Banned Iraq weapons? Bush points to mobile labs

By Dana Milbank
The Washington Post

WASHINGTON — In asserting over the past few days that "we found the weapons of mass destruction," President Bush made clear the administration had lowered its standards of proof for allegations that Saddam Hussein possessed weapons of mass destruction, its primary justification for the invasion of Iraq.

Since August, Bush and his top lieutenants have said it was an absolute certainty that Iraq remained in possession of significant quantities of banned weapons, particularly chemical and biological munitions. But Thursday, in an interview on Polish television, the president asserted that the discovery in Iraq of two trailers, with laboratory equipment but no pathogens aboard, was tantamount to a discovery of weapons.

"We found the weapons of mass destruction," Bush said. "We found biological laboratories. You remember when Colin Powell stood up in front of the world, and he said, Iraq has got laboratories, mobile labs to build biological weapons. They're illegal. They're against the United Nations resolutions, and we've so far discovered two. And we'll find more weapons as time goes on. But for those who say we haven't found the banned manufacturing devices or banned weapons, they're wrong. We found them."

Bush's assertion, repeated yesterday in St. Petersburg, Russia, indicated the president would consider the administration's accusations justified by the discovery of equipment that potentially could be used to produce weapons.

However, the original charges against Iraq, presented to the United Nations and the American public, were explicitly about the weapons themselves.

• On Aug. 26, 2002, Vice President Dick Cheney told the VFW National Convention: "Simply stated, there is no doubt that Saddam Hussein now has weapons of mass destruction. There is no doubt he is amassing them to use against our friends, against our allies and against us."

• On Sept. 12, 2002, Bush told the U.N. General Assembly: "United Nations inspections also revealed that Iraq likely maintains stockpiles of VX, mustard and other chemical agents, and that the regime is rebuilding and expanding facilities capable of producing chemical weapons."

• On Dec. 2, 2002, White House press secretary Ari Fleischer said Saddam would be "misleading the world" if he denied having the banned weapons. "You've heard the president say repeatedly that he has chemical and biological weapons," the spokesman said. A month later, on Jan. 9, Fleischer asserted: "We know for a fact that there are weapons there."

• In Bush's State of the Union address on Jan. 28, he cited evidence that Saddam had enough materials to produce more than 38,000 liters of botulinum toxin and as much as 500 tons of sarin, mustard and VX nerve agents. "He has not accounted for these materials," Bush said. "He has given no evidence that he has destroyed them."

• Secretary of State Colin Powell, in the same speech to the U.N. on Feb. 5 in which he discussed evidence of the mobile weapons labs Bush referred to in the past week, argued: "We know that Saddam Hussein is determined to keep his weapons of mass destruction; he's determined to make more."

• In his Feb. 8 radio address, the president asserted: "We have sources that tell us that Saddam Hussein recently authorized Iraqi field commanders to use chemical weapons — the very weapons the dictator tells us he does not have."

• In delivering his March 17 ultimatum to Saddam to go into exile, Bush said in a national address: "Intelligence gathered by this and other governments leaves no doubt that the Iraq regime continues to possess and conceal some of the most lethal weapons ever devised."

• On March 30, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said of the prohibited weapons: "We know where they are. They are in the area around Tikrit and Baghdad and east, west, south and north somewhat."

But when heavy combat in Iraq ended without the discovery of banned arms, and weeks of subsequent searches also came up dry, administration officials began to emphasize the search for evidence of weapons programs rather than the weapons themselves.

In Lima, Ohio, on April 24, Bush raised the possibility that the weapons might not exist any longer. "We know he had them," the president said. "And whether he destroyed them, moved them or hid them, we're going to find out the truth."

Bush's political opponents have ridiculed the suggestion that the discovery of two trailers validated the earlier accusations.

"Just because they found two mobile labs, to say that's evidence of weapons of mass destruction is absurd," said Kristian Denny, spokeswoman for Florida Sen. Bob Graham, a Democratic presidential candidate and the former chairman of the Senate intelligence committee.

Although Graham has not ruled out the possibility that actual weapons will be found in Iraq, Denny said: "Surely they're not claiming we went to war to find two mobile labs."

A White House spokesman, Taylor Gross, said yesterday it would remain a "top priority to unmask the full story of Iraq's weapons of mass destruction program."