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Bush: Iraq intelligence was sound

US President dismisses any difference between whether Saddam had WMDs or planned to acquire them.

12/17/03: (MEOL) WASHINGTON - US President George W. Bush on Tuesday dismissed any distinction between whether former Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein actually had weapons of mass destruction or planned to acquire them.

"So what's the difference?" he asked in an interview with ABC television in response to a question whether Iraq actually had weapons of mass destruction or was just trying to acquire them.

"If he were to acquire weapons, he would be the danger," the president said. "A gathering threat, after 9-11, is a threat that needed to be dealt with, and it was done after 12 long years of the world saying the man's a danger."

The Bush administration used claims that Iraq had hidden banned chemical and biological weapons as one of the main justification for launching an invasion of Iraq last March.

A CIA-led search team sent to Iraq after the collapse of the Saddam Hussein regime has so far been unable to find any of these weapons.

But in the interview Bush referred to "the possibility that he could acquire weapons."

Bush insisted that the intelligence the White House used before the invasion "was good sound intelligence" and was no different than that available to his predecessor.

"There is no doubt that Saddam Hussein was a threat," he said. "Otherwise, the United Nations wouldn't have passed, you know, resolution after resolution after resolution, demanding that he disarm." 

Copyright: Middle East Online