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Bush promises to `reveal the truth' on Iraq's arms

British Prime Minister Tony Blair speaks in the House of Commons in London on Wednesday. PHOTO: AP

US President George W. Bush argued yesterday the US-led invasion of Iraq was justified and pledged that "we'll reveal the truth" on former president Saddam Hussein's weapons of mass destruction.

"We've made sure Iraq is not going to serve as an arsenal for terrorist groups," Bush said, his coat off and shirt sleeves rolled up as he spoke to a sea of tan camouflage-clad US soldiers at the command center for the Iraq war.

Bush noted the recent discovery in northern Iraq of what US intelligence agencies say are probably each part of a mobile biological weapons production facility.

No complete production system has been found. Neither trailer had any biological agent inside, nor showed any signs that they had been used to produce biological weapons.

"We're on the look. We'll reveal the truth," Bush said, without specifically promising weapons would be found. "But one thing is certain: no terrorist network will gain weapons of mass destruction from the Iraqi regime because the Iraqi regime is no more."

Bush's visit came as questions swirl around his primary justification for the conflict in Iraq -- that Saddam had weapons of mass destruction and was poised to use them.

US and British forces have yet to find tangible evidence that Saddam had stocks of chemical and biological weapons ready to use. In a recent interview with Polish television, Bush pointed to the two trailers to say, "We found the weapons of mass destruction."

Bush, fresh from a two-day mission aimed at bringing peace to the Middle East, emphasized the improvements the war brought to Iraq. He mentioned the word "freedom" repeatedly and spent little time on the weapons issue.

The troops are trying to thwart a wave of crime that Bush blamed on Saddam, who he said emptied jail cells of "common criminals" just before the war and left his people hungry and desperate.

"The world is now learning what many of you have seen," Bush told the more than 1,000 troops, who cheered every other sentence.

In Washington, members of Bush's administration on Wednesday denied they slanted US intelligence on Iraq's alleged weapons of mass destruction to justify the war.

In separate appearances, Pentagon and State Department officials tried to dampen rising concern in Congress that the administration exaggerated -- either deliberately or due to faulty intelligence -- the threat posed by Iraq's weapons.

Sharply questioned by Democrats, Under Secretary of State John Bolton told the House of Representatives International Relations Committee he had "never asked anybody in the intelligence community to change a single thing, and I am not aware of any other official in the administration who did that."

Speaking of the search for biological and chemical weapons in Iraq, Bolton added, "I have no fear that at the end of those proceedings we will see that the concerns not just the administration but the overwhelming majority of Congress had about" Iraq's weapons of mass destruction will be justified.

Under Secretary of Defense for Policy Douglas Feith held a Pentagon briefing to rebut what he called "a goulash of inaccuracies" in the news media concerning Pentagon actions regarding Iraq intelligence and Iran policy.
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