The Arkansas Legislature scrambled today to rewrite a bill intended to protect storm victims after Gov. Mike Huckabee, a Baptist minister, objected to language describing such natural phenomena as tornadoes and floods as ''acts of God.''

Mr. Huckabee said that signing the legislation ''would be violating my own conscience'' inasmuch as it described ''a destructive and deadly force as being 'an act of God.' '' The Governor, a Republican, said the legislation was an otherwise worthy bill with objectives he shared.

Mr. Huckabee did not veto the bill but instead asked that it be recalled by the General Assembly. He suggested that the phrase ''acts of God'' be changed to ''natural disasters.''

The House of Representatives refused today to remove the offending phrase, but added the words, ''or natural disasters'' after the words ''acts of God.''

Mr. Huckabee was away from the capital, but his press secretary, Rex Nelson, said the Governor would not decide whether to accept the amended version until the Senate had considered the language.

The legislation would bar insurance companies from canceling coverage solely on the basis of claims filed after losses from storms. It was introduced before a series of tornados on March 1 killed 26 people and destroyed hundreds of houses and businesses, leaving damage in the hundreds of millions of dollars.

State Representative Dennis R. Young, a Texarkana Democrat who was the bill's sponsor in the House of Representatives, said, ''We've used the term 'act of God' in insurance since there has been insurance -- before there was insurance.''

Governor Huckabee's explained his objections in a letter to the bill's authors, saying: ''I feel that I have indeed witnessed many 'acts of God,' but I see His actions in the miraculous sparing of life, the sacrifice and selfless spirit in which so many responded to the pain of others.''

Freedom requires religion just as religion requires freedom. Freedom opens the windows of the soul so that man can discover his most profound beliefs and commune with God. Freedom and religion endure together, or perish alone.

Any believer in religious freedom, any person who has knelt in prayer to the Almighty, has a friend and ally in me.

BLITZER: In fairness to Mohamed ElBaredei, before the war in Iraq, when Condoleezza Rice and the President were speaking about mushroom clouds of Saddam Hussein and a revived nuclear weapons program that he may be undertaking, [ElBaradei] was saying that there was absolutely no such evidence, he was poo-poo-ing it, saying that the Bush Administration was overly-alarming and there was no nuclear weapons program that Saddam Hussein had revived. He was right on that one?

BOLTON: Even a stopped clock is right twice a day.

President Bush got the world's attention this fall when he warned that a nuclear-armed Iran might lead to World War III. But his stark warning came at least a month or two after he had first been told about fresh indications that Iran had actually halted its nuclear weapons program.

Q Mr. President, thank you. I'd like to follow on that. When you talked about Iraq, you and others in the administration talked about a mushroom cloud; then there were no WMD in Iraq. When it came to Iran, you said in October, on October 17th, you warned about the prospect of World War III, when months before you made that statement, this intelligence about them suspending their weapons program back in '03 had already come to light to this administration. So can't you be accused of hyping this threat? And don't you worry that that undermines U.S. credibility?

THE PRESIDENT: David, I don't want to contradict an august reporter such as yourself, but I was made aware of the NIE last week. In August, I think it was Mike McConnell came in and said, we have some new information. He didn't tell me what the information was; he did tell me it was going to take a while to analyze. Why would you take time to analyze new information? One, you want to make sure it's not disinformation. You want to make sure the piece of intelligence you have is real. And secondly, they want to make sure they understand the intelligence they gathered: If they think it's real, then what does it mean? And it wasn't until last week that I was briefed on the NIE that is now public.