Condi Rice Claims She Was Out Of The Loop

"Maybe someone knew down in the bowels of the agency," Rice said on NBC's "Meet the Press" on Sunday, "but no one in our circles knew that there were doubts and suspicions that this might be a forgery."

Senior intelligence officials said the CIA on several occasions after March 2002 told administration policymakers about its doubts about claims Iraq was seeking uranium. When the State Department on Dec. 19, 2002, posted a reference to Iraq not supplying details on its uranium purchases, the CIA raised an objection, "but it came too late" to prevent its publication, the senior intelligence official said.

The agency did get a reference to the alleged sales removed from a speech made to the Security Council by U.S. Ambassador John D. Negroponte and kept it out of Secretary of State Colin L. Powell's presentation to the council on Feb. 5 that outlined the administration's case that Iraq had covert weapons programs, the official said.