For Immediate Release
February 10, 2004

Global Message

From remarks by President Bush, NBC's "Meet the Press," 2/8/04

America was attacked on 9/11, so every threat had to be reanalyzed and every potential harm to America had to be judged in the context of the war on terror.

Administration officials looked at the intelligence and remembered that Saddam Hussein used chemical and biological weapons. We knew he was funding terrorist groups.

David Kay found that Saddam's regime had the capacity to produce WMD. Saddam Hussein was dangerous with weapons and he was dangerous with the ability to make weapons.

America can't stand by and hope for the best from a madman. It is essential that when we see a threat we deal with those threats before they become imminent -- which is too late in this kind of war.

Intelligence is a vital part of fighting and winning the war against terrorists because it is a war against individuals who hide in remote parts of the world, who have shadowy networks and who deal with rogue nations.

The more we learn about what took place in the past, the better we will be able to prevent future attacks.

President Bush makes decisions of war and peace based on the best intelligence possible, intelligence that had been gathered over the years, and intelligence that not only our analysts thought was valid but that which analysts from other countries also thought were valid.