935 Lies By Bush, Powell, Rumsfeld, Rice & Wulfowitz To Start Iraq War: "What Didn't They Know and When Didn't They Know IT?

Rumsfeld: In my meetings, we had good discussions about the way ahead with respect to the global war on terrorism. We discussed the stability in the Gulf region and certainly, the continuing violations of U.N. resolutions by Iraq. But I am very pleased to be here and to have had this chance to discuss so many matters of mutual interest, and I would be happy to respond to questions.

Question: What do you make of the statement made by the Iraqi government yesterday that Iraq has no weapons of mass destruction and is not developing any?

Rumsfeld: They are lying. Next.

[text omitted]

Question: Did you get commitments from Kuwait that they would take part in any new effort to contain Iraq if it comes to military might?

Rumsfeld: I wouldn't put it that way. Kuwait has been obviously very cooperative in all aspects of supporting the U.N. resolutions and the world community's effort to see that Iraq does not develop weapons of mass destruction, and that it does not entertain acts of aggression against its neighbors. We had a variety of discussions along that line.

[text omitted]

Question: A lot of people in this country say that they're tired of the Iraqi threats toward their country. Would it mean any military might in the near future that will end up in toppling the regime in Iraq, and would you increase your troops in the region?

Rumsfeld: The United States government, for a number of years now, has believed that the solution in Iraq would be regime change. That is to say that their current regime has, by its behavior, its repression of its own people, by its invasion of Kuwait, by its development of weapons of mass destruction, by its continued violations of the no-fly zones, by its unwillingness to release prisoners from Kuwait, by its unwillingness to return archives and records that were stolen, by a whole host of acts and indications of behavior that are harmful to the region.

So the U.S. policy favoring regime change is something that for a number of years has been the policy and the conviction of successive governments in our country. Towards that end, obviously, we have been participating with coalition forces in attempting to enforce the no-fly zone. We have been working with Kuwait and other countries, with respect to other aspects of the U.N. resolutions, sanctions and so forth. What might take place prospectively is not something that is for me to be talking about. But clearly, if you want the policy of our country, it is that the regime of Saddam Hussein is a destabilizing factor of the region.

Question: When you say that Iraq is lying. That story mentioned having weapons—

Rumsfeld: Sometimes I understate for emphasis.

Question: I don't think I missed the point. But it was a two part thing, that were not developing and that they did not have any. Were they lying about one, or both?

Rumsfeld: No. They have them and they continue to develop them and they have weaponized chemical weapons, we know that. They've had an active program to develop nuclear weapons. It's also clear that they are actively developing biological weapons. I don't know what other kinds of weapons would fall under the rubric of weapons of mass destruction, but if there are more, I suspect they're working on them as well, even though I don't happen to know what they are. It is just false, not true, inaccurate and typical.

Question: During your tenure do you expect to see regime change in Iraq?

Rumsfeld: Oh, I would certainly hope so. I would think most of the people in the region and in the world recognize that the world would be a better place without that regime. That regime threatens its neighbors repeatedly; it is listed on the terrorist list for the world that every one knows. They are not a model of good behavior.

http://www.defenselink.mil/transcripts/transcript.aspx?transcriptid=3500

SOURCE: Office of the Assistant Secretary of Defense (Public Affairs), Donald Rumsfeld press conference at Kuwait International Airport, June 10, 2002.

Question: Ari, when Tariq Aziz of Iraq says that his country possesses no weapons of mass destruction, how do we know that he's not telling the truth?

Mr. Fleischer: Well, Iraq has lied before and they're lying now about whether they possess weapons of mass destruction. Tariq Aziz's statement is very much like statements that Iraq made throughout the 90s, denying that they had weapons of mass destruction when, of course, it was found that they indeed had weapons of mass destruction. And so I see little reason to believe Iraq now when they have such a history of lying in the past about this very topic.

Question: Well, I mean, you're saying, I don't see why, if they were lying in the past they wouldn't be lying now, but do you have anything that constitutes proof?

Mr. Fleischer: Let me cite for you something I think you will find constructive. This is July 31, 2002, Senator Biden's committee up on Capitol Hill, and this is a statement by Richard Butler, formerly of the United Nations. Quote—this is Richard Butler speaking— "It is essential to recognize that the claim made by Saddam's representative that Iraq has no weapons of mass destruction is false. Everyone concerned, from Iraq's neighbors to the U.N. Security Council to the Secretary of the U.N., with whom Iraq is currently negotiating on this issue—everyone simply, Mr. Chairman, is being lied to."

And Mr. Butler, formerly of the U.N., continued, "From the beginning, Iraq refused to obey the law. Instead it actively sought to defeat the application of the law in order to preserve its weapons of mass destruction capabilities."

Two more paragraphs— "The work of UNSCOM [United Nations Special Commission], the body created by the United Nations Security Council to take away Iraq's weapons of mass destruction, had various degrees of success—varying degrees," said Mr. Butler. "But above all, it was not permitted to finish the job. Almost four years have now passed since Iraq terminated UNSCOM's work, and in that period, Iraq has been free of any inspection and monitoring of its WMD [weapons of mass destruction] programs."

And then Mr. Butler concluded, "This shows two key things. One, Iraq remains in breach of international law, and two, it has been determined to maintain a weapons of mass destruction capability at all costs."

President Bush has said Iraq has weapons of mass destruction; [British Prime Minister] Tony Blair has said Iraq has weapons of mass destruction; [Secretary of Defense] Donald Rumsfeld has said Iraq has weapons of mass destruction; Richard Butler has said they do; the United Nations has said they do; the experts have said they do. Iraq says they don't. You can choose who you want to believe.

Question: So—but if you had this evidence other than what Richard Butler is talking about, why don't you lay it out on the table? Why don't you share it with the American public?

Mr. Fleischer: I think the burden now falls on Saddam Hussein and his opportunity to shed that burden comes this weekend when he will send to the United Nations a declaration of the weapons that he possesses. And I think it will be a very interesting day to see what he says in that document, and we shall see what he says he has. Also we'll see what he says he doesn't have.

Question: Why can't you present your own evidence, for god sake? Nobody is stopping you. And Butler knows damn well that we pulled the inspectors out.

Mr. Fleischer: I think, Helen [Thomas], the burden is on Saddam Hussein to comply with the will of the United Nations and demonstrate—

Queston: Did we pull the inspectors out of Iraq?

Mr. Fleischer: —and Saddam Hussein by shooting at the inspectors, by bugging their rooms, by stopping them from being able to do their work, by holding them in parking lots for days, by slamming the gates to facilities they had every right under international law to inspect created an environment which they were withdrawn.

http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2002/12/20021205-7.html

SOURCE: Office of the White House Press Secretary, press briefing by Ari Fleischer, December 5, 2002.

Question: Mr. President, given the facts as Secretary [of State Colin] Powell laid them out at the U.N. the other day, do you really see any means of disarming Saddam other than, at this point, using military force?

The President: That's up to Saddam Hussein. I mean, the record is poor, at best. The man has been told to disarm for 12 long years. He's ignored the demands of the free world. And then we passed another resolution, and for 90 days he's—the best way I can describe it is—played a game with the inspectors. So the U.N. Security Council has got to make up its mind soon as to whether or not its word means anything.

And, you know, I've never felt we needed a resolution; [U.N. Resolution] 1441 speaks very clearly. It talks about serious consequences if he doesn't disarm. However, I said yesterday that it would be helpful to have a resolution so long as it demands compliance with 1441, confirms the spirit of 1441. But Saddam Hussein is—he's treated the demands of the world as a joke up to now, and it was his choice to make. He's the person who gets to decide war and peace.

Question: Do you have any confidence in him at all, given his track record, that he will change his ways?

The President: This is a guy who was asked to declare his weapons, said he didn't have any. This is a person who we have proven to the world is deceiving everybody—I mean, he's a master at it. He's a master of deception. As I said yesterday, he'll probably try it again. He'll probably try to lie his way out of compliance or deceive or put out some false statement. You know, if he wanted to disarm, he would have disarmed. We know what a disarmed regime looks like.

I heard somebody say the other day, well, how about a beefed-up inspection regime. Well, the role of inspectors is to sit there and verify whether or not he's disarmed, not to play hide-and-seek in a country the size of California. If Saddam Hussein was interested in peace and interested in complying with the U.N. Security Council resolutions, he would have disarmed. And, yet, for 12 years, plus 90 days, he has tried to avoid disarmament by lying and deceiving.

Yes, John, last question, then we've got to go swear the man [Treasury Secretary John Snow] in.

Question: Sir, if the Security Council doesn't go along with you, what happens then?

The President: I have said that if Saddam Hussein does not disarm, we will lead a coalition to disarm him. And I mean it.

http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2003/02/20030207-3.html

SOURCE: Office of the White House Press Secretary, remarks by George W. Bush, February 7, 2003.

First, with respect to Iraq. Mr. Chairman, when the international community came together after President Bush's speech to the United Nations on the 12th of September, it came together with the certain understanding that if the United Nations was going to remain relevant it had to act on this challenge that had been put before the United Nations by Saddam Hussein, the challenge that had been put before the United Nations for the previous 12 years. And through 16 resolutions, the United Nations had demanded compliance by Saddam Hussein of his obligations under those resolutions and he ignored the United Nations.

The president went to the United Nations because this was a problem, as you noted, sir, not just for the United States, but for the whole world. Saddam Hussein is a threat to his own people, he is a threat to his neighbors, and ultimately he will be a threat to the whole world with the development of weapons of mass destruction. This was not a charge dreamed up by the United States of America. It was a statement of the Security Council of the United Nations, repeated year after year after year. And what the president said to them on the 12th of September, it's time to get serious and put action to the words.

Over the next seven and a half weeks, I worked with my colleagues in the Security Council and we came up with a strong resolution, Resolution 1441, which was passed on the 8th of November. This resolution did several things, which sometimes people forget, and some of the people who voted for the resolution forget.

First and foremost, it said Saddam Hussein and the Iraqi regime are guilty. It isn't a matter of needing more evidence. They have been found guilty previously. They are guilty now. They remain in material breach of their obligations under previous resolutions. So there is no question about whether they are guilty or not. And every member voting that day understood that simple proposition.

Second, we said there is a way to resolve this to the Iraqi regime. There is a way to get out of this problem that you have put yourself in, and that way is to comply, to give up your weapons of mass destruction; to turn over the documents; to make people available to be interviewed, scientists and engineers, to bring them out of the country so they won't be intimidated; to show us where these facilities are; to bring forth all that you have been doing. And that is what the resolution called for Iraq to do. To help you, we will strengthen the inspection system and give more authority to Dr. Blix and Dr. ElBaradei in order to help Iraq comply.

And then finally, to make sure that Iraq understood the seriousness of this issue, the final part of the resolution clearly said that if there are new material breaches, further material breaches, meaning Iraq has not complied as it must, then serious consequences will flow.

Every member sitting in the Council that day and all of their capitals understood that serious consequences meant if Iraq did not take this last chance, this last opportunity to come into compliance, they would face military force in order to bring them into compliance, in order to disarm them. There was no confusion in that Council that day, I can assure you, because we worked on that document for seven and a half weeks.

We now have three months of experience under that resolution, and Saddam Hussein has not complied. He sent forward a false declaration 30 days after the resolution was enacted—one day short of 30 days. And in that declaration, he gave us a lot of smoke. We specifically put that in there as an early requirement, a 30-day requirement, in order to test, in order to test him to see whether or not he was going to seriously undertake his obligations. He failed the test. Nobody can dispute that. He has also failed to give the inspectors the kind of cooperation that is needed for the inspectors to do their work. I don't think there is any dispute about that and we will hear more about this from Dr. Blix and Dr. ElBaradei on Friday.

So we are reaching a moment of truth with respect to this resolution and whether it meant anything or not. We are reaching a moment of truth with respect to the relevance of the United Nations Security Council to impose its will on a nation such as Iraq, which has ignored the will of the Council for the last 12 years, and we are reaching a moment of truth as to whether or not this matter will resolve peacefully or will be resolved by military conflict.

http://www.state.gov/secretary/former/powell/remarks/2003/17647.htm

SOURCE: U.S. Department of State, testimony by Colin Powell, February 12, 2003.

Mr. Snow: Secretary Powell, the controversy of the week in Washington has to deal with weapons of mass destruction. First, I want to play a little clip of your testimony in February before the United States Security Council regarding weapons of mass destruction possessed by Saddam Hussein:

"There can be no doubt that Saddam Hussein has biological weapons and the capability to rapidly produce more, many more. And he has the ability to dispense these lethal poisons and diseases in ways that can cause massive death and destruction . . . Our conservative estimate is that Iraq today has a stockpile of between 100 and 500 tons of chemical weapons agent . . . We have no indication that Saddam Hussein has ever abandoned his nuclear weapons program."

Do you still stand by each of those statements?

Secretary Powell: Yes. I spent—not only have I been studying this for many, many years, but as I prepared that statement I worked very closely with the director of Central Intelligence, George Tenet—

Mr. Snow: Who was sitting right behind you.

Secretary Powell: He was sitting right behind me. That statement was vetted thoroughly by all of the analysts who are responsible for this account. We spent four days and nights out at the CIA making sure that whatever I said was supported by our intelligence holdings, because it wasn't the president's credibility and my credibility on the line; it was the credibility of the United States of America. And we are sure of what we said because he does have this kind of capability.

Now, suddenly this week there's a big firestorm about, well, we haven't found anything yet. Well, we are going to intensify our search. In my statement, I also said they are masters of deception and hiding. So we are sending in an Iraqi survey group of 1,300 people who will be looking in all the places. They will be exploiting all the documents. They will be interviewing people. And I would put before you Exhibit A, the mobile biological labs that we have found. People are saying, "Well, are they truly mobile biological labs?" Yes, they are. And the DCI, George Tenet, Director of Central Intelligence, stands behind that assessment.

And my best justification for the fact that they are what we said they were, biological labs—as if they were not biological labs, I can assure you, the very next morning the Iraqis would have pulled them out and presented them to UNMOVIC [United Nations Monitoring, Verification, and Inspection Commission] and presented them to the whole international press corps to demonstrate what they were if they weren't that.

Mr. Snow: So you have no doubt that there were weapons before the war. How about now?

Secretary Powell: There can be no question there were weapons before the war. They have had weapons throughout their history. They have used chemical weapons. They have admitted that they had biological weapons. And they never accounted for all that they had or what they might or might not have done with it. And it is the considered judgment not only of this administration, it was the judgment of President Clinton's administration, it's the judgment of a number of nations around the world, that they had these weapons. And when we passed [U.N.] Resolution 1441 unanimously, it was the unanimous judgment of the Security Council that Iraq was in violation of its obligations.

Now we have to do the intensive search that is ahead of us, and the Iraqi survey group will be doing that. And I'm sure more evidence and more proof will come forward as we go down this road.

Mr. Snow: There have been allegations in this town that the books were cooked. In fact, one of your former aides, Mr. [Greg] Thielmann, is quoted as saying that he does not believe that the evidence was fitting. Let's pull up his quote, if we can, just to see if—never mind, we don't have it with us so we're not going to pull up that quote.

In any event, there have been arguments that the intelligence was bogus and that, specifically, the vice president, by going over to the CIA, was, in fact, inflicting political pressure on people to alter and to doctor their assessments. True or false?

Secretary Powell: False. I mean, the vice president, by going over to the CIA and spending a lot of time there, was delving in, as I know [Vice President] Dick Cheney does—I've worked with him for many years. He delves into a subject. He wants to get to the bottom. He wants to get to the truth.

And I have heard no suggestion that he went over there and said, "This is the answer I want." He went over there to learn. I can tell you stories from the Gulf War back in 1991, the first Gulf War, when he was my boss, the secretary of defense, and I was chairman of the joint chiefs of staff. He did the same thing with me. He would bore in and bore in on our military plans and what we were doing. It's his style to make sure that he has all the information available to us in his mind so he knows what he's talking about. That isn't politicizing. That's doing a good job.

Mr. Snow: On Capitol Hill, a number of people have said throughout that they were promised intelligence that would make it beyond a shadow of a doubt clear to them that Saddam possessed weapons of mass destruction, and they're saying that they never got that.

Secretary Powell: No, no, please. They were briefed consistently and repeatedly throughout last year. George Tenet was up testifying. John McLaughlin went up there repeatedly. We have presented information. We have put out classified documents that the Central Intelligence Agency has. We have given briefings up on the Hill. I presume Congress knew what it was doing when it passed the resolution supporting the president last fall, and so if Congress needs more information now to reaffirm their judgment of last year, the administration stands ready to provide all the information that we have.

Mr. Snow: Have you seen the Defense Intelligence Agency report that assessed—

Secretary Powell: I've seen the summary that has made all the news.

Mr. Snow: The summary that has made the news indicates that as of September the DIA, the Defense Intelligence Agency, was unable to pinpoint production sources for weapons of mass destruction and, furthermore, was unable to find any battlefield deployments. True?

Secretary Powell: No, not true. The sentence that has gotten all of the attention in this two-page unclassified summary talked about not having the evidence of current facilities and current stockpiling. The very next sentence says that it had information that weapons had been dispersed to units, chemical weapons had been dispersed to units. So there was a question as to whether or not you're talking about chemical weapons that are being dispersed or the production facility, and there is a judgment call there.

But the considered judgment and the official judgment of the Director of Central Intelligence, who is the one responsible for gathering all this information and making a judgment, is that they had weapons of mass destruction of the kind that we had described: nuclear, nuclear capability in the form of individuals with the knowledge and the commitment on the part of Saddam Hussein to continue moving toward a nuclear capability even though he didn't—he wasn't close to one at the time, we don't believe; chemical weapons and biological facilities of the kind we have demonstrated with this lab.

Mr. Snow: You've talked about making available to Congress information. What about to the American public? When is the public going to see more of the kind of intelligence that led you and other senior White House officials to believe that Saddam had—

Secretary Powell: Tony, I think we've put out a lot, and my presentation on the 5th of February was unclassified, on television live around the country and the world. I think the American people got a good, solid assessment. I boiled down what could have been a presentation of many, many hours and days to one hour and roughly 20 minutes, where I presented the best information we had on weapons of mass destruction, on the terrorist activities of this regime, and the human rights abuses of this regime. And I stand by that presentation and there is much more information that is available.

And I'm sure that as the intelligence community feels that it is appropriate to declassify this information, it will be made available to the public. I don't think the public is as upset about all this, or as concerned about this, as is the media, which has had a feeding frenzy for the last week.

http://www.state.gov/secretary/former/powell/remarks/2003/21318.htm

SOURCE: U.S. Department of State, Colin Powell interview on Fox News Sunday, Fox, June 8, 2003.

Secretary Powell: I would tell those critics that it is nonsense, it is not bogus, and there can be no question that Iraq had and has had weapons of mass destruction. And now that we are sending in a 1,300-man team, I am sure we will be uncovering more of that capability.

You have to remember that in my presentation on the 5th of February, I also made the point that they had one of the best deception and—deception and hiding efforts known, and that is what we are going to have to go and look at. And I think all the documents that are now coming forward, the people who are being interviewed, will tell us more about what they have hidden and where they have hidden it.

And I think the mobile labs are what I think is a good indication of the kind of thing they are doing. If those mobile biological weapons vans that we discovered were not biological weapons vans, if they were, as some suggest, nothing more than a device to produce hydrogen gas for weather balloons, I can assure you that the day after my presentation the Iraqis would have had that van out there producing hydrogen gas for a weather balloon.

Question: How can you assure the American people that the intelligence that you were using is credible, that it's not bogus?

Secretary Powell: The American people are quite assured. It is the media that invents words such as "bogus." How can it be bogus when I can show you pictures of people that were gassed by Saddam Hussein? I can show you reports from U.N. inspectors all through the 1990s that demonstrated that the Iraqis had weapons of mass destruction. I can show you reports where the Iraqis were caught lying about their weapons of mass destruction. You tell me why they issued a false declaration when they had the opportunity to tell the truth.

And so I think the case is clear. The case has been substantiated over the years. Every nation that voted for Security Council Resolution 1441 voted for a resolution that began with the statement that Iraq was in material breach of its obligations. So there was nothing "bogus" about the intelligence.

Question: On the Middle East, Mr. Secretary, there has—

Question: Mr. Secretary, aren't you there to uncover any weapons of mass destruction?

Secretary Powell: We have uncovered the mobile vans and we are continuing to search. We also know that they were masters of deceit and masters of hiding these things. So a little patience is required, and it is really somewhat outrageous on the part of some critics to say that this was all bogus. It's not the least bit bogus. And the work continues, and a 1,300-man group is going in to continue that work.

http://www.state.gov/secretary/former/powell/remarks/2003/21319.htm

SOURCE: U.S. Department of State, remarks by Colin Powell, June 8, 2003.

Bob Schieffer: Very serious questions this morning. As you know, the—the topic, how did this statement "The British government says it has learned that Saddam Hussein recently sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa," a statement that turns out to be based on false, forged documents, how did that wind up in the president's State of the Union message? The CIA director, George Tenet, said yesterday, of course, that he takes the blame for not removing it from the speech. The question I have for you this morning, who put it into the speech?

Dr. Rice: Well, let's start at the very beginning, as they say, and the president of the United States—the notion that the president of the United States took the country to war because he was concerned with one sentence about whether Saddam Hussein sought uranium in Africa is purely ludicrous, and this has gotten to that proportion, that people are saying this statement is why the president took the ni—nation to war. The president took the nation to war to depose a bloody tyrant who had defied the world for 12 years, who was building a weapons of mass destruction program and had weapons of mass destruction, which he had used in the past, who was a threat to American interest in the Middle East and who, now that he is removed, is giving us an opportunity for a Middle East that might finally be at peace and that will not create an atmosphere in which you have ideologies of hatred spawning people who slam airplanes into the World Trade Center. So we do have to put this in perspective.

The president's State of the Union said something that was accurate. This is what the British government said in its reporting. The British, I might note, still stand by that statement. It was not based, they say, on a single source but on other sources. The statement about Saddam Hussein seeking uranium in Africa is also in the national intelligence estimate. So it was not out of thin air that this statement came into the president's speech. We use a lot of data points. We give them to writers. They—they go to speeches, and then we rely on a clearance process. Now the statements here were based on intelligence. The reason that we have said is that—the reason that we've said is knowing what we know now, we would not have put it in the president's speech . . .

Schieffer: Yes.

Dr. Rice: . . . is because we don't believe that it rises to the quality of intelligence reporting that we use in presidential spees—speeches. It's not that it's inaccurate. It's not that it's wrong. The British stand by it. We have no reason to believe that they are wrong about that. But we use the clearance process to ask the relevant agencies . . .

Schieffer: Yes.

Dr. Rice: . . . Bob, we asked them, will you stand by this statement? Do you have confidence in this statement? And that's the point which if any agency does not have confidence in a statement, the president is going to make, we don't have the president make that statement.

Schieffer: I appreciate all of that, Dr. Rice. But you say the statement was—we don't know that it was wrong. The intelligence agencies were saying that they didn't—they did not have confidence in the statement. We now know, according to government officials, that Mr. Tenet actually went to people and got the statement—statement saying that removed from a speech the president made in October. You're going to say it's different, that that was more specific.

Dr. Rice: Bob, it—it is different. It is different, and it's on a different basis.

Schieffer: But you changed it from being more specific because you didn't . . .

Dr. Rice: It's—it's . . .

Schieffer: . . . you couldn't . . .

Dr. Rice: It's different and it's on a different basis. And in fact the Cincinnati speech was based on a single report and a single incident. And George Tenet said, "I want that out." It came out without question.

Schieffer: But who wanted it in the speech? Why was . . .

Dr. Rice: The State of the Union . . .

Schieffer: . . . it so important to put this statement into the speech?

Dr. Rice: The State of the Union—it—and, in fact, Bob, it's in a long list of other things that relate to Saddam Hussein's nuclear program and his efforts at reconstitution. It is one data point in a long story about acquisition programs, about illegal procurement programs, about kaying [sic]—keeping scientist networks together. It isn't, in fact, the key element of this argument, and, frankly, we would have been—it would have been quite odd for us to put something in the president's speech that we knew to be faulty.

Schieffer: But I still go back to the fact, if—if—if it was all that you say it is, why was it—why were people in the government so insistent this was not something that slipped through the cracks? This was something that was an object and a subject of serious debate within the administration, about whether or not it was true, and yet people kept insisting and it finally winds up . . .

Dr. Rice: Bob, it kept appearing in various intelligence documents like the national intelligence estimate. It appeared in the British statement, the British document, which is, in fact, what is cited in the president's speech. The British document was based not just on a set of documents that we later on in March and April learned to be forgeries, but on other documents that the British had and other sources that the British had. The national intelligence estimate didn't talk only about Niger, it talked about other African countries as well. And if you notice, the president's statement says "in Africa." It's not specific. It says he sought—it didn't say he received or he acquired. It's that he sought. And it cites the British document.

My only point is that, in retrospect, knowing that some of the documents underneath may have been—were, indeed, forgeries, and knowing that apparently there were concerns swirling around about this, had we known that at the time, we would not have put it in. Because we have a very high standard for the president's speeches. We don't put any intelligence—just an intelligence fact in the president's speech, just an intelligence report in the president's speech. We put in the president's speech things that the agencies will stand up and say, "We have high confidence in that." That's what we use the clearance process for. And had there been even a peep that the agency did not want that sentence in or that George Tenet did not want that sentence in, that the director of Central Intelligence did not want it in, it would have been gone.

Mr. Doyle McManus, The Los Angeles Times: Well, again . . .

Schieffer: Doyle.

Mr. McManus: . . . on—on Bob's question on how this got into the speech, a number of officials at CIA, at the State Department and elsewhere, have said, you know, in that period of time the White House was making its case against Saddam Hussein. It was trying to make the toughest prosecution case it could. And folks who had dissenting voices or uncertainty about this intelligence just felt ground down and worn out and a little bit hesitant to bring their dissents up in the process. Is that part of the problem?

Dr. Rice: These are intelligence professionals. And the president and the vice president and I and others always made clear to intelligence professionals and especially to the DCI that there was to be nothing but what the intelligence a—agencies wanted to tell us. The last thing that we need or want is to have an intelligence agency that's telling you what you want to hear. That's not how this president operates. And, in fact, if you look at the broad story here—again, we are talking about one line, one data point. Yes, s—the director said yesterday it was a mistake to have that one data point in, given what we know. But we are talking about a broad case of nuclear reconstitution that was a key judgment of the national intelligence agency—estimate which was what the president relies on, that had lots of data and lots of data points about what Saddam Hussein was trying to do to acquire nuclear weapon, that out of history of a man who was very close to acquiring a nuclear weapon in 1991. So this didn't come out of the blue somehow.

Mr. McManus: Well, let me ask about—about the broader case. Because in the same period you were saying, for example, that you had information that Saddam Hussein's forces had weapons of mass destruction ready to disburse to their troops to meet the American forces. Those weapons haven't turned up. You were saying and others were saying that—that you were quite confident of links between Saddam Hussein and Al Qaeda, and I think a lot of us expected after American forces got into Iraq, that they would begin finding the intelligence to support those contentions. And that was one of their mission. We haven't seen a lot of intelligence to—to back it up. Why shouldn't the ordinary citizen look at this picture and say, "Boy, they were leaning awfully hard in one direction and this nuclear issue does look a little bit like a possible pattern where the goods just aren't there"?

Dr. Rice: Doyle, if you go to the question of what we knew when we went to war, that is a separable question from what we will now find in a disciplined press—disciplined process that will require us to look at thousands and thousands of documents, interview many, many scientists and to put together a picture of how Saddam Hussein was concealing his programs; what became of the unaccounted-for nuclear weapons, about which the U.N. talked in several reports, the unaccounted-for—unaccounted-for weapons of mass destruction, about which they talked; the reconstitution programs. We will have to put together a full picture of what happened.

But if you go back to what was there at the time, you go back not to 2003, you go back to 1991. You go back to the fact that he had weapons of mass destruction when he was defeated in the Gulf War, that the inspectors found in 1994, '95 that he had a completely clandestine biological weapons program, which he only revealed after his brother-in-law defected. We find that in 1998 and in 1999, UNSCOM, the U.N. agency, is saying there are large numbers of unaccounted-for weapons of mass destruction, biological and chemical, that he will not account for. We're talking about somebody who threw out inspectors in—in 1998. I mean, there's—President Clinton, who went to war against him in 1998 because of his weapons of mass destruction.

Mr. McManus: And that is—that is the record.

Dr. Rice: There's a very . . .

Mr. McManus: And that's . . .

Dr. Rice: . . . very big record here.

Schieffer: But nobody disputes that part of it. It's—we're talking about . . .

Dr. Rice: Well, that's exactly the point.

Schieffer: . . . in the months before we went to war.

Dr. Rice: But in the . . .

Schieffer: Everybody knows that he had weapons of mass destruction at one point.

Dr. Rice: And I don't think anybody would argue that, in the months before the war, he suddenly didn't have weapons of mass destruction that he had in 1998. It got better somehow between 1998 and 2003? As to the reports that we were dispersing to the field or the likes, yes, there were multiple reports from multiple sources, some of the sources very close, that he was restructuring his forces in a way that allowed chemical use at lower levels, that he had certain red lines that if they were crossed he might use chemical weapons, that he was dispersing equipment to his forces. And, indeed, we found 3,000 chemical suits and atropine injectors, which is an antidote to nerve agent. And the president and the secretary of defense, of course, had to prepare our troops for that eventuality.

I've been the subject of some stories that say, "Well, you know, you should have connected the dots that 19 men were going to drive airplanes into the World Trade Center and the Pentagon on September 11th." I can tell you, very few dots for that; thousands of dots about Saddam Hussein's weapons of mass destruction and the threat that they posed going back over three administrations, the first Bush administration, the Clinton administration. Sources from the British, from the Australians, from other European services, and his own record of concealment and what the U.N. had found.

Had the president of the United States not drawn the conclusion that this man, given his history and his propensity to attack his neighbors and to be a problem in this volatile region was not a problem for the United States, he would not have been doing his duty. And I think we have to remember why we went to war in Iraq. The president said to the American people after 9/11, "We are going to have to fight the war on terrorism on the offense."

My colleague Tom Ridge and colleague John Gordon do everything they can, every day, to try and defend and hearten the United States. But we all know, and the president said on September 20, 2001, "We're going to have to take this battle to them." And in removing Saddam Hussein, we have removed from this very volatile region a source of instability in a region that has got to change if it is not to remain a region that brings about ideologies of hatred, that cause people to slam . . .

Schieffer: But, Dr. Rice, if we . . .

Dr. Rice: . . . airplanes into American buildings.

Schieffer: If we could kind of get back to the subject at hand, did—did the vice president's office review this speech? Did they agree with this statement?

Dr. Rice: Well, of course the vice president's office reviewed the speech. The vice president reviewed the speech.

Schieffer: Wasn't it . . .

Dr. Rice: All of the principals reviewed the speech. That's the purpose of sending it to them.

Schieffer: Did—did your staff insist that this be put into the speech? Is that how it got there?

Dr. Rice: Bob, there's no question of insistence. What happens is that a lot of data about Saddam Hussein and his massive programs and his efforts to acquire various kinds of weapons of mass destruction are compiled from a lot of sources: from the national intelligence estimate, from—from declassified sources, from unclassified sources, from the British White Paper. A text is created. That text is then sent out to everybody for review. And the question that is asked of the agencies is: Do you stand by, for the president, not the accuracy of this . . .

Schieffer: But is there . . .

Dr. Rice: . . . for somebody else, but for the president?

Schieffer: Then is it all right for you to you say it but not for the president to say it?

Dr. Rice: Well, no.

Schieffer: Are there two levels here?

Dr. Rice: No, for the president, though, we do have a very high standard which is that it is the most solid evidence, that people have confidence in it, and that what the president is telling the American people particularly . . .

Schieffer: OK.

Dr. Rice: . . . the—the American people in the State of the Union is . . .

Schieffer: You—I'm going to ask you . . .

Dr. Rice: . . . absolutely solid. And I just want to say, Bob, because it's—there's been a lot of misreporting about this. We've never said that the British report was wrong. And I've seen many stories about how this was inaccurate or incorrect and we knew that. The British still stand by this report. They stand by it because they have sources that we did not have, and we would not put something in the president's speech that we couldn't look at all the sourcing.

Schieffer: Do you—do you st . . .

Dr. Rice: That's why the agency says now that it should not have been in the speech.

Schieffer: Do you still stand by what you said last month and that is that—you said in—in June, I believe it was, on two television shows that the intelligence community did not know there were serious questions about this—about this report?

Dr. Rice: Well, the intelligence . . .

Schieffer: Is that still accurate?

Dr. Rice: About the British report?

Schieffer: No, just about—that you said that there are intelligence agencies at that time didn't know.

Dr. Rice: What I knew at the time is that no one had told us that there were concerns about the British reporting. Apparently, there were. They were apparently committed—communicated to the British. The British said, "We have other sources," and we now know that. I have to assume that in our clearance process, if there are concerns about something that the president is going to say, that they will be communicated to us.

Schieffer: Is Tenet going to resign? There are reports today that he is considering that.

Dr. Rice: The president said yesterday when he was in Nigeria that he has confidence in George Tenet, he has confidence in the men and women of the CIA and that we've all got a lot of work to do. A mistake—this was a mistake, right? The clearance process should have picked up that this did not rise to the very high level—even if it was accurate which it—it was, that it was not something that the agency, when asked, would say, "Oh, yes, we have confidence in that." And that's the standard. Do you have confidence in this for the president of the United States to say it? It was a mistake about a single sentence, a single data point, and I frankly think it has been overblown. George Tenet is serving the president very well.

Mr. McManus: Well, in view of not only that mistake but the accounts from other officials that they didn't have confidence in other parts of the intelligence process, should there be a broader investigation and a tougher investigation of how good the information was?

Dr. Rice: Well, I don't know what you're referring to, Doyle. The national intelligence estimate has key judgments in it, key judgments on—about reconstitution, key judgments about his possession of biological and chemical weapons, key judgments about his efforts to conceal. And those judgments are a coordinated product of the intelligence community. And, yes, there were dissents of some intelligence agencies. INR [State Department Bureau of Intelligence and Research], for instance, dissented to certain portions of this . . .

Schieffer: The State Department intelligence office.

Dr. Rice: . . . the State Department intelligence. But there is a coordinated product. It's a disciplined process and that's why there's a disciplined process. And so even if there are dissents out there, the president relies on the disciplined process that the director of Central Intelligence wants.

Mr. McManus: So no need for a—a tougher investigation?

Dr. Rice: I—my own view is the—the cognizant intelligence committees are looking at this, they're looking at the whole range, as well we should now, of what was known before we went to war and how we knew it. That is perfectly logical, but we have to keep this in the context of 12 years, three administrations, multiple sources and a bloody dictator who was known to have had weapons of mass destruction, known to have used them and, therefore, a threat that the president of the United States decided to take care of.

Schieffer: Dr. Rice, some very tough questions this morning. Thank you for being with us.

Dr. Rice: Thank you very much.

SOURCE: Condoleezza Rice, interview with Bob Scheiffer, Face the Nation, CBS, July 13, 2003.