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Bush says Iraq may not have had WMD

By Guy Dinmore in Washington, Ben Hall in London and Judy Dempsey,in Munich
Published: February 9 2004 4:00 | Last Updated: February 9 2004 4:00


President George W. Bush has acknowledged for the first time that Iraq might not have had stockpiles of weapons of mass destruction, but denied that he led the US into war on false pretences.


Mr Bush, who is under domestic pressure to account for the apparent failure of US intelligence, gave a robust defence of his decision to go to war in an intense, hour-long interview broadcast on Monday on NBC's Meet the Press and recorded in the White House on Saturday.

He called Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein a dangerous madman who had retained the capacity to develop prohibited weapons and had to be removed before he became an imminent threat.

Mr Bush's defence came as Hans Blix, the former chief United Nations weapons inspector, accused Tony Blair of dramatising the claims about Iraqi weapons of mass destruction.

The prime minister had not acted in bad faith, Mr Blix told BBC TV's Breakfast with Frost, but in drawing up the September 2002 dossier with its 45-minute claim he had acted like a salesman trying to sell his wares.

"The intention was to dramatise it just as the vendors of some merchandise are trying to increase and exaggerate the importance of what they have," he said.

In Mr Bush's interview, when asked if he would be prepared to testify before the independent commission he established on Friday to evaluate the state of US intelligence, he replied he would "visit with them" and share knowledge.

With his ratings slipping in the opinion polls and senior figures in his administration at odds over how to respond to the apparent intelligence failures, Mr Bush sought to steady the presidential ship by subjecting himself to tough questions on the war and economy.

"I'm a war president," he said. "I make decisions here in the Oval Office in foreign policy matters with war on my mind."

Mr Bush agreed it was "apparently not the case" that Iraq had WMD stockpiles, as he had declared the day the war began.

Pressed on whether he had led the country to war under false pretences, Mr Bush insisted that he had expected to find such weapons, and suggested they could have been destroyed during the war, taken to another country or still be hidden.

He stuck by his assessment of Mr Hussein as a "grave and gathering threat" and said containment did not work with a madman. "Inaction in Iraq would have emboldened Saddam Hussein. He could have developed a nuclear weapon over time."

The interview with Mr Bush was shown after signs emerged of a thaw in US relations with Germany. Joschka Fischer, German foreign minister, responded to US plans to transform the Middle East by presenting his own far-reaching plan for the Middle East region to a weekend security conference in Munich. The plan from Mr Fischer - one of the staunchest opponents of the US-led invasion of Iraq - reflects a tacit acceptance by Berlin to support in principle Washington's long-term aim of democratising the region.

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