An influential architect of the war in Iraq defended the case for US military action on Monday, saying the failure to find weapons of mass destruction did not mean the decision to invade was a mistake.

Douglas Feith, former undersecretary of defense for policy from 2001 to 2005, said Saddam Hussein posed a serious threat to the United States due to his links to terrorist groups and his regime's potential to produce biological and chemical weapons.

"And even based on what we have learned since, even though we didn't find the WMD stockpiles that the CIA had said we would find in Iraq, what we did find ... was a serious WMD threat in Iraq because Saddam had maintained programs for biological and chemical weapons," Feith said at a news conference promoting his new memoir, "War and Decision."

Feith said government documents show the Iraqi dictator had experts and resources in place so that his regime could manufacture chemical and biological weapons within three to five weeks.

While the failure to find presumed stockpiles of dangerous weapons "was catastrophic to our credibility," Feith said, it was not a result of government deception. "It was an honest error, not a lie."

"Even if you correct for that error, what we found in Iraq was a serious WMD threat."

Feith, who has been accused by Democratic lawmakers of manipulating intelligence to back the rationale for war, said he wrote the book to clarify what he considers inaccurate accounts of White House decisions with documented records of policy deliberations before, during and after the war.

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