Q And so Americans should conclude that those weapons exist? But why shouldn't they conclude that if we haven't found them, that they're not there, or that they were sent, you know -- weapons materials were sent out of the country?
MR. FLEISCHER: Frankly, I think the burden on this falls to the President's critics. They're the ones who have to explain, after the United Nations, themselves, found that Iraq had failed to account for tons, for liters of botulin toxin and risin and anthrax -- is one to assume that Iraq waited for the United Nations inspectors to get thrown out of the country in order for Iraq then to destroy what everyone acknowledged that they had, and that Iraq failed to tell anybody they actually destroyed it? They failed to do as South Africa did, and take people to the sites of where they destroyed their weapons of mass destruction? I think that's fanciful.
I think that the burden, again, falls on the people who are criticizing the President here, for them to explain how and when Saddam Hussein destroyed it. Or perhaps they believe he never had it in the first place.
Let me say this. "There are consequences, which is the threat that Saddam Hussein will use those weapons of mass destruction that we know he has, that he will use the ballistic missile -- delivery system capacity, to deliver those weapons of mass destruction that we know he has, in rudiment and is developing even further." That was Senator Joe Lieberman speaking from the floor of the Senate in 1998. There are many, including the previous administration, who say that Saddam Hussein has weapons of mass destruction. And that's because the intelligence has led us to believe that consistently for a great period of time.
