Bush on *Meet the Press* (7)

The main justification Bush made for the Iraq War was the overthrow of Saddam Hussein because he was an evil dictator and was somehow vaguely threatening to the United States. In connection with that, he talked about Saddam's alleged capabilities to build WMDs and about Iraq's support of "terrorists," vaguely defined. He mentioned the need to promote democracy and freedom in the Middle East, and emphasized repeatedly that 9/11 changed the way the US had to look at potential threats. He continually referred to the Iraq War as part of the "war on terrorism."

If this had been a relatively small intervention, his arguments probably wouldn't be challenged so much. But the Iraq War is a major undertaking. Bush alienated most of our allies in a serious way over the war. The war is continuing, Americans are dying and the risks for the future are high. It's also a very expensive adventure, and Bush emphasized the war as a reason for high budget deficits.

Given all that, people don't forget quite so easily that the prewar justification, just a year ago, emphasized the immediate danger of Iraq's existing stockpiles of "weapons of mass destruction." Weapons about which Bush and his Administration said there was "no doubt" they existed.

But instead of straightforwardly addressing the missing WMDs, Bush resorted to dodges like this:

And so we – I expected there to be stockpiles of weapons.  But David Kay has found the capacity to produce weapons.  And when David Kay goes in and says we haven't found stockpiles yet, and there's theories as to where the weapons went.  They could have been destroyed during the war.  Saddam and his henchmen could have destroyed them as we entered into Iraq.  They could be hidden. They could have been transported to another country, and we’ll find out.  That's what the Iraqi survey group  let me  let me finish here.

But David Kay did report to the American people that Saddam had the capacity to make weapons. ...