Why We Fight (36 of 48)

Why We Fight

KWIATKOWSKl: But the problem was when you'd look at what was in these talking points, you could tell it was designed to convince the reader that Iraq and Saddam Hussein, specifically, constituted a major, serious, terrible, evil threat to not just his neighbors but to the United States.
His regime has the design for a nuclear weapon, was working on several different methods of enriching uranium, and recently was discovered seeking significant quantities of uranium from Africa.
And that would be the statement.
"He's actively seeking it. And this is... This means that he's a danger."
But the intelligence actually said that Saddam Hussein in the '80s, in the late '80s, actively sought fissionable materials in Africa, but he hasn't done anything like that in the past 12 years.

The statement, we act like he did it yesterday.
Taking bits of intelligence out of context, without the qualifiers, without the rest of the story, and placing it as a bullet, and presenting it as if it's a factoid.
There is no doubt that Saddam Hussein now has weapons of mass destruction.
And this was given to us, action officers, to use in, in papers that we would prepare for our higher-ups, to include guys like Wolfowitz and Rumsfeld.
The United States knows that Iraq has weapons of mass destruction.
The U.K. knows that they have weapons of mass destruction.
Any country on the face of the Earth with an active intelligence program knows that Iraq has weapons of mass destruction.
These guys were manipulating public opinion, okay, creating falsehoods and fantasies to inspire fear in the American people so that they could have their war.
The President of the United States.