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Bush may endorse WMD inquiry to relieve pressure

US President George W. Bush is leaning toward endorsing an independent inquiry into intelligence used to justify an invasion of Iraq, despite his earlier resistance to such a probe, sources said on Saturday.

Bush has faced pressure from both Democrats and Republicans on Capitol Hill to accept an investigation after former chief US weapons hunter David Kay said he did not believe Iraq had any stockpiles of illicit weapons. Evidence of such weapons were the main reason Bush cited for launching the war.

Bush has not made a final decision on the intelligence inquiry but he is expected to soon, according to two sources familiar with discussions the White House has been having with congressional officials.

"It's clear there's mounting pressure to go ahead with this," said an adviser to a senior Democrat on Capitol Hill. "There's a growing recognition on both sides of the aisle that this needs to be done. The credibility abroad of US intelligence is in question."

Bush had earlier rejected an independent probe amid White House fears of a political witch hunt by Democrats hoping to unseat him in this year's presidential election, but began in recent days to reconsider the position.

"I want the American people to know that I, too, want to know the facts," Bush told reporters on Friday.

In going to war to topple Saddam Hussein's government in March last year, Bush cited intelligence that said Iraq possessed chemical and biological weapons and was developing a nuclear weapon.

But Kay told a congressional panel on Wednesday "we were almost all wrong" in assuming that Iraq had illicit weapons.

Bush, who traveled to Philadelphia to attend an election-year strategy session with Republican members of Congress, was asked there about Iraq intelligence by Sen. Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania.

The president replied that he wanted to know the facts about the accuracy of US intelligence before the war, according to a US official.

Arizona Republican Senator John McCain has stated his support for an independent probe into how intelligence got it wrong.

Another prominent Republican, Senator Pat Roberts of Kansas, was quoted in the Washington Post as saying that setting up a blue-ribbon panel is important because "we're in danger now of seeing the politicization of the whole intelligence issue."

Democrats vying to challenge Bush in the November election have accused him of hyping the intelligence to justify war.

"I think the administration owes the entire country a full explanation on this war -- not just their exaggerations but on the failure of American intelligence," Senator John Kerry, who is vying for the Democratic presidential nomination, said earlier this week.

US Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz said the decision to go to war had been based on the best available intelligence.
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