Bush vows U.S. will find weapons-plan evidence

Democrats and anti-war groups suggest the president misled Americans.
WASHINGTON (AP) -- President Bush, facing questions about his credibility, says the United States is working overtime to prove Saddam Hussein was developing weapons of mass destruction before the United States invaded Iraq.
"When it's all said and done," Bush said Monday, "the people of the United States and the world will realize that Saddam Hussein had a weapons program."
Bush has been on the defensive since the administration acknowledged it could not document his State of the Union claim in January that Iraq had been trying to buy uranium in Africa to develop nuclear weapons.
That claim was based on British intelligence that had been called into question by the CIA, and the agency's director, George Tenet, has accepted responsibility for not seeking removal of the statement from Bush's speech.
Graham alleges deception
Sen. Bob Graham of Florida, a candidate for the Democratic presidential nomination, accused Bush of deception. "He deceived the American people by allowing into a State of the Union speech -- at a critical point when he was making the case for war with Iraq -- a statement that he either knew was wrong or should have known was wrong."
Rep. David Obey, D-Wis., said administration officials "should be reminded that what is at stake is not just the credibility of one man or even the credibility of the office of the president of the United States. What we place in the balance is the credibility of the United States as a nation and as leader of the free world."
Bush said the United States was reviewing documents and interviewing Iraqis in an intensive effort to support the still unproved claim that Saddam had forbidden weapons.
Embarrassing episode
The embarrassing episode about questionable intelligence forced the administration to concede it did not know the source of the British claims -- and, in fact, was not trying to determine the source.
"We don't know if it's true, but nobody -- but nobody -- can say it was wrong," White House press secretary Ari Fleischer said. "That is not known."
Administration officials said Bush's statement was technically correct because he was simply saying that British intelligence said something was true. In the Jan. 28 speech, Bush said, "The British government has learned that Saddam Hussein recently sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa."
Anti-war advocacy groups launched a television advertising campaign accusing Bush of misleading Americans about Iraq's nuclear ambitions. The ad ends with the word "leader" superimposed on Bush's face, and then the word changes to "misleader."
Defending his administration, Bush said, "I think the intelligence I get is darn good intelligence. And the speeches I have given were backed by good intelligence.
"And I am absolutely convinced today, like I was convinced when I gave the speeches, that Saddam Hussein developed a program of weapons of mass destruction and that our country made the right decision."
Only a part of list
The administration said the questionable intelligence claim was simply one piece in a long, documented list of evidence showing that Iraq was trying to acquire material for nuclear weapons.
Said Fleischer, "The fact of the matter is whether they sought it from Africa or didn't seek it from Africa doesn't change the fact that they were seeking to reconstitute a nuclear program."
Distinction between speeches
The White House also drew a distinction between the way Bush handled intelligence claims about Iraq in a speech he gave in Cincinnati in October compared with his State of the Union address in January.
In October, acting on Tenet's suggestion, Bush excised a sentence about Iraq's seeking a specific quantity of uranium from Niger, Fleischer said. Yet, several months later, Bush went ahead and raised the claim about seeking uranium in Africa.
Fleischer said that it was an apples-and-oranges difference because the Cincinnati speech mentioned Niger while the State of the Union speech talked about all of Africa, and that there was different reporting from the CIA. "So it's an apple in Cincinnati and an orange in the State of the Union," he said. "The two do not compare that directly."
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