However, the embattled head of the Central Intelligence Agency in closed-door testimony before the Senate Intelligence Committee said he took responsibility for Bush's controversial statement because a CIA official had approved it, lawmakers told the daily.

Tenet on Wednesday was grilled for five hours by lawmakers probing Bush's claim, made in his January 28 State of the Union address to Congress, that Iraq had sought to buy uranium from Niger.

"Members were stunned because he said he basically wasn't aware of the sentence until recently," one Democratic senator who attended the briefing told the Post.

However, Tenet's testimony did not dispel the suspicions of some lawmakers that the real reason for the erroneous claim was the eagerness of the White House to provide justification for its war against Iraq.

Of special interest to the Senate panel, the Democratic senator told the daily, asking not to be named, was why the CIA authorized the dubious intelligence after Tenet had pressed the White House to remove a more detailed reference to the same claim from a Bush speech on October 7.

Tenet on Friday had admitted blame for Bush's allegation after White House officials said the reference, based on British intelligence claims, should have been omitted because it had not been corroborated by US intelligence.