A Senate probe into CIA failures in pre-war Iraq intelligence made headlines in US newspapers, which questioned Saturday how US President George W. Bush and his war planners used the data to justify the war.
"Sadly, the investigation stopped without assessing how President Bush had used the incompetent intelligence reports to justify war," The New York Times said in an editorial Saturday.
That matter will be addressed in a second part of the Senate report on the Bush administration's use of intelligence to convince the world to go to war.
Bush's decision to go to war is a major issue ahead of the November 2 presidential election.
The Times editorial said the investigation also "left open the question of whether (intelligence) analysts thought they were doing what Mr. Bush wanted" in supplying evidence to go to war.
"No one had to pressure analysts to change their findings, because the findings were determined before the work started," the New York daily said.
The Los Angeles Times wondered: "Did the White House pressure the CIA to concoct reasons to invade Iraq?"
The Washington Post said: "Mr. Bush, Vice President (Dick) Cheney and other senior officials sometimes exaggerated the flawed intelligence they were given, even if they were correct in identifying Iraq as a threat."
"The report offers yet another reminder about the weakness of US intelligence agencies, one that the Bush administration and Congress should be answering more urgently," it said.
The Washington Times, meanwhile, said the senators fell down on the job of overseeing intelligence-gathering.
"The senators who criticised the intelligence community for its failures played a major part in the subsequent tragedy," it said.
The conservative Washington daily named Democratic presidential hopeful John Kerry's running mate, in particular.
"Committee members - including Senator John Edwards - were charged with the duty of oversight and received the necessary powers to do so. They had access to the classified materials, they had the authority to question CIA executives and analysts," the Times said.
"So where were the senators while the failures were building?" The New York Times also took the Bush administration to task for its policy of holding periodic news conferences "to warn us that we're about to be attacked." Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge warned Thursday that al-Qaeda is planning a large-scale attack on the United States in a bid to "disrupt our democratic process."
"The public will have to believe that the president is acting against a real threat, not one manufactured to justify a political agenda," the Times said.
"There is no reason to go on television and repeat vague warnings that seem to be intended to frighten everyone.
"The report is a condemnation of how this administration has squandered the public trust it may sorely need for a real threat to national security," the Times declared.