This isn't going away, folks:

Lawmakers Question White House on Iraq Arms

Updated 6:12 PM ET June 2, 2003

By Vicki Allen

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Lawmakers from both parties, saying the United States' credibility is at stake, on Monday pressed the Bush administration to offer more information behind its charges that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction.

Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman John Warner, a Virginia Republican, said his panel would hold hearings on the issue, possibly along with the Senate Intelligence Committee, because "the situation is becoming one where the credibility of the administration and Congress is being challenged."

Rep. Henry Waxman of California, top Democrat on the House of Representatives Government Reform Committee, called on President Bush to explain why the administration repeatedly cited dubious and later discredited documents to back a claim that Iraq may have been pursuing nuclear weapons.

The White House defended the intelligence it presented to justify the war against Iraq. Secretary of State Colin Powell, speaking in Rome, said he thought the evidence that Iraq had continued to develop weapons of mass destruction was "overwhelming."

The alleged weapons have not been found weeks after the war, although the administration says it still expects to find them or suggested they may have been destroyed.

Warner issued a statement that he believed "there has been no deception by the administration" in making its case that Iraq under Saddam Hussein had weapons that threatened U.S. interests.

But he said he would hold hearings, building on comments he made on Sunday that he and Senate Intelligence Committee Chairman Pat Roberts, a Kansas Republican, were considering conducting a joint investigation.

Waxman, in a letter to Bush, renewed his demand that the president explain why the White House repeatedly cited Iraq's alleged attempts to obtain nuclear material from Niger, even though the CIA had expressed doubts about the validity of the documents that were cited as evidence. The documents later were judged forgeries.

Waxman first sought an explanation in March, but said he just received a one-page reply from the State Department "that raises far more questions than it answers."

"Your entire pre-emption doctrine depends on the ability of the United States to gather accurate intelligence and make honest assessments," Waxman wrote. "The matter raises fundamental issues that cannot be ignored."