*EPF303 10/06/2004
White House Report, October 6: Iraq, Iran, Gordon Cooper
("Real risk" that Iraq would pass along WMD materials or knowledge, says Bush) (590)

IRAQ SURVEY GROUP REPORT SHOWS SADDAM WAS A THREAT, WHITE HOUSE SAYS

White House Press Secretary Scott McClellan said the regime of former Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein "retained the intent and capability to produce weapons of mass destruction" and was working to undermine U.N. sanctions.

McClellan spoke to the press aboard Air Force One October 6 just before the release of a report by the Iraq Survey Group (ISG), which searched for weapons of mass destruction in the country following the U.S.-led war that ousted Hussein in 2003.

ISG head Charles Duelfer testified to the Senate Armed Services Committee October 6 that his group found no evidence that the former Iraqi government had produced weapons of mass destruction after 1991.

However, speaking in Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania, President Bush said there was "a real risk -- that Saddam Hussein would pass weapons, or materials, or information to terrorist networks." Following the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks upon the United States, "that was a risk we could not afford to take," the president said.

Bush said his administration took "a hard look at everyplace where terrorists might get those weapons. And one regime stood out: the dictatorship of Saddam Hussein."

Press Secretary McClellan said previous reports on Iraqi WMD programs showed it was "a matter of time" before Saddam Hussein's regime would resume its full-scale pursuit of such weapons.

McClellan also repeated the Bush administration's claim that there were "senior level contacts" between the former Iraqi leadership and al-Qaida, including such contacts prior to the September 11, 2001, attacks upon the United States.

According to the press secretary, Iraqi intelligence services had arrested members of cells set up by Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, a known al-Qaida associate. "Saddam Hussein personally intervened to order the release of at least one of those members of his cells," McClellan said.

Zarqawi also was also known to have been in Iraq before September 11, 2001, as well as when he ordered the murder of a U.S. official in Jordan in 2002, and when he was in contact with Ansar al-Islam, a terrorist network that sought to carry out attacks in Europe, according to McClellan.

WHITE HOUSE CALLS ON IRAN TO CEASE ITS PURSUIT OF NUCLEAR WEAPONS

Iran needs to "come clean and fully comply with its international obligations," and stop its pursuit of nuclear weapons, McClellan said.

"They agreed to suspend their enrichment and reprocessing. And they need to abide by those rulings. They agreed to the additional protocol, and they need to meet their commitments," he said.

The international community is "speaking very clearly" to Iran, warning that if the country continues to try to develop nuclear weapons, "we will have to look at what additional action may need to be taken, including looking to the United Nations Security Council," McClellan said.

BUSH MOURNS LOSS OF ASTRONAUT GORDON COOPER

President Bush sent condolences to the family of Gordon Cooper, one of the original seven astronauts in NASA's Mercury program, which sent the first Americans into space in the early 1960's.

Reflecting on Cooper's career, in which he logged more than 225 hours in space and served with distinction in the U.S. Air Force, Bush described the former astronaut as "a pioneer of human space exploration" in a statement released by the White House October 5.

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

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