Face the Nation (CBS News) - Sunday, March 14, 2004

SCHIEFFER: Well, let me just ask you this. If they did not have these weapons of mass
destruction, though, granted all of that is true, why then did they pose an immediate threat
to us, to this country?

Sec. RUMSFELD: Well, you're the--you and a few other critics are the only people I've heard
use the phrase `immediate threat.' I didn't. The president didn't. And it's become kind of
folklore that that's--that's what's happened. The president went...

SCHIEFFER: You're saying that nobody in the administration said that.

Sec. RUMSFELD: I--I can't speak for nobody--everybody in the administration and say
nobody said that.

SCHIEFFER: Vice president didn't say that? The...

Sec. RUMSFELD: Not--if--if you have any citations, I'd like to see 'em.

Mr. FRIEDMAN: We have one here. It says `some have argued that the

Sec. RUMSFELD: Well, I've--I've tried to be precise, and I've tried to be accurate. I'm s--
suppose I've...

Mr. FRIEDMAN: `No terrorist state poses a greater or more immediate threat to the security
of our people and the stability of the world and the regime of Saddam Hussein in Iraq.'

Sec. RUMSFELD: Mm-hmm. It--my view of--of the situation was that he--he had--we--we
believe, the best intelligence that we had and other countries had and that--that we believed
and we still do not know--we will know.

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