US President George W Bush will name a commission this week to review pre-war intelligence about Iraq's weapons programmes, CNN quoted administration sources as saying on Sunday.

It will have nine members made up of Democrats and Republicans as well as experts from outside government.

The intelligence was used to justify the US-led war in Iraq.

US chief weapons inspector David Kay said last week that no weapons of mass destruction had been found in Iraq, and that he didn't believe stockpiles of banned weapons would turn up.

"It turns out we were all wrong, and that is most disturbing," Kay told a Senate Armed Services Committee hearing last week.

In an effort to defuse the WMD dispute as an election-year issue, Bush will set a deadline of sometime in early to mid-2005, the sources said.

The White House initially rejected calls from Kay and key members of Congress for a review of the intelligence. But with political pressure mounting, Vice President Dick Cheney began making calls last week to Congress members to explore potential compromises.