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12/16/2005:

"Bush defends Iraq invasion, preemptive war doctrine"

WASHINGTON (AFP) - One day before Iraq's historic parliamentary elections, US President George W. Bush defended his decision to invade that country and reserved the right to preemptive war in the future.

"In an age of terrorism and weapons of mass destruction, if we wait for threats to fully materialize, we will have waited too long," he said in a speech aimed at shoring up flagging US support for the conflict.

...Bush acknowledged that the war had sharply divided the United States and that intelligence about Saddam Hussein's alleged weapons programs had turned out to be false, but he sharply rebuked "irresponsible" charges that he had deliberately misled the country.

"These charges are pure politics. They hurt the morale of our troops," he declared, saying that even countries which opposed the war agreed that Saddam possessed weapons of mass destruction.

But US media have quoted French and German intelligence officials in recent weeks as saying that they repeatedly, but unsuccessfully, warned Washington that crucial parts of its case for war were flawed or outright false.

German intelligence officials warned their US counterparts that accounts from an Iraqi defector code-named Curveball, a critical US source for charges that Iraq possessed mobile germ weapons labs, could not be confirmed and, in many cases, were deeply suspect, The Los Angeles Times reported in November.

The same daily quoted a former senior French intelligence official on Sunday as saying that Paris tried for months to warn the CIA that there was no evidence to support a US allegation that Iraq had tried to purchase nuclear weapons material in Africa.
news.yahoo.com

Saddam's WMD Moved to Syria, An Israeli Says

Saddam Hussein moved his chemical weapons to Syria six weeks before the war started, Israel's top general during Operation Iraqi Freedom says.

The assertion comes as President Bush said yesterday that much of the intelligence on Iraq's weapons of mass destruction was incorrect.

The Israeli officer, Lieutenant General Moshe Yaalon, asserted that Saddam spirited his chemical weapons out of the country on the eve of the war. "He transferred the chemical agents from Iraq to Syria," General Yaalon told The New York Sun over dinner in New York on Tuesday night. "No one went to Syria to find it."

Egypt says US ignores offer to train Iraqi troops

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Egypt has repeatedly offered to train tens of thousands of Iraqi forces but Washington ignored this offer and chose instead to criticize Cairo for not doing enough, Egypt's envoy to the United States said.

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The United States has consistently accused Arab countries, including Egypt, of not doing enough to stabilize and rebuild Iraq, but Egyptian Ambassador Nabil Fahmy said on Thursday this criticism was unfounded.

"We have offered to train Iraqis for over two years," he told reporters at a breakfast at his residence.

Fahmy said he offered Egypt's help in troop training during discussions with officials from the Pentagon, the State Department and members of Congress but they gave no response.

"It's got to the point that I have stopped begging," he said. "It's mind-boggling," he added.