WASHINGTON, October 10 (IslamOnline & News Agencies) - The Central Intelligence Agency told the Senate Intelligence Committee that if the Iraqi president were left alone, the risks of him using chemical or biological weapons (CBW) were low.

The CIA also warned of a “pretty high” risk of Iraqi President Saddam Hussein using weapons of mass destruction in the event of a U.S. attack, as key U.N. members edged closer to agreement on a new resolution on Iraq, Agence France-Presse (AFP) reported.

U.S. President George W. Bush, ratcheting up the war rhetoric in a speech in Knoxville, Tennessee, meanwhile threatened that “the full force and fury of the United States military will be unleashed” if Iraq does not disarm.

“And make no mistake about it, we will prevail,” he said.

Baghdad at the moment “appears to be drawing a line short of conducting terrorist attacks with conventional or CBW against the United States,” CIA director George Tenet said in a letter dated Oct. 7, signed by Deputy CIA Director John McLaughlin on Tenet’s behalf, committee chairman Bob Graham made public Tuesday.

Graham had earlier requested the CIA declassify parts of its secret assessment on Iraq.

But Tenet warned this Iraqi approach could undergo a reevaluation if Saddam were to conclude he was about to lose power or even his life.

“Should Saddam conclude that a U.S.-led attack could no longer be deterred, he probably would become much less constrained in adopting terrorist actions.

“Saddam might decide that the extreme step of assisting Islamist terrorists in conducting a WMD [weapons of mass destruction] attack against the United States would be his last chance to exact vengeance by taking a large number of victims with him,” Tenet warned.

Tenet, in an attempt to pre-empt speculation that the CIA’s assessment counters the Bush administrations perceptions of Iraq, said there was “no inconsistency” between the CIA's view of Saddam’s growing threat and the view expressed in the president's speech Monday night.

Tenet also declassified a portion of a secret briefing given to members of the committee by a senior intelligence official on October 2, in which the official was asked about the chances of the Iraqi leader lashing out with biological or chemical weapons.

These chances were “pretty high,” the official said.

At the same time, the official said that if the Iraqi leader did not feel threatened, “My judgment would be that the probability of him initiating an attack - let me put a time frame on it - in the foreseeable future, given the conditions we understand now, the likelihood I think would be low.”

‘Although we think the chances of Saddam initiating a WMD attack at this moment are low - in part because it would constitute an admission that he possesses WMD - there is no question that the likelihood of Saddam using WMD against the United States or our allies in the region for blackmail, deterrence, or otherwise grows as his arsenal continues to build,” Tenet said.

White House spokesman Ari Fleischer, in an attempt to pre-empt speculation that Tenet’s testimony undercuts the Bush administration’s perception of Iraq, said Wednesday that Tenet “did not say we’re OK…If Saddam Hussein holds a gun to someone’s head, while he denies he even owns a gun, do you really want to take a chance that he’ll never use it.”

But New Jersey Democrat Rep. Donald Payne said Tenet’s report suggested that an attack on Iraq “could trigger the very things that our president has said that he is trying to prevent, the use of chemical or biological weapons. In view of this report, the policy of a pre-emptive strike is troublesome.”

In the U.S. Congress, the House of Representatives could pass a resolution by Thursday allowing Bush to act unilaterally in case the U.N. fails to rid Iraq of weapons of mass destruction.

Ohio Democrat Rep. Dennis Kucinich, who has led opposition to authorizing war on Iraq, said he expected more than 100 House members to vote against the resolution. Many of the opponents warned that an attack on Iraq before tougher U.N. inspections are allowed to work and with few or no allies could come at a high cost to this country, reports news agencies.

And Maine Democrat Rep. Tom Allen added that, “There is a far higher risk of fueling resentment in Arab and Muslim nations and swelling the ranks of the anti-U.S. terrorists.”

The Senate, for its part, is still debating competing resolutions on this matter, and may present Bush with a harder sell.

As debate over Bush’s resolution resumed Wednesday, Sen. Harry Reid of Nevada, the second-ranking Senate Democrat, said he would vote to extend war-making power to Bush, while urging the president to use that power with discretion.

“President Bush, the rule of law matters and so does a decent respect for opinion of the rest of the world. As president of the United States, you are the leader of the free world, not its ruler,” Reid said.

And West Virginia Democrat Sen. Robert Byrd, an unyielding defender of the Senate's constitutional prerogatives, made clear he would use legislative delaying tactics to push debate into next week, saying the resolution was a “blank check” that “cedes the decision-making power of the Congress under the Constitution to declare war.”

He suggested the issue be put off until after the November election, reports news agencies.