| christian grantham | |||
| Christian Grantham was a student activist in the late 90s and later was a consultant to domestic policy forums for the Clinton Administration as well as events for HRC and GLAAD. | |||
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January 12, 2005
If CBS had stooped to the level of accountability in the Bush Administration, Dan Rather would still have a job.
President George W. Bush
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"I felt like we would find weapons of mass destruction ... like many -- many here in the United States, many around the world," Bush told ABC's Barbara Walters, according to excerpts from an interview airing on Friday.
Bush said "we need to find out what went wrong in the intelligence gathering," and that the invasion was "absolutely" worth it even if there were no weapons of mass destruction.
Bush and other U.S. officials cited the grave threat posed by Iraq's chemical and biological weapons and Baghdad's efforts to acquire a nuclear arms capability as a central justification for the March 2003 invasion. No such weapons have been found.
[U.S. Wraps Up Search for Banned Weapons in Iraq - Reuters - 01-12-05]
Vice President Dick Cheney
"The senator has got his facts wrong. I have not suggested there's a connection between Iraq and 9/11, but there's clearly an established Iraqi track record with terror."
[Transcript: Vice Presidential Debate - Washington Post - 10-06-04]
"We know [Saddam Hussein's] out trying once again to produce nuclear weapons and we know that he has a long-standing relationship with various terrorist groups, including the al-Qaeda organization."
[Meet The Press - Dick Cheney - 03-16-03]
"We learned more and more that there was a relationship between Iraq and al-Qaeda that stretched back through most of the decade of the ’90s, that it involved training, for example, on BW and CW, that al-Qaeda sent personnel to Baghdad to get trained on the systems that are involved. The Iraqis providing bomb-making expertise and advice to the al-Qaeda organization."
[Meet The Press - Dick Cheney - 09-14-03]
National Security Advisor Condi Rice
In the run-up to the March 2003 war, Rice said in a television interview in 2002 that the Iraqi president was trying to obtain high-strength aluminum tubes to rebuild his nuclear weapons program. The tubes, she said, were "only really suited for nuclear weapons programs."
On Sunday, Rice acknowledged she was aware of a debate within the U.S. intelligence community about whether the tubes were intended for nuclear weapons. "I knew that there was a dispute. I actually didn't really know the nature of the dispute," Rice told ABC's "This Week."
[Rice Defends Comments on Iraq Nuke Threat - AP - 10-03-04]
Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld
"It turns out that we have not found weapons of mass destruction," Rumsfeld said Monday in the speech to the foreign affairs group. "Why the intelligence proved wrong I'm not in a position to say, but the world is a lot better off with Saddam Hussein in jail."
[Rumsfeld Doesn't Expect Civil War in Iraq - AP - 10-04-04]
Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz
Wolfowitz: -- there have always been three fundamental concerns. One is weapons of mass destruction, the second is support for terrorism, the third is the criminal treatment of the Iraqi people.
The third one by itself, as I think I said earlier, is a reason to help the Iraqis but it's not a reason to put American kids' lives at risk, certainly not on the scale we did it.
[Paul Wolfowitz DoD Press Conference Transcript - 05-09-03]
Potential 2008 Republican Presidential candidate Rudy Giuliani
"No matter how you try to blame it on the president the actual responsibility for it really would be for the troops that were there. Did they search carefully enough? Didn't they search carefully enough?"
[Rudy Giuliani - Today Show - 10-28-04]


"The senator has got his facts wrong. I have not suggested there's a connection between Iraq and 9/11, but there's clearly an established Iraqi track record with terror."
"We know [Saddam Hussein's] out trying once again to produce nuclear weapons and we know that he has a long-standing relationship with various terrorist groups, including the al-Qaeda organization."
In the run-up to the March 2003 war, Rice said in a television interview in 2002 that the Iraqi president was trying to obtain high-strength aluminum tubes to rebuild his nuclear weapons program. The tubes, she said, were "only really suited for nuclear weapons programs."

Wolfowitz: -- there have always been three fundamental concerns. One is weapons of mass destruction, the second is support for terrorism, the third is the criminal treatment of the Iraqi people.
"No matter how you try to blame it on the president the actual responsibility for it really would be for the troops that were there. Did they search carefully enough? Didn't they search carefully enough?" 