"There can be no question that there were weapons before the war," Powell told "Fox News Sunday's" Tony Snow.

"They have had weapons throughout their history," Powell explained. "They have used chemical weapons. They have admitted that they had biological weapons. And they never accounted for all that they had or what they might or might not have done with it."

Powell noted, "It was the unanimous judgment of the UN Security Counsel that Iraq was in violation of its obligation" to dispose of its WMDs.

In February, Powell told the Security Counsel, "Our conservative estimate is that Iraq today has a stockpile of between 100 and 500 tons of chemical weapons agents."

Asked if he still stood by those comments, the top diplomat was unequivocal.

"Yes," he told Snow. "I've been studying this for many, many years. . . As I prepared that statement, I worked very closely with the Director of Central Intelligence, George Tenet."

Powell continued:

"That statement was vetted very thoroughly by all the analysts who are responsible for this account. We spent four days and nights out at the CIA making sure that whatever I said was supported by our intelligence holdings."

Powell also denied reports that Vice President Dick Cheney had pressured U.S. in- telligence services to tailor their WMD findings with an eye towards attacking Iraq.

Last week, Britain's Guardian newspaper apologized for a report saying that Powell told British Foreign Minister Jack Straw that he feared U.S. and British intelligence on Saddam's WMDs would "blow up in our faces."

On Thursday, June 5, the Guardian issued the following retraction:

"In our front page lead on May 31 headlined 'Straw, Powell had serious doubts over their Iraqi weapons claims,' we said that the Foreign Secretary Jack Straw and his U.S. counterpart Colin Powell had met at the Waldorf Hotel in New York shortly before Mr. Powell addressed the United Nations on February 5. Mr. Straw has now made it clear that no such meeting took place. The Guardian accepts that and apologises for suggesting it did."

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