Transcript: Carl Levin on 'FOX News Sunday'
Sunday, November 09, 2003
[Note: Part 1-- This is part of Levin's transcript...too hard to do the whole thing...but it is worth checking out../i>)]
SNOW: Let's talk about use. Before the war, on this program, you stated categorically that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction. Were you wrong?
LEVIN: We all believed he had weapons of mass destruction. We didn't characterize it the way the administration did, in terms of, "He has certainly weapons of mass destruction," and, as a matter of fact, according to Secretary Rumsfeld, "we know where those weapons of mass destruction are."
Everyone thought that there were weapons of mass destruction. It was the certainty with which the administration said that he had weapons, and that was the basis of going to war, and the refusal now of the administration to look at the intelligence and say, "Where did we go wrong?"
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SNOW: Let me ask you, on the basis of what intelligence did you build your conclusion that Saddam had weapons of mass destruction?
By the way, you were categorical too. You didn't say "maybe," you didn't say you "think," you said "absolutely."
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SNOW: ... but when one is doing an investigation, normally you call up an investigation when you have reasonable grounds for suspecting that something has been done improperly.
What leads you to believe that the administration -- what datum, what bit of information leads you to believe that the administration may deliberately have misled anybody?
LEVIN: Look, the question isn't "deliberately," necessarily. The question is whether or not they exaggerated intelligence in order to carry out their purpose, which was to make the case for going to war.
Did we know, for instance, with certainty that there was any relationship between the Iraqis and the terrorists that were in Afghanistan, bin Laden? The administration said that there's a connection between those terrorist groups in Afghanistan and Iraq. Was there a basis for that?
SNOW: Well, Senator...
LEVIN: Was there a basis for putting on a Web site at the White House the pictures of a facility in Iraq and saying that this is now being reconstituted as a nuclear facility? Was there a basis for that?
SNOW: OK, Senator, let me ask you -- you've talked about the -- well, you mentioned the link with Al Qaeda. Of course that was Ansar al-Islam, which did have a base in northern Iraq, and...
LEVIN: Yes, but that's -- see, Tony, now you're doing exactly...
SNOW: ... that was what was cited at the time. No, that's what was cited at the time.
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