Weapons Hunt: Where's the Proof?
MILES O'BRIEN, CNN ANCHOR: It's been nearly two months since the fall of Saddam Hussein's regime and the U.S. and Britain still have not found any concrete proof to back up their claims the regime had any weapons of mass destruction. Now some lawmakers here and in Britain are demanding answers. Paul Bremer, the U.S. administrator for Iraq called for a little patience today.</s>PAUL BREMER, U.S./IRAQ RECONSTRUCTION ADMINISTRATOR: It is, in my view, a very important priority of the coalition. I think we will -- we will find some thing at some point. It seems very hard to believe that Saddam Hussein would have put his people through the misery he put them through for 12 years, given up billions and billions of dollars of revenue if he didn't have something to hide.</s>O'BRIEN: So was Saddam Hussein hiding something or did the White House possibly overstate the case to win support for the war? Here to debate it, "CROSSFIRE" hosts Paul Begala and Robert Novak. Gentlemen, thank you both for being with us here on LIVE FROM. Mr. Novak, it seems to me it's possible here that some of the intelligence information at the very least got spun a little bit. Does the administration need to look at this and look at the possibility that intelligence was doing more than just reporting the facts?</s>ROBERT NOVAK, CO-HOST, "CROSSFIRE": Well, I think it's a possibility that some of the raw intelligence was exaggerated a little bit. But I -- what's going on right now, Miles, is that people who really don't know anything about diplomacy, they don't know anything about weapons, they don't know anything about much of anything except politics are trying to make this an anti-Bush issue, saying, Oh, he doesn't have any credibility. I don't think that dog will hunt because I do believe that the American people think it was right to get rid of Saddam Hussein whether or not there were weapons of mass destruction.</s>O'BRIEN: Well, Paul Begala, let's go with that point. That's the sort of the end justifies the means argument and when you start looking at these mass graves that they keep unearthing there in Iraq, it's pretty hard to argue with that one, isn't it?</s>PAUL BEGALA, CO-HOST, "CROSSFIRE": It certainly is. The problem is that's not the reason our president gave us and for good reason. Saddam Hussein was a thug and a pig and a murder and the world is better off without him. But he was a thug and a pig and a murderer when Dick Cheney was selling him oil field equipment. He was a thug and a pig and a murderer when Donald Rumsfeld in 1983 went and met with him at the behest of Ronald Reagan. And so they can't very well stake the entire war on the fact that Saddam Hussein was a bad guy. Our president said our nation was threatened by weapons of mass destruction. He put our credibility on the line, sent the secretary of state and the vice president out there to repeat that claim and, if -- it's an important if, we don't know -- but if that does not pan out, the president will have a credibility crisis and it's going to be enormously damaging.</s>NOVAK: I don't believe so. I think if you look at the -- what the president said -- you don't have to focus on what Paul Begala says the president said -- but what the president said in his war speeches and his run up to the war. He gave a lot of reasons for getting rid of Saddam Hussein. Weapons of mass destruction was one of them, and because they had to go to the U.N. -- they decided they wanted approval with the U.N. -- that became the major reason. It wasn't the major reason before they went to the U.N.</s>O'BRIEN: But Bob, do you think that it would have won much support among the American public if he hadn't mentioned weapons of mass destruction pretty high on his list?</s>NOVAK: No, I think he could have, Miles. I think -- I think -- and this is some thing that bothers me, actually. I think a president of the United States can convince the American people into almost any thing with his power of the bully pulpit, if he has a powers of communication and I think President Bush has better powers than his detractors admit.</s>BEGALA: Actually I think, Miles -- if I can jump in here -- that Bob is right. You know, when President Clinton led us into war in Kosovo, he didn't say that Slobodan Milosevic had weapons of mass destruction. He said that he was a mass murderer committing genocide and that America had a special duty to stop genocide. President Clinton -- President Bush could have followed that policy, led us into this war on the merits of Saddam Hussein rather than this threat to America, but he didn't. He chose to say that America was at risk from weapons of mass destruction. He therefore carries a special burden to prove that he was not misleading us. CNN did a poll yesterday that showed that only 31 percent of Americans think that the president gave us accurate information before going into war about these weapons of mass destruction.</s>NOVAK: The same poll -- and this is the whole problem with relying on Paul, as you know, Paul, said that by a two to one margin the American people felt it was right to go after Saddam Hussein, even if there were no weapons of mass destruction. So -- but I really do believe that the idea that you're going to bring down President Bush after a victorious war because of this is mistaken. Thee problem is that for the Democrats is that if this were an unsuccessful war, you could really go to town on this issue. But to say, Boy, he did the right thing for the wrong reason, that's an inside the Beltway argument.</s>O'BRIEN: Paul, it does limit its political efficacy, doesn't it -- if you're a Democrat running for president.</s>BEGALA: Well, there is no arguing with success. But there was also an enormous price to be paid for the success, and there were 169 so far -- 169 American heroes who gave their lives for their country, the noblest thing you can do as a citizen. And we owe them a full accounting. And if the president told us there were WMD, weapons of mass destruction, we need to know that. But if instead he was telling us whoppers of massive dimensions, we need to know that too. And this is going to be a very important issue for the rest of George Bush's career.</s>O'BRIEN: Paul Begala, Robert Novak, thank you very much for joining us and debating this issue. We could go on. Unfortunately, we don't have time. For more lively debate, however, we invite you to stay tuned for the full half hour of "CROSSFIRE." That's today on</s>CNN, 4: 30 p.m. Eastern time, 1:30 Pacific. TO ORDER A VIDEO OF THIS TRANSCRIPT, PLEASE CALL 800-CNN-NEWS OR USE OUR SECURE ONLINE ORDER FORM LOCATED AT www.fdch.com