
There was a similar comment by a State Department official.
"We have every intention of complying. In fact, we have been supporting and responding to their request of documents and individuals for some time," the official told Reuters on condition of anonymity.
CIA leak
US media reports suggest the committee's final report is likely to be strongly critical of the CIA and its director, George Tenet, who has been called to appear in person before the panel.
Mr Tenet is expected to be blamed for overstating the case against Saddam Hussein.
However, the BBC's David Bamford in Washington reports that some Democrats are suspicious that Mr Tenet, appointed under former President Bill Clinton, is being used as a scapegoat to deflect criticism away from the White House.
One of the greatest sources of controversy and signs of dispute between the CIA and the White House has been the allegation, later shown to be wrong, that Iraq was seeking uranium from Africa.
Before, the war, a former US envoy in Baghdad, Joseph Wilson, was sent by the CIA to the West African state of Niger to investigate claims that Iraq had been trying to buy nuclear material there.
His report concluded that there was no evidence for the claims.
Despite this, Mr Bush repeated the claims in his State of the Union address in January. The White House later admitted it had been a mistake to include the erroneous information in the speech.
Mr Wilson went public about his mission in July, telling the New York Times: "I have little choice but to conclude that some of the intelligence related to Iraq's nuclear weapons programme was twisted to exaggerate the Iraqi threat."
A short while later, the name of Mr Wilson's wife, a CIA agent, was leaked to the media by an alleged senior administration official. The leak is now being investigated.
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