White House: Iraq weapons search is over

WASHINGTON(AP) The White House acknowledged Wednesday that its hunt for Iraqi weapons of mass destruction _ a two-year search costing millions of dollars _ has closed down without finding the stockpiles that President Bush cited as a justification for overthrowing Saddam Hussein. Bush's spokesman said the president had no regrets about invading Iraq.

"Based on what we know today, the president would have taken the same action because this is about protecting the American people," said Press Secretary Scott McClellan.

The Iraq Survey Group _ made up of as many as 1,500 military and intelligence specialists and support staff _ is ending its search of military installations, factories and laboratories where it was thought that equipment and products might be converted to making weapons.

McClellan said the active search had virtually ended. "There may be a couple, a few people that are focused on that," he said, adding that they would handle any future reports that might come in.

At a meeting last month, McClellan said Bush thanked the chief U.S. weapons inspector, Charles Duelfer, for his work. A special adviser to the CIA director, Duelfer will deliver a final edition of a report on Iraq's weapons next month. McClellan said it is not expected to fundamentally differ from the findings of a report last fall.

Duelfer said then that Iraq had no weapons of mass destruction and had not made any since 1991. However, he said the government harbored intentions of recreating its weapons programs and had gone to great lengths to manipulate the U.N. oil-for-food program.

In an interview Wednesday with Barbara Walters of ABC News, Bush defended his decision to invade Iraq.

"I felt like we'd find weapons of mass destruction _ like many here in the United States, many around the world," Bush said in the interview, to be broadcast Friday night. "We need to find out what went wrong in the intelligence gathering. ... Saddam was dangerous and the world is safer without him in power."

In a statement, House Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi of California said Bush "needs to explain to the American people why he was so wrong, for so long, about the reasons for war."

Ah, are any of us surprised by this?

"We need to find out what went wrong in the intelligence gathering. ... Saddam was dangerous and the world is safer without him in power."
Great, now all we have to do is wait 4 more years to make the world even safer.

Talk about lack of accountability for one's actions. He can pass the blame on the intell agencies, other governments, and the easter bunny for all I care...this was W's pet project. They're not even trying to cover up the fact that alot of good men and women have/are going to die, for what basically constituted to as a LIE.

I never understood this...Bush said this was all for the safety of America. Ok, so we go to a country that we don't know for sure has WMD and that wasn't threatening us and we ignore Korea which DEFINETELY has WMD and has threatened to use them on multiple occasions. How was Iraq considered a bigger threat to the USA than Korea? I'm gonna drop it after this because I just get so frustrated when I think about it. Bush stood before the congress and before everyone watching TV in primetime and said that Iraq definetely has WMD and he went on to name specific weapons and said that we knew where they were. Here we are after the fact and Iraq looks like the beginning of a Terminator movie, Over 1500 Americans have lost their lives and saddest of all over 15,000 Iraqi civillians have been killed. And people wonder why they don't want us there. It's like here ya go, You're free now, It only cost you your wife, son and your house being leveled...Enjoy Freedom. But yet after all of this more people voted for him than for Kerry. So I can complain and protest all I want but it will make no difference in the end. The country has spoken and there's nothing I can do about it that I haven't already done. I did my volunteering and made donations but in the end it just wasn't enough.



Anyways whenever you see a interesting news story feel free to post it. I just saw this one and the Deep Impact comet story and thought they'd make good conversation pieces.

Hey Sean in a nut shell it sounds like your talking about episode 3 you broke the spoiler rule hehehehehe

Wow, You're right. Kinda scary some of the parallels between real life and Star Wars.

Trust me, you're not the only one frustrated. In fact, I wished I could have had time to volunteer for groups like "Bring Ohio Back" (Martin Sheen - of Dayton) but my job didn't allow for much free time, and doesn't pay enough give to those who could stand up and fight this nonesense. best I could do was vote...so at least I don't feel like part of the problem.

I didn't watch any of the inaugriation today...but I did watch the last 3 minutes of AOTC, just to get in the spirit of it all.