Bush: Iraq War Justified Despite Wrong WMD Claims
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President Bush said Thursday he had been right
to invade Iraq even though a new U.S. report found Baghdad did not
have the banned weapons cited as the main reason for the war.
The president acknowledged that the findings of weapons inspector
Charles Duelfer showed that much of the U.S. intelligence on former
Iraqi president Saddam Hussein's supposed weapons programs had been
wrong.
The report undermined Bush's main case for the war, in which more
1,000 U.S. soldiers have died. With violence worsening, including a
rocket attack on a major Baghdad hotel Thursday, it added to the
pressure on the president in the final weeks of a neck-and-neck
presidential race.
Cheney, speaking at a campaign rally in Miami, played down the Duelfer
report, saying the absence of illicit weapons was something "we
already knew."
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(www.reuters.com)