In his first public speech in nine months, CIA Director George Tenet Thursday said Iraq never posed an imminent threat to the United States. But Tenet called for the search for weapons of mass destruction to continue in Iraq. He disputed the assertion of former US chief weapons inspector David Kay that the hunt is 85 percent over. Tenet’s speech came a year to the date after Colin Powell appeared before the United Nations to make the case for war. At the time Powell claimed that U.S. intelligence showed Iraq was developing weapons of mass destruction and that Saddam Hussein had ties to Al Qaeda. On Thursday Tenet made no mention of ties between Iraq and Al Qaeda and acknowledged that the intelligence gathered on weapons of mass destruction has been partially flawed. He said “In the intelligence business you are almost never completely wrong or completely right.” But overall he defended the CIA’s work and claimed it never came under political pressure from the White House. Meanwhile President Bush is expected to name members to a presidential panel to probe the Iraq weapons controversy. The Associated Press is reporting that one of the members will be Sen. John McCain. On Sunday, Bush is scheduled to discuss the Iraq controversy during a rare one-on-one televised interview with Tim Russert on Meet the Press.