Everyone seems to have forgotten this outright lie by Bush and Blair in a press conference they held at Camp David September 7th 2002.
PRIME MINISTER BLAIR: Thanks.
I'm looking very much forward, obviously, to discussing the issues that are preoccupying us at the moment with the President. And I thank him for his kind invitation to come here and his welcome.
The point that I would emphasize to you is that the threat from Saddam Hussein and weapons of mass destruction, chemical, biological, potentially nuclear weapons capability, that threat is real. We only need to look at the report from the International Atomic Agency this morning showing what has been going on at the former nuclear weapons sites to realize that. And the policy of inaction is not a policy we can responsibly subscribe to. So the purpose of our discussion today is to work out the right strategy for dealing with this, because deal with it we must.
THE PRESIDENT: AP lady.
Q Mr. President, can you tell us what conclusive evidence of any nuclear -- new evidence you have of nuclear weapons capabilities of Saddam Hussein?
THE PRESIDENT: We just heard the Prime Minister talk about the new report. I would remind you that when the inspectors first went into Iraq and were denied -- finally denied access, a report came out of the Atomic -- the IAEA that they were six months away from developing a weapon. I don't know what more evidence we need.
From the White House website
http://www.whitehouse.gov/...
The Response:
The IAEA responded that not only was there no new report, "there's never been a report" asserting that Iraq was six months away from constructing a nuclear weapon -- not in 1998, not in 1991.
From the Toronto Globe & Mail October 28,2002
http://www.commondreams.org/...
"There's no report," IAEA spokesman Mark Gwozdecky, said.
"[Bush and Blair] are going off of a New York Times article that really didn't get it right yesterday. In fact, we issued a press release last night saying there's no new information about any Iraqi nuclear activity, and until we get inspectors on the ground we can't draw any conclusion about whether they're in compliance with the Security Council resolutions with regard to nuclear activities."
From CNN September 7,2002
http://archives.cnn.com/...
From IAEA website
http://www.iaea.org/...