*EPF301 12/26/2001
Bush Says America Is Better Prepared for Terrorist Attacks
(Says al Qaeda network has been disrupted) (690)

President Bush said that he was confident the al Qaeda terrorist network has been disrupted and that America is better prepared to prevent further attacks.

President Bush was speaking to reporters at the White House December 21 as he and Mrs. Bush unveiled a new Oval Office rug, a tradition for each administration.

He voiced confidence that the administration's patient determination to "follow every lead" would bring al Qaeda and Tabiban leaders to justice and uproot international terrorist networks.

Underscoring his expectations of coalition partners, Bush said, "if you want to win the war on terror, you must perform, and a good area, for example, is in the financial area, where we're constantly working with nations to help them chase down money that is moving illegally".

"Many of the world leaders that have been here in the Oval Office will tell you that one of the strong messages that I send is, "Thank you for your condolences. I appreciate your flowers. Now arrest somebody, if they're in your country, " he told reporters.

As a result of the coalition, the president said there is much more intelligence sharing going on and added that new systems were in place to ensure intelligence is rapidly received and analyzed in order to prevent other attacks.

Noting the increasing number of captured foreign al Qaeda forces, Bush has tasked the National Security Council, working with the Defense and the Justice Departments, to develop a legal strategy for dealing with al Qaeda prisoners.

Coalition spokesman Kenton Keith reported December 21 that coalition forces in Afghanistan are interrogating about 7,000 prisoners to determine the level of their involvement in the Taliban and al Qaeda network.

He also took the occasion to look back on his first year in office, calling it a success because of the passage of an education bill, tax cuts and other legislation. He said he was "disappointed" with the failure to pass an economic revival package.efforts. The word biology is never used, he said. "They always refer to it as chemical work."

According to the Times account, Saeed said that Iraq had begun using rooms in or under villas in residential areas and in commercial areas during the Persian Gulf War to protect weapons sites from American bombing, but that they had now become a permanent feature of Iraq's weapons programs.

He said that the "presidential sites" from which Saddam Hussein had tried to bar inspectors in 1997 were also used for concealment.

Saeed said that not all of his work was for the military. According to the article, he also worked on the sauna rooms, swimming pool, and gym at Al Salaam Palace, one of the many lavish, sprawling palaces built by Saddam Hussein.

Charles Duelfer, the former deputy chairman of the United Nations panel once responsible for weapons inspection in Iraq, told the Times that Saeed's account was consistent with other reports that continue to emerge from Iraq about prohibited weapons activities. "The evidence shows that Iraq has not given up its desire for weapons of mass destruction," said Duelfer, who was the highest-ranking American on the United Nations panel.

Richard Butler, an Australian diplomat who led the United Nations international inspection effort in Iraq when Hussein barred inspectors from his country, said that Saeed's account seemed "plausible." Butler said that several of the places and projects that the Iraqi engineer mentioned had been known to, or suspected by, his inspection commission, which was known as Unscom.

"It rings true what this man says about underground wells and tunnels," Butler said.

The New York Times said American intelligence officials view accounts by Iraqi defectors with skepticism because many of them "embellish what they actually did and what they know in order to try to get safe haven in the United States or other countries."

There was no means to independently verify Saeed's allegations. But the New York Times reports that he seemed familiar with key Iraqi officials in the military establishment, with many facilities previously thought to be associated with unconventional weapons, and with Iraq itself.

(Distributed by the Office of International Information Programs, U.S. Department of State. Web site: http://usinfo.state.gov)

Return to Public File Main Page

Return to Public Table of Contents