To further Bungy's point:
1) THE DIRECTOR of the CIA, George Tenet, contradicted yesterday claims made, or implied, by the Bush administration that Iraq had posed an imminent danger to the West before the United States-led invasion last March.
Intelligence reports had "never said there was an imminent threat", he said (2/6/2004, The Independent (UK))
2) When Fleischer was asked "Didn't we go to war because we said WMD were a direct and imminent threat to the US?" He replied: "Absolutely." (same article)
3) In his 2003 State of the Union address, Bush said, "Year after year, Saddam Hussein has gone to elaborate lengths, spent enormous sums, taken great risks to build and keep weapons of mass destruction." (1/28/04, Houston Chronicle)
4) "The Iraq Survey Group will continue to gather the facts. There is no doubt in my mind that Saddam Hussein was a gathering threat to America and others. That's what we know." (same article)
An interesting article on the evolution of the administration's rhetoric on WMD in Iraq can be found at salon.com "The hyping of Saddam's WMD." It takes you from "They have chemical weapons and biological weapons," by Rumsfeld in June 2002 to Cheney telling Tim Russert that Saddam "has, in fact, reconstituted nuclear weapons," three days before the war with Iraq started. The article also shows along the way points where the administration hedges when asked directly if the information they are using is credible or current. For example, regarding nuclear weapons, he [Rumsfeld] said, "We do not have evidence that they have nuclear weapons," though the United States did have "evidence that they have had a nuclear program that was robust and that they were very skilled in denial and deception."
