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Rumsfeld brushes aside WMD fears
Washington, July 10: US Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld has admitted that the US had no fresh intelligence about weapons of mass destruction in Iraq before going to war.
Washington, July 10: US Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld has admitted that the US had no fresh intelligence about weapons of mass destruction in Iraq before going to war.
It was increased worries about terrorism, not new evidence of Iraqi preparations, that was the key reason for going to war, he told the Senate Armed Services Committee.
"The coalition did not act in Iraq because we had discovered dramatic new evidence of Iraq's pursuit of weapons of mass destruction. We acted because we saw the evidence in a dramatic new light - through the prism of our experience on 9/11," he said.
Rumsfeld said that WMD would eventually be found in Iraq. He said that the terrorist attacks on the United States in September 2001 "changed our appreciation of our vulnerability - and the risks the US faces from terrorist states and terrorist networks armed with powerful weapons".
One Republican Senator, James Inhofe, argued that the whole controversy over WMDs was a "diversionary tactic by the media".
Bureau Report
"The coalition did not act in Iraq because we had discovered dramatic new evidence of Iraq's pursuit of weapons of mass destruction. We acted because we saw the evidence in a dramatic new light - through the prism of our experience on 9/11," he said.
Rumsfeld said that WMD would eventually be found in Iraq. He said that the terrorist attacks on the United States in September 2001 "changed our appreciation of our vulnerability - and the risks the US faces from terrorist states and terrorist networks armed with powerful weapons".
One Republican Senator, James Inhofe, argued that the whole controversy over WMDs was a "diversionary tactic by the media".
Bureau Report