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Rumsfeld denies false pretext { May 29 2003 } Original Source Link: (May no longer be active)
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A54978-2003May29.htmlhttp://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A54978-2003May29.html
Rumsfeld Denies 'False Pretext' for Iraq War
Reuters
Thursday, May 29, 2003; 6:49 PM
By Will Dunham
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld denied on Thursday that the Iraq war was waged under a false pretext even though U.S. search teams have failed to find the chemical and biological weapons cited as justification for the invasion.
During a radio interview, Rumsfeld expressed fresh confidence that such weapons of mass destruction would be found in Iraq, and offered several explanations for why they have not been located.
President Bush and other U.S. officials cited Iraq's allegedly large stockpiles of chemical and biological weapons and a program to develop nuclear weapons as justification for toppling President Saddam Hussein.
"Well I can assure you that this war was not waged under any false pretext," Rumsfeld said in comments on the Infinity Radio network.
Rumsfeld said the United States before the war had "good intelligence" about Iraqi weapons and said Iraq had a track record of using chemical weapons against Iraqi Kurds and against Iran in the 1980s.
"We believed then and we believe now that the Iraqis have had chemical weapons (and) biological weapons and that they had a program to develop nuclear weapons but did not have nuclear weapons. That is what the United Kingdom's intelligence suggested as well. We still believe that," he said.
"Now, why haven't we been able to provide the kind of evidence that would have validated all of that in the last seven weeks?" Rumsfeld asked.
"I think the answers are several reasons. And number one it's not because they're not there," saying Iraq is a large country, about the size of California, that there are hundreds of sites to search and that Saddam hid his weapons.
He also noted that U.S. forces have identified two trailers found in northern Iraq that American intelligence officials say are mobile biological weapons production facilities.
WEAPONS MAY HAVE BEEN DESTROYED
"My personal view is we're going to find them (actual weapons), just as we found these two mobile laboratories," he said. In a speech on Tuesday, Rumsfeld raised the possibility that Iraq had decided to destroy its chemical and biological arms before the war.
Asked whether he was happy with the quality of U.S. intelligence on Iraq, Rumsfeld did not give a direct answer. "You always wish you had perfect visibility into what's going on in the world," he said, but added "we don't live in a perfect world" and it is difficult to know about "repressive dictatorships and closed societies."
Rumsfeld also renewed his criticism of Iran, saying Tehran was "beaming in radio programs trying to stir up people in Iraq to oppose the (U.S.-led) coalition" there.
He added that "reasonable people assume" Iran will have nuclear weapons "sometime in this decade." And he renewed allegations that Iran was harboring senior members of the al Qaeda network.
Asked whether the United States was gearing up for war with Iran, Rumsfeld said, "Not to my knowledge." But he said the United States hoped Iran would not support terrorism or the Hizbollah group.
Rumsfeld said the Bush administration's request to Congress to allow research into low-yield (five kiloton or less) nuclear weapons for use against deeply buried targets, and research into modifying existing higher-yield atomic weapons for similar purposes would not spur global nuclear proliferation.
He called such proliferation "pervasive" already, involving such countries as North Korea and Iran.
© 2003 Reuters
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