WASHINGTON, April 12 (UPI) -- A liberal columnist says former Secretary of State Colin Powell told him he and the State Department knew all along Iraq posed no imminent nuclear threat to the United States. Robert Scheer, a contributing editor to The Nation, posted a column on the magazine's website Tuesday quoting the former Army general. According to Scheer, Powell Monday blamed Vice President Dick Cheney for the administration's use of the now discredited information that Iraq sought uranium yellowcake from Niger.

That claim was investigated in February 2002 by former U.S. Ambassador Joseph Wilson, who reported back to the CIA that he believed the information to be false. Wilson is the husband of Valerie Plame, the CIA agent whose identity was leaked to the media in an apparent effort to discredit Wilson's findings after he wrote about them in the New York Times in July 2003. Cheney's then-chief of staff, L. "Scooter" Libby faces trial in connection with the incident.