WP: Candidates Use Arms Report To Make Case

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Friday, October 8, 2004; Page A01

ENGLEWOOD, Colo., Oct. 7 -- The latest report on Iraq's prewar weapons capacity produced a fiery exchange between President Bush and John F. Kerry on Thursday, with Bush asserting the report showed that Saddam Hussein was a danger even in the absence of weapons of mass destruction and Kerry charging that Bush had inflated the threat and was blind to evidence proving the war was a mistake.

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David Kay, who preceded Duelfer as the chief U.S. weapons inspector, said the latest report clearly showed that Hussein was not a threat to the United States. "Look, Saddam was delusional," Kay said on NBC's "Today" show Thursday. "He had a lot of intent. He didn't have capabilities. Intent without capabilities is not an imminent threat."

But Sen. Orrin G. Hatch (R-Utah) agreed with Bush's assessment of the report, telling CNN that it "says that there's no question that Saddam Hussein was going to try to get rid of the sanctions so he could resuscitate his program of weapons of mass destruction. I think the president has done exactly what he should have done."

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http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A16133-2004Oct7.html