NEW YORK

Among the U.S. arguments for invading Iraq was to topple a regime that developed weapons of mass destruction and that Iraq harbored terrorists, but a newly-surfaced intelligence report shows the rationale lacked certainty.

A declassified CIA document obtained by Vice.com, shows the intelligence community lacked "specific information on many key aspects of Iraq's WMD programs."

That was contrary to what Bush administration officials said during the campaign to "sell the war to the American public," the website said. "Those officials, citing the same classified document, asserted with no uncertainty that Iraq was actively pursuing nuclear weapons, concealing a vast chemical and biological weapons arsenal, and posing an immediate and grave threat to U.S. national security."

The report led Congress to pass a resolution sanctioning cross-border operations in Iraq, which began March 20, 2003, for the stated purpose of removing the regime of Saddam Hussein, "disarming" Iraq of its weapons of mass destruction and "freeing" the Iraqi people. 

The National Intelligence Estimate report said the CIA concluded Iraq "probably has renovated" a facility to produce biological weapons, but "but we are unable to determine whether BW agent research or production has resumed."

In remarks in Cincinnati on Oct. 7, 2002, then-President George W. Bush said Iraq "possesses and produces chemical and biological weapons. It is seeking nuclear weapons."

But the report found "Saddam does not yet have nuclear weapons or sufficient material to make any." 

The report also shows that the CIA believed reports of Iraq's support for al-Qaeda came "from sources of varying reliability."

"The presence of al-Qa'ida militants in Iraq poses many questions. We do not know to what extent Baghdad may be actively complicit in this use of its territory for safe haven and transit," read the document.

The Bush administration, however, frequently asserted with certainty that the Saddam Hussein's regime helped Osama bin Laden's followers develop chemical weapons.

"There clearly are contacts between al Qaeda and Iraq that can be documented; there clearly is testimony that some of the contacts have been important contacts and that there's a relationship here," then-Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said Sept. 26, 2002.

The CIA report expressed doubt. "As with much of the information on the overall relationship, details on training and support are second-hand."

The number of Iraqis who died during the war, as late as December 2011 with the withdrawal of the U.S. forces, is uncertain.

An academic report published in 2013 suggested that nearly half a million people died as a result of war-related causes in Iraq between the U.S. invasion in 2003 and mid-2011.