Iraq Sought Missile Parts, President Says

But Report Disputes Other White House Claims

By Dana Priest and Dana Milbank
Saturday, October 4, 2003; Page A01

The Bush administration said yesterday that Saddam Hussein sought to buy $10 million worth of missile components from North Korea, as President Bush and his aides defended their prewar claims about the threat Iraq posed.

Bush and his aides provided the additional information yesterday following chief U.S. inspector David Kay's interim report Thursday on the weapons hunt, which has so far not turned up any of the chemical, biological or nuclear weapons the administration had said Hussein had. Even in furnishing additional information about the findings, Kay reported yesterday that he found no evidence for another one of Bush's key claims -- that Iraq sought uranium in Niger. In fact, another African country offered uranium to Iraq, but Hussein declined, Kay reported.

Bush, in nearly identical remarks delivered yesterday at the White House and at a speech in Milwaukee touting his economic policies, said the Kay report was vindication. "The report states that Saddam Hussein's regime had a clandestine network of biological laboratories, a live strain of deadly agent botulinum, sophisticated concealment efforts and advanced design work on prohibited longer-range missiles," Bush said.

(snip)

Bush aides reported being surprised that the news coverage of Kay's interim report focused on the absence so far of weapons of mass destruction. Yesterday, Kay said he wanted to emphasize "the remarkable amount that's been found" as compared to much of the news reporting on his findings. On Thursday, after briefing House and Senate intelligence committee members, Kay had said that the team had discovered no chemical or biological weapons and that the nuclear program was only rudimentary. "It had a long way to go," he said.

(snip)

In May, after inspectors found two trailers that could have been used to produce biological weapons, Bush said: "We found the weapons of mass destruction."

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http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A40013-2003Oct3.html

to be believed anymore.

doesn't rise to the level of imminent threat. These assholes had nothing and they still have nothing.

n/t

Kay said interviews and documents discovered during their search revealed high-level contact up to late 2002 between Iraqi and North Korean scientists. The missiles were to be an upgrade of technology from the No Dong missile, with a range of 1,300 kilometers, which would be a violation of the U.N. resolution prohibiting missiles to 150 kilometers.

Always loved the name of that missile. Didn't the CIA come up with a sanitized name for it?

All the death, all the misery, all damage, what has been done and what is to come as a result - for horrendous lies. And to watch these murderous morons who masquerade as our leaders squirm and grasp at the thinnest of straws as if they could ever somehow vindicate and validate thier bloody, greedy crimes.

I am so ashamed of and embarrassed by these imposters.

Why would repukes continue to support such obvious, pathetic crminals? Why would they not instead begin to attempt to salvage the party from this murderous scum? Why would they not put the good of the country, the good of humanity, above the good of the bush regime?

Sorry bush et al, you can't just murder a few thousand people, take over the country, and then expect everyone to "just move on." The human race cannot just let this fraud pass.

I picture in a few years * is in a mental health facility in the TV room with his friends Boopsy the superhero and Marge who thinks she's really Daisy Duke and he keeps trying to tell them over and over, "Sadam! He's got WMDs, I'm gonna smoke 'em out!"

and i mean that in a nice way!