Bush: No Signs Yet of Illegal Weapons
LIMA, Ohio — President Bush on Thursday suggested for the first time that the United States may not find weapons of mass destruction in Iraq as he raised the possibility that Saddam Hussein may have destroyed, moved or hidden his biological and chemical weapons before the war began.
Whatever the case, Bush vowed in a speech to workers at the Lima Army Tank Plant, "we are going to find out the truth."
The status of such weapons is no small matter because ridding Iraq of illegal arms and ousting Hussein were Bush's justifications for starting the war.
The president spoke of the as-yet-fruitless search for such weapons during a speech that the White House billed as a broad update on the war in Iraq.
Later, in an interview with Tom Brokaw on "NBC Nightly News," Bush noted that there was some evidence suggesting that Hussein was either dead or, "at the very minimum, severely wounded."
But he said: "We would never make that declaration [of Hussein's death] until we are more certain."
At his first speech of the day -- given in North Canton, Ohio, and devoted largely to the economy -- Bush very nearly declared the war over.
Addressing hundreds of workers at a steel and ball-bearing factory there, he said: "We fought a war in Afghanistan, and now we have finished a war -- in the process of finishing a war in Iraq."
In his remarks at the Lima plant, which manufactures the workhorse Abrams tanks that charged across the Iraqi desert, Bush was more emphatic in declaring that the war was not over.
"The mission is not complete. Our forces still face danger in Iraq. Our enemy is scattered, but they're still capable of doing harm," Bush said.
He said that U.S. forces in Iraq are now "working to locate and destroy" Iraq's weapons of mass destruction.
"But so far nothing has turned up."
The president reported that senior Iraqi officials with firsthand knowledge of such weapons programs now are "beginning to cooperate, are beginning to let us know what the facts were on the ground."
Bush noted, however, that Hussein had spent more than a decade hiding and disguising his weapons, and added: "And so it's going to take time to find them. But we know he had them.
"And whether he destroyed them, moved them or hid them, we're going to find out the truth."
The only sure thing is that "Saddam Hussein no longer threatens America with weapons of mass destruction," Bush said.
