csua.org/u/5rh -> www.nytimes.com/2004/01/29/international/middleeast/29CND-WEAP.html?ex=1082433600&en=81fe423d875d25f6&ei=5070
The adviser, Condoleezza Rice, said Saddam Hussein had contemptuously rejected many opportunities to tell the world about the weapons of mass destruction that he had or did not have. And she asserted, as top Bush aides have done repeatedly, that the ouster of Mr. While acknowledging the uncertainties that are inherent to intelligence-gathering and analysis, Dr. The presidents judgment to go to war was based on the fact that Saddam Hussein had for 12 years defied the international community, refused to account for large stockpiles of weapons, she said in an interview with Matt Lauer on NBCs Today program. Nobody could count on the good will of Saddam Hussein to tell us that he did not have anthrax or botulinum toxin. Rice made essentially the same points in an interview with Hannah Storm on CBSs Early Show. I dont think, Hannah, that we know the full story of what became of Saddam Husseins weapons of mass destruction, Dr. We do know that he was someone who had used weapons of mass destruction, who had used them on his neighbors and on his own people. The supposed existence of deadly chemical and biological weapons in the hands in Iraq was cited by President Bush as a paramount reason for the military campaign that toppled the Baghdad dictator. The failure so far to find them has emerged as a major political issue, with some Democrats saying that Mr. Bush took the United States to war based on intelligence that was inadequate. Some Democrats have gone further, accusing the White House of manipulating intelligence. The questions and accusations were stoked to a new intensity on Wednesday, when David A. Kay, the former chief weapons inspector in Iraq, told the Senate Armed Services Committee that he favored an independent inquiry into the United States prewar intelligence about Iraqs weapons programs. Kay reiterated what he has been saying in interviews recently: that he thinks intelligence about Iraqs weapons programs was, at a minimum, out of date. But he testified that he did not think the White House had pressured intelligence analysts to exaggerate the threat. Kay has done, and that will be continued by the Iraq Survey Group, gives us an opportunity to gather all of the facts that we possibly can, she said on NBC, using the formal name for the weapons-hunting team. Lauer why, then, the White House did not favor an outside inquiry, she said: I think we simply believe that there is work still to be done. In fact, the intelligence community has its own investigation, inquiry, going on into a kind of audit of what was known going in and what was found when they got there. In her CBS interview, she said intelligence-gathering is seldom crystal clear. It is not rare for a high administration official to appear on more than one television network in one day, but todays appearances by one of the presidents most trusted advisers signaled the importance of the weapons issue this election year.
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