- Facing mounting pressure over charges that the White
House deliberately misled the American people about Iraq's WMD, President
Bush is now claiming that U.N. weapons inspectors were not allowed into
Iraq before the war. Yesterday, the president said, Iraq "chose defiance.
It was [Saddam's] choice to make, and he did not let us in."[1]
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- But U.N. weapons inspections led by Hans Blix began on
November 27th, 2003, as noted by the State Department at the time.[2] Over
the course of the next five months, those inspections found "little
more than 'debris'" from a WMD program that had long since been destroyed.[3]
The weapons inspectors were forced to leave when Bush ordered the invasion
of Iraq.[4] President Bush then "refused to permit the U.N. inspectors
to return to Iraq."[5]
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- When asked about the issue yesterday, White House spokesman
Scott McClellan claimed the entire WMD issue was unimportant because the
Bush Administration had never said Iraq was a threat. He said, "the
media have chosen to use the word 'imminent'" to describe the Iraqi
"threat" - not the Bush Administration.[6]
-
- But the record shows the Administration repeatedly said
Iraq was an "imminent threat." On May 7th, less than a week after
the president announced the end of major combat operations, White House
spokesman Ari Fleischer was asked, "Didn't we go to war because we
said WMD were a direct and imminent threat to the U.S.?" He replied,
"Absolutely."[7] Similarly, in November 2002, Secretary of Defense
Donald Rumsfeld said, "I would look you in the eye and I would say,
go back before September 11 and ask yourself this question: Was the attack
that took place on September 11 an imminent threat the month before or
two months before or three months before or six months before? When did
the attack on September 11 become an imminent threat? Now, transport yourself
forward a year, two years or a week or a month...So the question is, when
is it such an immediate threat that you must do something?" Most notably,
Vice President Cheney said two days after President Bush's 2003 State of
the Union that Saddam Hussein "threatens the United States of America."[8]
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- Sources: 1. President Bush Welcomes President Kwasniewski
to White House , 01/27/2004. http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2004/01/20040127-3.html
2. "Weapons Inspections to Begin in Iraq November 27", US State
Department, 11/25/2002. http://usinfo.state.gov/topical/pol/arms/02112508.htm
3. "Blix Downgrades Prewar Assessment of Iraqi Weapons", Washington
Post, 11/22/2003. http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A19555-2003Jun21?language=printer
4. "Weapons Inspectors Leave Iraq", CBS News, 03/18/2003. http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2003/03/17/iraq/main544280.shtml
5. "Bush bars UN weapons teams from Iraq", SMH, 04/24/2003. http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2003/04/23/1050777306319.html
6. Press Briefing, 01/27/2004. http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2004/01/20040127-6.html
7. Press Briefing, 05/07/2003. http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2003/05/20030507-7.html
8. "Confronting Iraq Crucial To War Against Terror", Truth News,
01/30/2003. http://truthnews.com/world/2003010111.htm
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- http://www.misleader.org/daily_mislead/Read.asp?fn=df01282004.html
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