Rumsfeld: No New Iraq Weapons Evidence Before War [View All]

[ze_dscherman]

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said on Wednesday the United States did not go to war with Iraq (news - web sites) because of dramatic new evidence of banned weapons but because it saw existing information on Iraqi arms programs in a new light after the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks.



"The coalition did not act in Iraq because we had discovered dramatic new evidence of Iraq's pursuit" of weapons of mass destruction, Rumsfeld told the Senate Armed Services Committee (news - web sites). "We acted because we saw the evidence in a dramatic new light -- through the prism of our experience on 9-11."

SNIP

Rumsfeld said Iraq "had 12 years to conceal its programs," and "uncovering those programs will take time."


Iraq's refusal to comply with U.N. resolutions requiring it to show it had destroyed its banned weapons brought on the war, he said. "The United States did not choose a war -- Saddam Hussein did. For 12 years he violated 17 United Nations (news - web sites) resolutions without cost or consequence," Rumsfeld said.


Rumsfeld also maintained that most of Iraq is safe after the war, with most of the recent attacks against U.S. and British forces concentrated in Baghdad and surrounding areas.

More: http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story2&u=/nm/20030709/ts_nm/iraq_rumsfeld_dc&e=1&ncid=564

On edit: More lies and some denial added