(Agencies)
Updated: 2007-12-06 14:39

McConnell advised the president that it would take more time to vet the information and determine its validity, she said. She was responding to questions about what the spy chief told Bush in August.

After the new National Intelligence Estimate was released, critics accused Bush of hyping the threat from Iran, and some suggested similarities with the administration's much-criticized handling of prewar intelligence on Iraq.

One of the main justifications for the US-led March 2003 invasion of Iraq was that it had weapons of mass destruction, which were never found.

Bush and his administration have for months been trying to increase international pressure on Iran over its nuclear program through more UN Security Council sanctions and by ratcheting up the rhetoric. Washington also accuses Iran of meddling in Iraq, which Tehran denies.

"It's exactly what he did in the run-up to the war in Iraq in consistently exaggerating intelligence suggesting that Iraq had WMD, while failing to tell the American people about intelligence concluding that it did not," Sen. Joseph Biden, a Delaware Democrat and presidential hopeful, said on Tuesday.

Bush said the intelligence report had not changed his mind about Iran. He emphasized that view on Wednesday with a statement as he arrived for an event in Omaha, Nebraska.

"It is clear from the latest NIE that the Iranian government has more to explain about its nuclear intentions and past actions," Bush said.

"The Iranians have a strategic choice to make, they can come clean with the international community about the scope of their nuclear activities and fully accept the longstanding offer to suspend their enrichment program and come to the table and negotiate, or they can continue on a path of isolation that is not in the best interest of the Iranian people," he said.

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