Washington: Amidst mounting allegations of "wrong" US intelligence that led to the war in Iraq, CIA (Central Intelligence Agency) director George Tenet today (Feb 05, 2004) said that although US intelligence said Saddam Hussein did not have a nuclear weapon the Iraqi dictator was well on his way to acquiring technology for weapons of mass destruction (WMD).

US intelligence said Saddam did not have a nuclear weapon and probably would have been unable to make one until 2007 to 2009. "My provisional bottom line is that Saddam did not have a nuclear weapon but he still wanted one," Tenet said in a rare public speech at the Georgetown University.

He said, "Since the Iraq war we have found an aggressive missile programme concealed from the international community. We have also found that Iraq had plans and advanced design work for liquid propellant missiles with ranges of up to 1,000 km activities Iraq did not report to UN and which could have placed large portions of Middle East in jeopardy.

"We have confirmed that Iraq had new work under way on prohibited solid propellant missiles" and that Iraq was in secret negotiations with North Korea to obtain some of its most dangerous missile technology," Tenet said.