White House retreats from weapons claims
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By Terence Hunt
Jan. 26, 2004 | WASHINGTON (AP) -- The White House retreated Monday
from its once-confident claims that Iraq had weapons of mass
destruction, and Democrats swiftly sought to turn the about-face into
an election-year issue against President Bush.
The administration's switch came after retired chief U.S. weapons
inspector David Kay said he had concluded, after nine months of
searching, that Saddam Hussein did not have stockpiles of forbidden
weapons. Asked about Kay's remarks, White House spokesman Scott
McClellan refused to repeat oft-stated assertions that prohibited
weapons eventually would be found.
McClellan said the inspectors should continue their work "so that they
can draw as complete a picture as possible. And then we can learn --
it will help us learn the truth."
Kay, meanwhile, was called to appear at a public hearing of the Senate
Armed Services Committee on Wednesday and agreed to attend, a Senate
aide said.
Sen. John Kerry, seeking the Democratic presidential nomination, said
Bush had misled the nation. "When the president of the United States
looks at you and tells you something, there should be some trust,"
Kerry said from the campaign trail in Keene, N.H. "He's broken every
one of those promises."
Howard Dean, another Democratic candidate, said, "The White House has
not been candid with the American people about virtually anything with
the Iraq war."
The U.S. war against terrorism is Bush's strongest suit against
Democrats, and his handling of Iraq has the approval of more than half
of Americans questioned in polls. Analysts said it was doubtful the
weapons issue would hurt Bush much.
"It depends on how the Democrats play it," said James Thurber,
director of the Center for Congressional and Presidential Studies at
American University. "Basically they're dominating the news as much as
the president is these days, and if they continue to criticize the
president on this, then it begins to hurt a little bit.
"But basically he is doing so well in the polls at this point, on the
economy but also even on the war, that I don't see it as a major hit,"
Thurber said.
Senate Minority Leader Tom Daschle called for an investigation --
either by the Senate Intelligence Committee or an independent
commission -- into the "administration's role in the intelligence
failures leading up to the war with Iraq."
Sen. Joe Lieberman, another Democratic candidate, campaigning in New
Hampshire, also urged an investigation or congressional hearings "on
the intelligence that some of us saw directly, and the statements that
the administration was making and the emphasis the administration was
putting on weapons of mass destruction."
Vice President ***** Cheney, meeting in Rome with Italian Premier
Silvio Berlusconi, did not answer when a reporter asked if he felt
prewar intelligence was faulty. Cheney was one of the administration's
most forceful advocates of war and was outspoken in describing Iraq's
alleged threat.
Kerry has questioned whether Cheney tried to pressure CIA analysts who
wrote reports on Iraq's weapon programs.
A senior administration official on the Cheney trip said the "jury is
still out" on whether the intelligence accurately reflected what kind
of weapons were in Iraq.
"Obviously we want to compare the intelligence from before the war
with what the Iraq Survey Group learns on the ground," McClellan said.
Attorney General John Ashcroft, traveling in Vienna, Austria, said the
Iraq war was justified, even if banned weapons are never found,
because it eliminated the threat that Saddam might again resort to
"evil chemistry and evil biology."
Saddam's willingness to use such weapons was sufficient cause to
overthrow his regime, Ashcroft said, referring to the use of chemical
and biological arms against Iraqi Kurds in 1988 and during the 1980s
Iran-Iraq war.
McClellan made the same point. "The decision to remove Saddam
Hussein's regime from power was the right decision," he said. "Saddam
Hussein was a dangerous and gathering threat, and the president made
the right decision to remove him from power."
Even before Kay announced his conclusion, Bush had changed his public
rationale about the war as the search for weapons proved fruitless.
Bush cast it as a broader war against terrorism, calling Iraq the
central front, and said democracy would spread in the Middle East if
it took hold in Iraq.
In London, British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw said it was
disappointing that inspectors have not found evidence "of what the
whole of the international community believes, and genuinely believed,
about weapons programs and weapons stockpiles which Saddam had."
Key, in a weekend interview with National Public Radio, tried to
deflect heat from Bush.
Asked whether Bush owed the nation an explanation for the
discrepancies between his warnings and Kay's findings, Kay said, "I
actually think the intelligence community owes the president, rather
than the president owing the American people."
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Yang
a.a. #28
a.a. pastor #-273.15, the most frigid church of Celcius nee Kelvin
EAC Econometric Forecast and Socerey Division
Proudly plonked by Lani Girl and Crazyalec
The Bush 'balanced' budget: -525 billion and worsening
The Bush 'economic' policy: -3 million jobs and counting
The Bush Iraq lie: -512 GIs, one friend's co-worker's son and mounting
Having Bush ***** up my country: Worthless
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