Powell says doubts may have changed decision on war

US Secretary of State Colin Powell told The Washington Post that he does not know whether he would have recommended an invasion of Iraq had he known that Saddam Hussein had no stockpiles of banned weapons.

In an interview published yesterday, Mr Powell told the paper: "The absence of a stockpile changes the political calculus; it changes the answer you get".

But Mr Powell conceded that the administration's conviction that Saddam already had banned weapons had made the case for war more urgent, the newspaper reported.

Asked if he would have recommended an invasion knowing Iraq had no prohibited weapons, Mr Powell replied: "I don't know, because it was the stockpile that presented the final little piece that made it more of a real and present danger and threat to the region and to the world".

Mr Powell defended the Bush administration's decision to go to war, saying that history will ultimately judge that it "was the right thing to do", the newspaper said.

The Post said that during the lengthy interview, Powell suggested that former chief weapons inspector David Kay's testimony last week before a Senate panel was more supportive of the administration than has been portrayed in news accounts.

Mr Kay told the panel that "we were almost all wrong" in believing Iraq had weapons of mass destruction and that his search found no evidence of biological or chemical arms.

"But he also came to other conclusions that deal, I think, with intent and capability which resulted in a threat the president felt he had to respond to," Mr Powell told The Post.

About his United Nations presentation last year which detailed Iraq's possible weapons stockpiles, Mr Powell said it "reflected the best judgments of all of the intelligence agencies. ... There wasn't a word that was in the presentation that was put in that was not totally cleared by the intelligence community."

The Post asked whether the American public should be reassured that so many intelligence agencies were so wrong. Mr Powell replied: "I think it should be reassuring to the voters of the United States that we found a regime that's clearly demonstrated intent and clearly had the capability, and that the president had the information from the intelligence community".

Mr Powell added that the American people will understand "with that body of evidence, that was the information and intelligence that was available to the president at that time, the president made a prudent decision".