Bush Recasts Rationale For War After ReportIn announcing 19 months ago that the United States was poised to invade Iraq, President Bush told the nation: "Intelligence gathered by this and other governments leaves no doubt that the Iraq regime continues to possess and conceal some of the most lethal weapons ever devised. . . . The people of the United States and our friends and allies will not live at the mercy of an outlaw regime that threatens the peace with weapons of mass murder." In the months leading up to the war, however, Bush and other administration officials made serious and specific allegations about Iraqi capabilities in biological, chemical and nuclear warfare:

• "Saddam Hussein [has] biological weapons sufficient to produce over 25,000 liters of anthrax -- enough doses to kill several million people," Bush said in his 2003 State of the Union address. He also cited reports that Iraq had "materials sufficient to produce more than 38,000 liters of botulinum toxin -- enough to subject millions of people to death by respiratory failure."

• "Our intelligence officials estimate that Saddam Hussein had the materials to produce as much as 500 tons of sarin, mustard and VX nerve agent; in such quantities, these chemical agents could also kill untold thousands," Bush continued. He also said Hussein had "upwards of 30,000 munitions capable of delivering chemical agents," and "several mobile biological weapons labs."

• Bush asserted that if Hussein obtained key nuclear material, he could produce a bomb within a year.

• A CIA report released by the administration in October 2002 said: "Since inspections ended in 1998, Iraq has maintained its chemical weapons effort, energized its missile program, and invested more heavily in biological weapons; most analysts assess Iraq is reconstituting its nuclear weapons program." All these assertions were disproved or rejected by the Duelfer report. Not only did Duelfer say Iraq had no weapons, but he said Hussein was interested in acquiring weapons because Iran, Iraq's longtime enemy, had its own weapons programs -- not because it wished to attack the United States...read full article