Axis of Evil Revisited: Iraq didn't "have" but "sought" WMD

Nowhere in the 2002 State of the Union address did Bush claim that Iraq had WMD or a WMD program. The claim that Iraq has WMD came later ... here was what was said about Iraq and WMD in the "Axis of Evil" speech, January 29, 2002:

"We must prevent the terrorists and regimes who seek chemical, biological or nuclear weapons from threatening the United States and the world ...  The Iraqi regime has plotted to develop anthrax, and nerve gas, and nuclear weapons for over a decade ... By seeking weapons of mass destruction, these regimes pose a grave and growing danger."

The first time I can find Bush claiming Iraq actually has WMD is in the following March 13, 2002 answer to a reporter's question:

"In regards to Iraq, we're doing just that.  Every world leader that comes to see me, I explain our concerns about a nation which is not conforming to agreements that it made in the past; a nation which has gassed her people in the past; a nation which has weapons of mass destruction and apparently is not afraid to use them."

The other day, Rumsfeld said the decision to attack Iraq was made not because of "dramatic new evidence" but because they saw what was already known "through the prism" of 9-11. The last I checked, Septemper 11, 2001 does not fall between January 9 and March 13 2002.

Is Rumsfeld correct in saying there was no new evidence other than 9-11? If so, Bush decided sometime after January 29, 2002 that 9-11 meant Iraq not only seeks WMD but has WMD. A little slow on the draw, I would say. I find this explanation implausible.

What was the event that drove the administration from claiming Iraq seeks WMD to Iraq has WMD? This is a question that needs to be answered.

If you go back through DoD and State reports, compare past CIA reports to 2002 reports, you'll see the pattern you just observed in the SOTU. Very carefully worded statements, Bob Graham said reading through these is like taking a grammar lesson because that's how meticiulously worded these statements are. You have to take them apart sentence by sentence, word by word, to see what they actually said. They used old evidence and mixed in old UN reports and threw up a "suspicious" picture here and there and spun it all out as a "new and dangerous threat". Once or twice they make a straight-forward statement, "We know he has them". The hype really came through the media and those mushroom cloud statements, those were the ones that got repeated over and over and over. Why did they tell Congress one thing and say something completely different in the media? To me, that's the question that needs to be answered.

Along with so many others. Here's a great one. Rumsfeld told Congress he had just learned about the Niger forgeries a few days ago. Stephanapolous had a different statement from him that showed he knew it at least in March. Rummy changes it to a few weeks. Then he goes on with Russert who brings up something else and Rummy says he had been studying the nuclear intelligence since the beginning. They are stunning liars. What did you know and when did you know it?

I hope they have the time and the staff to thoroughly go through every statement these creeps made, because that's what it will take to bring them down.

To give one some idead how Lonnnnnnnnnnng:boring: the "drums of war have been pounding":grr: He should go back to pounding his meat!