The former chief US arms inspector Wednesday said "We got it all wrong" about Iraq's weapons, as another suicide bomb killed six in Baghdad.
Former inspector David Kay, testifying before the Senate Armed Services Committee, called for a review of the US intelligence failure over Iraq's weapons of mass destruction but insisted political pressure was not to blame.
"We were all wrong," he said under intense questioning about his explosive disclosure last weekend that a six-month search had found no evidence that Iraq possessed the banned weapons that Washington and London had used to justify the US-led invasion.
Kay disputed suggestions that US intelligence was warped by political pressure from the administration of President George W. Bush.
"It turns out we were all wrong, probably, in my judgment. And that is most disturbing," Kay said.
Kay, who resigned last week as head of the Iraq Survey Group (ISG), told the committee the investigation should continue, and acknowledged "the theoretical possibility" that hidden weapons might yet be found.
Otherwise, he said, an "unresolvable ambiguity" about Iraq's weapons programs would probably remain.
Kay called for an independent investigation into why US intelligence before the war in Iraq could have been so wrong about about Iraq, but the White House gave that a chilly welcome.
Spokesman Scott McClellan said the proposal was premature before the ISG wraps up its mission.
"It's important that we let the Iraq Survey Group complete their work and gather all the facts they can," he told reporters. "Then we can go back and compare what we knew before the war with what we've learned since."
Kay also insisted Iraq had not moved large weapons stockpiles to Syria before the war, saying he based that belief on "my conclusion that there were not large stockpiles to move."
In Baghdad, there was no let up in the violence as a powerful suicide car bomb tore the front off a hotel used by a government minister, killing up to six people, including a South African.
There were conflicting reports over the exact death toll from the Baghdad bomb, reportedly carried in an ambulance which smashed through a security barrier under a hail of gunfire from guards.
"Five Iraqis, [plus] the driver of the van were killed," a US military spokesman said, adding that between 200kg and 250kg of explosives were used in the attack.
However the statement was later contested by the US-led civilian coalition which revised its fatality count to one.
The US, meanwhile, said it had not formally decided whether French companies will be allowed to bid in the second round of Iraqi reconstruction contracts.
"There is, I guess, a second round coming up," State Department spokesman Richard Boucher said. "We'll just have to wait until the time arrives to see where we stand at that point with eligibility."
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