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Bush: Iraq War right despite wrong WMD claims

WASHINGTON - President Bush acknowledged on Thursday that prewar US claims that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction were wrong but insisted he had been right to invade Iraq.

Faced with a new report that undermined their main rationale for going to war in 2003, Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney treated the finding that Baghdad did not possess illicit arms as old news.

Bush, delivering a surprise statement on the White House lawn before hitting the campaign trail, said the report by weapons inspector Charles Duelfer confirmed earlier conclusions that the weapons were absent.

But he said the report offered "new information" showing former Iraqi President Saddam Hussein was manipulating for his own gain the sanctions imposed on him.

"He was doing so with the intent of restarting his weapons program, once the world looked away," Bush said. "He retained the knowledge, the materials, the means, and the intent to produce weapons of mass destruction."

"In a world after Sept. 11, he was a threat we had to confront," the president added.

In the final weeks of a neck-and-neck presidential race, the Duelfer report ratcheted up the pressure on Bush over Iraq. More than 1,000 Americans and up to 15,000 Iraqi civilians have died in the war and violence in Iraq has worsened, including a rocket attack on a major Baghdad hotel on Thursday.

David Kay, Duelfer's predecessor as US inspector, disagreed with Bush's assertion that Saddam had posed a danger.

"He had a lot of intent," Kay said in a television interview. "He didn't have capabilities. Intent without capabilities is not an imminent threat."

Bush's Democratic challenger Sen. John Kerry, speaking in Englewood, Colorado, said, "The president of the United States and the vice president may well be the last two people on the planet who won't face the truth about Iraq."

Bush and Kerry will meet in a televised debate on Friday in St. Louis, Missouri. Their first debate last Thursday was dominated by the war in Iraq and polls showed it allowed Kerry to cut back on a Bush's previous lead.

Kerry has accused Bush of making a "colossal error" in his handling of the war.

Cheney, speaking at a campaign rally in Miami, played down the Duelfer report, saying the absence of illicit weapons was something "we already knew."

He echoed Bush's claim that a threat existed and it was right to invade. "Delay, defer, wait wasn't an option. The president did exactly the right thing in taking down Saddam Hussein," Cheney said.

Bush said America and the world were safer because of the invasion, while Democrats say the country is more vulnerable because it swelled the ranks of violent Islamic militants. <<<

This is exactly the same attitude of contempt that Colin showed in Africa in The Amazing Race 5. Since when did unprovoked aggression (he admitted himself that Saddam indeed did not have WMDs!) become justified in the contemporary community of nations? It surprises me that a majority of Americans haven't yet hung up their heads in shame at Bush...

Here's to Kerry's victory in the US elections in November.