US President George W. Bush on Tuesday sought to blunt criticism he exaggerated prewar intelligence by saying his conclusion that Iraq had banned weapons was shared by the US Congress and the UN Security Council.
Bush made the argument in remarks to thousands of camouflage-wearing US Army troops, many of them bound for Iraq, some just returned.
Prewar intelligence on Iraq and how it was used by the Bush administration looms as a major issue during the presidential campaign this year after former chief US weapons hunter David Kay said it appeared intelligence pointing to the existence of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq was wrong.
PHOTO: REUTERS
Bush's Democratic challengers accuse him of hyping the threat to justify an invasion. The US Senate Intelligence Committee is planning to examine whether top administration officials exaggerated or misused the intelligence.
"My administration looked at the intelligence and we saw a danger," Bush said.
"Members of Congress looked at the same intelligence, and they saw a danger. The United Nations Security Council looked at the intelligence and it saw a danger. We reached a reasonable conclusion that Saddam Hussein was a danger," he said.
In addition, he said in 1998 then-president Bill Clinton and the US Congress "made it the policy of the United States to change the regime in Iraq."
Bush said that he had no doubts about his decision to go to war regardless of whether clear-cut evidence of weapons of mass destruction is found.
"Saddam Hussein showed defiance and we had a choice of our own: Either take the word of a madman, or take action to defend America and the world. Faced with that choice, I will defend America every time," he said.
The president was at Fort Polk, an Army training base in central Louisiana, to pump up morale. Two Fort Polk soldiers from the 2nd Armored Cavalry Regiment were killed last week in a roadside bomb attack in Iraq.
Wearing a blue shirt with sleeves rolled up, Bush ate lunch with troops from the 39th Brigade Combat Team, who are members of an Arkansas National Guard unit that will deploy to Iraq in March.
"Man, what a meal," Bush said as he sat down to a beef enchilada MRE (meals ready to eat), the kind that troops eat when they are in the field.
The White House said Bush's visit with National Guard troops was not an attempt to blunt a controversy over the president's own National Guard service during the Vietnam era.
"This has to do with the president thanking our troops for their service and sacrifice in an important cause," White House spokesman Scott McClellan said.
Democrats have accused Bush of being AWOL from his National Guard duties in the latter part of 1972 after transferring from the Texas Air National Guard to an Alabama unit. The White House released a flurry of papers last week to try to answer the critics and prove Bush served in Alabama.
Seeking to bolster his argument that Iraq is now "the central front of the war on terrorism," Bush seized on a letter purportedly written by Abu Musab Zarqawi, a Jordanian with alleged links to Osama bin Laden, that urged suicide bombings against Iraq's Shiite majority in a bid to spark civil war.
"The terrorists know that the emergence of a free Iraq will be a major blow against the worldwide terrorist movement, and in this, they are correct," Bush said.
No evidence has come to light linking Saddam's Iraq and al-Qaeda, but the Bush administration has said members of al-Qaeda have entered Iraq in the wake of the US-led invasion to try to attack American targets.
After the lunch with the Guard members, Bush met with the families of seven soldiers killed in Iraq.
"There were certainly tears, there were a lot of hugs. There was also a lot of laughter" as the families recalled the soldiers who died, McClellan said.
Kehinde Sanni spends his days smoothing out dents and repainting scratched bumpers in a modest autobody shop in Lagos. He has never left Nigeria, yet he speaks glowingly of Burkina Faso military leader Ibrahim Traore. “Nigeria needs someone like Ibrahim Traore of Burkina Faso. He is doing well for his country,” Sanni said. His admiration is shaped by a steady stream of viral videos, memes and social media posts — many misleading or outright false — portraying Traore as a fearless reformer who defied Western powers and reclaimed his country’s dignity. The Burkinabe strongman swept into power following a coup in September 2022
‘FRAGMENTING’: British politics have for a long time been dominated by the Labor Party and the Tories, but polls suggest that Reform now poses a significant challenge Hard-right upstarts Reform UK snatched a parliamentary seat from British Prime Minister Keir Starmer’s Labor Party yesterday in local elections that dealt a blow to the UK’s two establishment parties. Reform, led by anti-immigrant firebrand Nigel Farage, won the by-election in Runcorn and Helsby in northwest England by just six votes, as it picked up gains in other localities, including one mayoralty. The group’s strong showing continues momentum it built up at last year’s general election and appears to confirm a trend that the UK is entering an era of multi-party politics. “For the movement, for the party it’s a very, very big
ENTERTAINMENT: Rio officials have a history of organizing massive concerts on Copacabana Beach, with Madonna’s show drawing about 1.6 million fans last year Lady Gaga on Saturday night gave a free concert in front of 2 million fans who poured onto Copacabana Beach in Rio de Janeiro for the biggest show of her career. “Tonight, we’re making history... Thank you for making history with me,” Lady Gaga told a screaming crowd. The Mother Monster, as she is known, started the show at about 10:10pm local time with her 2011 song Bloody Mary. Cries of joy rose from the tightly packed fans who sang and danced shoulder-to-shoulder on the vast stretch of sand. Concert organizers said 2.1 million people attended the show. Lady Gaga
SUPPORT: The Australian prime minister promised to back Kyiv against Russia’s invasion, saying: ‘That’s my government’s position. It was yesterday. It still is’ Left-leaning Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese yesterday basked in his landslide election win, promising a “disciplined, orderly” government to confront cost-of-living pain and tariff turmoil. People clapped as the 62-year-old and his fiancee, Jodie Haydon, who visited his old inner Sydney haunt, Cafe Italia, surrounded by a crowd of jostling photographers and journalists. Albanese’s Labor Party is on course to win at least 83 seats in the 150-member parliament, partial results showed. Opposition leader Peter Dutton’s conservative Liberal-National coalition had just 38 seats, and other parties 12. Another 17 seats were still in doubt. “We will be a disciplined, orderly
RSS