KR Washington Bureau | 02/02/2004 | Iraq intelligence efforts led by Cheney magnified errors, officials say: "Senior officials on Monday revealed new details of how Cheney's office pressed Secretary of State Colin Powell to use large amounts of disputed intelligence in a February 2003 presentation to the United Nations Security Council laying out the U.S. case for an invasion.

A senior administration official said that during a three-day pre-speech review, Powell rejected more than half of a 45-page assessment on Iraq's weapons of mass destruction compiled by Cheney's chief of staff, I. Lewis Libby, and based on materials assembled by pro-invasion hard-liners in the Pentagon and the White House.

Powell also jettisoned 75 percent of a separate report on al-Qaida, said the official.

Still, he said, Libby continued pressing Powell unsuccessfully right up until a few minutes before the speech to include dubious information purportedly linking Saddam to the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. "