WMD or Not, Iraq Was a Threat, Bush Says

By David Ruppe
Global Security Newswire

WASHINGTON — Iraq was a threat justifying the U.S.-led war begun last year, even though no WMD stockpiles have yet been found, President George W. Bush said in a televised news conference last night (see GSN, March 31).

“Even knowing what I know today about the stockpiles of weapons, I still would’ve called upon the world to deal with [former Iraqi President] Saddam Hussein,” he told reporters during a question-and-answer session.

More than a year after the invasion, a CIA-led inspection team has reported finding no weapons stockpiles or evidence that Iraq had active WMD programs.

Chief inspector Charles Duelfer told Congress last month the Iraq Survey Group’s focus would now be on finding evidence of Iraqi intent to build such weapons, though the search for actual weapons would continue.

“Saddam Hussein was a threat. He was a threat because he had used weapons of mass destruction on his own people. He was a threat because he coddled terrorists. He was a threat because he funded suiciders. He was a threat to the region.  He was a threat to the United States,” Bush said.

“That’s the assessment that I made from the intelligence, the assessment that Congress made from the intelligence. That’s the exact same assessment that the U.N. Security Council made with the intelligence,” he said.

Bush said it remains possible that Iraq did have weapons of mass destruction just before the war and that those weapons remain at large.

“See, I’m of the belief that we’ll find out the truth on the weapons. That’s why we set up [an] independent commission. I look forward to hearing the truth as to exactly where they are. They could still be there.  They could be hidden, like the 50 tons of mustard gas in a turkey farm,” he said, referring to Libya’s recent disclosure of a hidden chemical weapons stock.

Libya, in an initial declaration to the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons last month, said it had stored 23 metric tons of mustard agent (see related GSN story, today).

Bush cited Duelfer’s testimony that Iraqi scientists were intimidated against cooperating with U.S. authorities.

“They’re worried about getting killed, and therefore they’re not going to talk. … We’ll find out the truth about the weapons at some point in time,” he said.

“However, the fact that he had the capacity to make them bothers me today just like it would have bothered me then. He’s a dangerous man,” he said.

Echoing previous statements, Bush said Iraq presented a potential threat to the United States that justified the war.

“The lesson of Sept. 11 is when this nation sees a threat, a gathering threat, we’ve got to deal with it,” he said.

Elsewhere in his remarks last night, Bush said the United States was not on a “war footing” against al-Qaeda before the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks and said an August 2001 intelligence briefing warning of long-standing al-Qaeda interest in attacking within the United States did not prompt him to respond because it lacked information indicating a specific threat.

“Had there been a threat that required action by anybody in the government, I would have dealt with it. In other words, had they come up and said this is where we see something happening, you can rest assured that the people of this government would have responded, and responded in a forceful way,” he said.

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