Regardless of whether Iraq had stockpiles of banned weapons, Washington would probably have decided to invade Iraq anyway because of its "intent" and its weapons-making ability, Secretary of State Colin Powell said on Tuesday.

"I think it was clear that this was a regime with intent, capability and it was a risk the president felt strongly we could not take and it was something we all agreed to and would probably agree to it again under any other set of circumstances," Powell told reporters.

The United States' main justification for invading Iraq in its first pre-emptive war was to eliminate the threat from President Saddam Hussein's banned weapons.

But the man U.S. President George W. Bush appointed to lead the search for the weapons, David Kay, said late last month he believed there were in fact no stockpiles of weapons.

Powell, who made Washington's keynote presentation before the United Nations to detail pre-war intelligence about Iraq's weapons program, said, "The only thing that is even being discussed right now is what stockpiles were out there."

He noted that the intelligence surrounding the existence of those weapons was to be investigated by a commission Bush is setting up.

"But the bottom line is this: The president made the right decision. He made the right decision based on the history of this regime, the intention that this leader -- terrible, despotic leader -- had, and the capabilities at a variety of levels," Powell said.

In his remarks, the top U.S. diplomat appeared to back away from comments in an interview published earlier on Tuesday with the Washington Post.

Asked if he would have recommended an invasion knowing Iraq had no prohibited weapons, Powell was quoted as saying, "I don't know, because it was the stockpile that presented the final little piece that made it more of a real and present danger and threat to the region and to the world."

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