White House admits mistake in uranium for Iraq claim

"Knowing all that we know now, the reference to Iraq's attempt to acquire uranium from Africa should not have been included in the State of the Union speech," a senior Bush administration official said in a statement authorized by the White House, the newspaper reported.

The report said the administration official's statement came in response to questions about a British parliamentary commission report that raised questions about the reliability of British intelligence cited by Bush in his Jan. 28 speech.

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The statement, released late on Monday, effectively conceded that intelligence underlying the president's uranium-purchase claim was wrong, The Washington Post said.

A White House spokesman was not immediately available for comment early on Tuesday.

Controversy is raging in the United States and Britain over charges that the governments of the two countries manipulated intelligence about weapons of mass destruction to make the case for war against Iraq.