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For The Record: Bush Admin. Quotes on WMD
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Simply stated, there is no doubt that Saddam Hussein now has weapons of mass destruction.
Dick Cheney
Speech to VFW National Convention
August 26, 2002
Right now, Iraq is expanding and improving facilities that were used for the production of biological weapons.
George W. Bush
Speech to UN General Assembly
September 12, 2002
If he declares he has none, then we will know that Saddam Hussein is once again misleading the world.
Ari Fleischer
Press Briefing
December 2, 2002
We know for a fact that there are weapons there.
Ari Fleischer
Press Briefing
January 9, 2003
Our intelligence officials estimate that Saddam Hussein had the materials to produce as much as 500 tons of sarin, mustard and VX nerve agent.
George W. Bush
State of the Union Address
January 28, 2003
We know that Saddam Hussein is determined to keep his weapons of mass destruction, is determined to make more.
Colin Powell
Remarks to UN Security Council
February 5, 2003
We have sources that tell us that Saddam Hussein recently authorized Iraqi field commanders to use chemical weapons -- the very weapons the dictator tells us he does not have.
George W. Bush
Radio Address
February 8, 2003
If Iraq had disarmed itself, gotten rid of its weapons of mass destruction over the past 12 years, or over the last several months since (UN Resolution) 1441 was enacted, we would not be facing the crisis that we now have before us . . . But the suggestion that we are doing this because we want to go to every country in the Middle East and rearrange all of its pieces is not correct.
Colin Powell
Interview with Radio France International
February 28, 2003
So has the strategic decision been made to disarm Iraq of its weapons of mass destruction by the leadership in Baghdad? . . . I think our judgment has to be clearly not.
Colin Powell
Remarks to UN Security Council
March 7, 2003
Intelligence gathered by this and other governments leaves no doubt that the Iraq regime continues to possess and conceal some of the most lethal weapons ever devised.
George W. Bush
Address to the Nation
March 17, 2003
Well, there is no question that we have evidence and information that Iraq has weapons of mass destruction, biological and chemical particularly . . . all this will be made clear in the course of the operation, for whatever duration it takes.
Ari Fleisher
Press Briefing
March 21, 2003
There is no doubt that the regime of Saddam Hussein possesses weapons of mass destruction. And . . . as this operation continues, those weapons will be identified, found, along with the people who have produced them and who guard them.
Gen. Tommy Franks
Press Conference
March 22, 2003
I have no doubt we're going to find big stores of weapons of mass destruction.
Defense Policy Board member Kenneth Adelman
Washington Post , p. A27
March 23, 2003
One of our top objectives is to find and destroy the WMD. There are a number of sites.
Pentagon Spokeswoman Victoria Clark
Press Briefing
March 22, 2003
We know where they are. They're in the area around Tikrit and Baghdad and east, west, south and north somewhat.
Donald Rumsfeld
ABC Interview
March 30, 2003
Obviously the administration intends to publicize all the weapons of mass destruction U.S. forces find -- and there will be plenty.
Neocon scholar Robert Kagan
Washington Post op-ed
April 9, 2003
But make no mistake -- as I said earlier -- we have high confidence that they have weapons of mass destruction. That is what this war was about and it is about. And we have high confidence it will be found.
Ari Fleischer
Press Briefing
April 10, 2003
We are learning more as we interrogate or have discussions with Iraqi scientists and people within the Iraqi structure, that perhaps he destroyed some, perhaps he dispersed some. And so we will find them.
George W. Bush
NBC Interview
April 24, 2003
There are people who in large measure have information that we need . . . so that we can track down the weapons of mass destruction in that country.
Donald Rumsfeld
Press Briefing
April 25, 2003
We'll find them. It'll be a matter of time to do so.
George W. Bush
Remarks to Reporters
May 3, 2003
I'm absolutely sure that there are weapons of mass destruction there and the evidence will be forthcoming. We're just getting it just now.
Colin Powell
Remarks to Reporters
May 4, 2003
We never believed that we'd just tumble over weapons of mass destruction in that country.
Donald Rumsfeld
Fox News Interview
May 4, 2003
I'm not surprised if we begin to uncover the weapons program of Saddam Hussein -- because he had a weapons program.
George W. Bush
Remarks to Reporters
May 6, 2003
U.S. officials never expected that "we were going to open garages and find" weapons of mass destruction.
Condoleeza Rice
Reuters Interview
May 12, 2003
I just don't know whether it was all destroyed years ago -- I mean, there's no question that there were chemical weapons years ago -- whether they were destroyed right before the war, (or) whether they're still hidden.
Maj. Gen. David Petraeus, Commander 101st Airborne
Press Briefing
May 13, 2003
Before the war, there's no doubt in my mind that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction, biological and chemical. I expected them to be found. I still expect them to be found.
Gen. Michael Hagee , Commandant of the Marine Corps
Interview with Reporters
May 21, 2003
Given time, given the number of prisoners now that we're interrogating, I'm confident that we're going to find weapons of mass destruction.
Gen. Richard Myers , Chairman Joint Chiefs of Staff
NBC Today Show interview
May 26, 2003
They may have had time to destroy them, and I don't know the answer.
Donald Rumsfeld
Remarks to the Council on Foreign Relations
May 27, 2003
For bureaucratic reasons, we settled on one issue, weapons of mass destruction (as justification for invading Iraq) because it was the one reason everyone could agree on.
Paul Wolfowitz
Vanity Fair interview
May 28, 2003
It was a surprise to me then — it remains a surprise to me now — that we have not uncovered weapons, as you say, in some of the forward dispersal sites. Believe me, it's not for lack of trying. We've been to virtually every ammunition supply point between the Kuwaiti border and Baghdad, but they're simply not there.
Lt. Gen. James Conway , 1st Marine Expeditionary Force
Press Interview
May 30, 2003
Do I think we're going to find something? Yeah, I kind of do, because I think there's a lot of information out there."
Maj. Gen. Keith Dayton , Defense Intelligence Agency
Press Conference
May 30, 2003
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From Robert Byrd's June 24, 2003 Senate Floor Remarks:
On January 28, 2003, President Bush said in his State of the Union Address: "The British government has learned that Saddam Hussein recently sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa." Yet, according to news reports, the CIA knew that this claim was false as early as March 2002. In addition, the International Atomic Energy Agency has since discredited this allegation.
On February 5, Secretary of State Colin Powell told the United Nations Security Council: "Our conservative estimate is that Iraq today has a stockpile of between 100 and 500 tons of chemical weapons agent. That is enough to fill 16,000 battlefield rockets." The truth is, to date we have not found any of this material, nor those thousands of rockets loaded with chemical weapons.
On February 8, President Bush told the nation: "We have sources that tell us that Saddam Hussein recently authorized Iraqi field commanders to use chemical weapons – the very weapons the dictator tells us he does not have." Mr. President, we are all relieved that such weapons were not used, but it has not yet been explained why the Iraqi army did not use them. Did the Iraqi army flee their positions before chemical weapons could be used? If so, why were the weapons not left behind? Or is it that the army was never issued chemical weapons? We need answers.
On March 16, the Sunday before the war began, in an interview with Tim Russert, Vice President Cheney said that Iraqis want "to get rid of Saddam Hussein and they will welcome as liberators the United States when we come to do that." He added, "...the vast majority of them would turn in in a minute if, in fact, they thought they could do so safely." < Meet the Press , 3/16/03, pg. 6> But in fact, Mr. President, today Iraqi cities remain in disorder, our troops are under attack, our occupation government lives and works in fortified compounds, and we are still trying to determine the fate of the ousted, murderous dictator.
On March 30, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, during the height of the war, said of the search for weapons of mass destruction: "We know where they are. They're in the area around Tikrit and Baghdad and east, west, south, and north somewhat." < This Week , 3/30/03, pg. 8> But Baghdad fell to our troops on April 9, and Tikrit on April 14, and the intelligence Secretary Rumsfeld spoke about has not led us to any weapons of mass destruction.
Whether or not intelligence reports were bent, stretched, or massaged to make Iraq look like an imminent threat to the United States, it is clear that the Administration's rhetoric played upon the well-founded fear of the American public about future acts of terrorism. But, upon close examination, many of these statements have nothing to do with intelligence, because they are at root just sound bites based on conjecture. They are designed to prey on public fear.
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- This is an incomplete collection of quotes...but they serve to show that the Bush* administration bullied and frightened this country and the world into attacking Iraq without just cause. They rejected calls for patience and continued inspections from the UN and most of the world while insisting they had to attack before Saddam hit us first. But there were no signs that Iraq posed ANY kind of immediate or future threat to the US or their neighbors.
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