Anti-Saddam group blames Bush administration for missing weapons cache.(Chicago Tribune)

Byline: Paul Salopek and E.A. Torriero

BAGHDAD, Iraq _ Tossing a political hand grenade back to Washington, the Iraqi exiles who provided the Bush administration with much of its intelligence on Saddam Hussein's alleged weapons of mass destruction angrily deny that they exaggerated the dangers of Iraq's chemical or biological arsenal _ and blame the failed search for such weaponry on American ineptitude.

The Iraqi National Congress, an anti-Saddam group that enjoys strong backing from the Pentagon, distanced itself Sunday from the growing controversy over the fruitless quest to find banned arms in Iraq _ one of the key justifications for the U.S.-led war against Saddam.

The group's leaders continue to insist that such weapons do exist. But they now are suggesting that U.S. spy agencies may have mishandled the secret sources that the exiles supplied.

"We handed the Americans important defectors from Saddam's regime, not our own assessments," said Nabeel Musawi, the head of the INC's defector program. "The Americans debriefed these people on their own and then drew their conclusions. We had nothing to do with that."

The U.S. government has found itself increasingly on the defensive in recent days as Congress and some European allies begin to question the veracity of American claims that Saddam possessed frightening stockpiles of nerve agents, anthrax, and other weapons that threatened the safety of the region and even the world.

Nearly two months after the end of major combat in Iraq, scores of specialized U.S. search teams have yet to turn up a single such weapon anywhere in the country.