Bush ducks questions on false Iraq intelligence
Wed Jul 9, 8:58 PM ET Add Politics - AFP to My Yahoo!
PRETORIA (AFP) - US President George W. Bush (news - web sites) ducked questions over a White House admission that he used flawed intelligence on Iraq (news - web sites)'s nuclear program, while insisting he was right to oust Saddam Hussein (news - web sites).
Bush, in South Africa on the second leg of an African tour, faced reporters for the first time since the White House admitted early Tuesday that he had overstated Iraq's alleged efforts to procure uranium.
But he deflected a question on whether he regretted highlighting the allegation in his State of the Union address in January.
"There is no doubt in my mind that Saddam Hussein was a threat to the world peace and there is no doubt in my mind the United States along with our allies and friends did the right thing in removing him from power," Bush said at a joint appearance with South African President Thabo Mbeki.
"I am absolutely confident in the decision I made. I'm confident that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction."
Back in Washington, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld was running a similar gantlet before the Senate Armed Services Committee (news - web sites), where opposition Democrats grilled him on the quality of the prewar intelligence used as a pretext for invasion.
Still savoring the White House's backpedalling on its claims that Iraq had tried to obtain nuclear materials from Africa, New York Democrat Hillary Clinton (news - web sites) worried about "the quality, the accuracy and the use of intelligence" including the now-discredited claims of an Africa-Iraq link.
"In this new threat environment in which we find ourselves, we are increasingly reliant on intelligence," Clinton said.
Rumsfeld testified he had only recently learned the intelligence reports saying Iraq had tried to obtain processed uranium from Africa were bogus.
In London, Britain stood by its claim that Iraq had tried to buy uranium from Africa to kickstart its nuclear weapons program.
Prime Minister Tony Blair (news - web sites)'s spokesman said Britain had its own intelligence, apart from documents used by the US, which turned out to be based on forged information.
"We had included the material in our dossier on the basis of our knowledge, which was different," the spokesman said.
He was referring to a British government dossier published in September which laid out the threat posed by Saddam and said Iraq had sought to buy significant amounts of uranium from Africa.
Bush, in his address, had said: "The British government has learned that Saddam Hussein recently sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa."
The White House said the statement should not have been included in the address because it rested on flawed intelligence.
Bush spokesman Ari Fleischer (news - web sites) conceded the information "should not have risen to the level of a presidential speech," but argued that the fundamental case for invading Iraq remained sound despite one error in intelligence.
"There is a bigger picture here that is just as valid today as it was the day of the speech," he said, citing Iraq's alleged chemical and biological weapons programs.
The row stemmed from forged documents suggesting Iraq sought uranium "yellowcake" from Niger, and from separate information that Saddam sought the radioactive material from other African nations, the White House said.
Fleischer stressed the White House did not learn the documents were fraudulent until including the charge in the State of the Union address.
The White House's backpedalling followed the publication of a British parliamentary commission report that raised serious questions about the reliability of British intelligence cited by Bush.
Opposition Democrats in the United States have gone on the offensive against Bush over the admission that he used flawed intelligence, while top Republican lawmakers accused them of exploiting a relatively minor issue.
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