December 2, 2002: Ari Fleischer Insists Iraq Intended to Use Imported Aluminum Tubes for Nuclear Program, and Iraq has WMD

White House Press Secretary Ari Fleischer says during a press briefing: “I will say this is something that the president has said publicly, that Iraq did, in fact, seek to buy these tubes for the purpose of producing, not as Iraq now claims conventional forces, but for the purpose of trying to produce nuclear weapons. And so it’s, on the one hand, mildly encouraging that Iraq would now admit to what it’s been doing. But on the other hand, a lie is still a lie, because these—they sought to produce these for the purpose of production of nuclear weapons, not conventional.” He also states that the evidence of WMD is that Saddam Hussein will claim there are no WMD and that proves there are WMD because Hussein is a liar. “Saddam Hussein does not exactly have a track record of telling the world the truth. So he, on December 8th, has to indicate whether or not he has weapons. Let’s see what he says. If he declares he has none, then we will know that Saddam Hussein is once again misleading the world.” When asked how he knows Iraq has WMD, Fleischer says, “We have intelligence information about what Saddam Hussein possesses… It’s no secret. We’ve said many times—you’ve heard the President say repeatedly that he has chemical and biological weapons, and he has missiles that can reach an access of 150 kilometers, all three of which are violations of his sworn commitments to the United Nations.” [White House, 12/2/2002]