Agence France Presse? Biased? Slanted?

No way! Bush camp denies new report on prewar Iraq intelligence.

WASHINGTON (AFP) - Already scrambling to make up ground lost after last week’s debate, US President George W. Bush’s campaign was forced further on the defensive by a report that the White House knew before invading Iraq that key intelligence on the country’s alleged nuclear weapons program was questionable.

Here’s Condoleezza Rice, portrayed above as “forced on the defensive:”

National security adviser Condoleezza Rice said Sunday she knew of a debate within the US government about the purpose of aluminum tubes found in Iraq, which she and other officials had brandished before the war as proof of Saddam Hussein’s nuclear ambitions.

In a series of television interviews Sunday, Rice insisted, however, that she only later learned that the Energy Department believed the aluminum tubes were actually meant for conventional weapons, denying a New York Times report that she knew of those concerns before wielding the tubes as evidence in her argument for war.

“At that time we understood there were some debates within the intelligence community. I later learned that the Energy Department believed that these tubes might be for something else,” she told NBC television’s “Today” show.