Cheney: Intelligence report pointed to Saddam weapons threat
Vice president defends overthrow of Iraqi dictator
 |
Cheney: Ignoring threats posed by Saddam Hussein would have been ``irresponsible in the extreme.''
Story Tools
VIDEO
|
CNN's Jamie McIntyre on admissions about prewar assumptions.
President Bush says the Hussein brothers' deaths prove the regime 'will not be coming back.'
|
SPECIAL REPORT
|
|
|
WASHINGTON (CNN) -- Pointing to an intelligence report that concluded Saddam Hussein flouted U.N. resolutions and continued developing weapons of mass destruction, Vice President Dick Cheney Thursday defended the coalition mission to overthrow the Iraqi dictator, saying it would have been "irresponsible" not to take action against the now-deposed regime.
"How could any responsible leader have ignored the Iraqi threat?" Cheney asked at a speech delivered at the American Enterprise Institute. "If we had not acted, Saddam Hussein and his sons would still be in power."
Cheney noted that an October 2002 previously classified document, the National Intelligence Estimate, said: "Baghdad has chemical and biological weapons as well as missiles with ranges in excess of U.N. restrictions. If left unchecked, it probably will have a nuclear weapons during this decade."
Excerpts of the document were released Friday. It said Iraq "maintained its chemical weapons effort, energized its missile program, and invested more heavy in biological weapons; in the view of most agencies Baghdad is reconstituting its nuclear weapons program."
Cheney said the United States tried but failed to avert war.
"It was Saddam Hussein himself that made war unavoidable," Cheney said. "He had a lengthy history of reckless and sudden aggression. He bore a deep and bitter hatred for the United States. He cultivated ties to terrorist groups. He built, possessed and used weapons of mass destruction. He refused all international demands to account for those weapons."
Cheney said, "12 years of diplomacy, more than a dozen Security Council resolutions, hundreds of U.N. weapons inspectors, and even strikes against military targets in Iraq -- all of these measures were tried to compel Saddam Hussein's compliance of the terms of the 1991 Gulf War cease-fire.
"All of these measures failed."
Referring to the September 11, 2001, terror attacks, Cheney said, "Having lost thousands of Americans on a single morning, we are not going to answer further danger by simply issuing diplomatic protests or sharply worded condemnations.
"We will not wait in false comfort while terrorists plot against innocent Americans."
