Bush backpeddling faster than Lance Armstrong with a semi coming his way
The White House: Bush Backs Away From His Claims About Iraq Arms
January 28, 2004
By DAVID E. SANGER
WASHINGTON, Jan. 27 - President Bush declined Tuesday to
repeat his claims that evidence that Saddam Hussein had
illicit weapons would eventually be found in Iraq, but he
insisted that the war was nonetheless justified because Mr.
Hussein posed "a grave and gathering threat to America and
the world."
Asked by reporters if he would repeat earlier expressions
of confidence that the weapons would be found in light of
recent statements by the former chief weapons inspector in
Iraq, David A. Kay, that Mr. Hussein had gotten rid of them
well before the war, Mr. Bush did not answer directly.
"I think it's very important for us to let the Iraq Survey
Group do its work, so we can find out the facts and compare
the facts to what was thought," he said at an appearance
with the visiting president of Poland.
Mr. Bush praised Dr. Kay's work and came to the defense of
the Central Intelligence Agency, whose reporting on Iraq's
weapons programs Dr. Kay sharply criticized in interviews
over the weekend. "These are unbelievably hard-working,
dedicated people who are doing a great job for America,"
Mr. Bush said of the intelligence community.
Yet at the White House and on Capitol Hill, many officials
said it was obvious that the intelligence reports about
Iraq had been deeply flawed. They said they doubted that
Mr. Bush would have the luxury of waiting to confront the
issue.
Democrats demanded that an independent panel examine how
the National Intelligence Estimate - the 2002 document that
Mr. Bush used as the basis of his comments that Iraq posed
a direct threat to the United States and its allies - could
have been so flawed. The White House expressed no interest
in the formation of such a panel.
"I think it is critical that we follow up and find out what
went wrong," the Senate minority leader, Tom Daschle of
South Dakota, said on Tuesday, before meeting with Mr. Bush
with a group of other Congressional leaders from both
parties. At the meeting, Mr. Daschle noted that
Congressional leaders had depended on sound intelligence in
voting on the war. Officials knowledgeable about the
exchange said Mr. Bush interrupted Mr. Daschle and argued
that the Iraq war was a "worthy" effort and that the
administration had not manipulated the evidence. The
president also said he had not given up the search for the
weapons.
Dr. Kay resigned last week as head of the Iraq Survey
Group. In an interview with Reuters last week, he said one
reason he stepped down was that his team had been diverted
to some degree to help battle the insurgency.
In private, some administration officials acknowledged
Tuesday that Dr. Kay's conclusion that the intelligence was
deeply flawed was becoming an unwelcome political problem
that the White House would have to confront, either now or
when the presidential campaign heats up.
Two administration officials reported that a debate has
erupted within the administration over whether Mr. Bush
should soon call for some kind of reform of the
intelligence-gathering process. But the officials said Mr.
Bush's aides were searching for a formula that would allow
them to acknowledge intelligence-gathering problems without
blaming the Central Intelligence Agency or the director of
central intelligence, George J. Tenet, who approved that
National Intelligence Estimate.
"We spent the summer with the White House and the agency
spitting at each other," said one official, recalling the
arguments over who was to blame for Mr. Bush's inaccurate
accusation in the State of the Union address last year that
Saddam Hussein had tried to buy nuclear material in Africa.
"We can't afford another of those."
Two Democratic members of the Senate Intelligence Committee
said Tuesday that senior members of the administration
continue to exaggerate evidence about unconventional
weapons.
"Just within the last few days, Vice President Cheney has
said that it is clear that a couple of vehicles that were
found in Iraq were mobile biological weapons labs, exactly
the opposite of what David Kay is reportedly saying," said
Senator Carl Levin, Democrat of Michigan.
Senator John D. Rockefeller IV, Democrat of West Virginia,
said the "overwhelming question" surrounding the
intelligence issue remained "was this a predetermined war
or not?"
In a recent interview, Senator John Kerry, a Massachusetts
Democrat who won his party's New Hampshire primary on
Tuesday, said he had been "repeatedly misled" about the
evidence by a number of administration officials. He cited
Mr. Cheney, but also noted that Secretary of State Colin L.
Powell - who had been the most cautious in the
administration about the evidence - told him that the
reason to vote to authorize military action was Mr.
Hussein's weapons ability - and that other reasons,
including bringing democracy to Iraq, were secondary.
But in public on Tuesday, Mr. Bush, while careful in his
claims, made it clear that he had no regrets.
"There is just no doubt in my mind that Saddam Hussein was
a grave and gathering threat to America and the world," Mr.
Bush told reporters as he met with the Polish president,
Aleksander Kwasniewski. "There is just no doubt in my mind.
And I say that based upon intelligence that I saw prior to
the decision to go into Iraq, and I say that based upon
what I know today."
Yet Mr. Bush's own words on the subject have been a moving
target. In the State of the Union address a week ago, he
referred to "weapons of mass destruction-related program
activities" that inspectors had found, drawing the wording
from Dr. Kay's interim report last fall. He did not mention
Dr. Kay's other conclusions: that those activities were
largely in research and development, that most made little
progress, and that they were intended to deceive Mr.
Hussein into thinking that he was spending money
fruitfully.
Scott McClellan, the White House spokesman, argued Tuesday
that Mr. Bush had never said that Iraq posed an "imminent"
threat, but only a "grave and growing" one. That may be
literally correct, but both Mr. Bush and his aides made it
clear many times that they believed Mr. Hussein already had
unconventional weapons.
For example, on Oct. 7, 2002, during a speech in Cincinnati
that laid out how America was threatened by Mr. Hussein,
Mr. Bush said: "If we know Saddam Hussein has dangerous
weapons today - and we do - does it make any sense for the
world to wait to confront him as he grows even stronger and
develops even more dangerous weapons?"
Secretary of Defense Donald H. Rumsfeld, speaking to the
House Armed Services Committee on Sept. 18, 2002, said, "We
do know that the Iraqi regime currently has chemical and
biological weapons of mass destruction."
Such statements were important then because Mr. Bush had to
convince the country and his allies that, especially in the
post-Sept. 11 world, he could not wait to build a broader
coalition against Mr. Hussein.
Moreover, international law has been far more forgiving of
"pre-emptive war" against a country about to begin a strike
of its own than it is of "preventive war" against a country
that may, some day, pose a challenge to another state. That
is seen more as an act of raw power than of self-defense.
nytimes.com
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