Rice: Saddam Posed Nuclear Threat to US

[Arkana]

She never gives up, does she?

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/ap/20041003/ap_on_go_ca_st_pe/us_iraq

Rice: Saddam Posed Nuclear Threat to U.S.

53 minutes ago

By JENNIFER C. KERR, Associated Press Writer

WASHINGTON - National security adviser Condoleezza Rice (news - web sites) on Sunday defended her characterization of Saddam Hussein (news - web sites)'s nuclear capabilities in the months before the Iraq (news - web sites) invasion, even as a published report said government experts had cast doubt at the time.

In the run-up to the March 2003 war, Rice said in a television interview in 2002 that the Iraqi president was trying to obtain high-strength aluminum tubes to rebuild his nuclear weapons program. The tubes, she said, were "only really suited for nuclear weapons programs."

On Sunday, Rice acknowledged she was aware of a debate within the U.S. intelligence community about whether the tubes were intended for nuclear weapons. "I knew that there was a dispute. I actually didn't really know the nature of the dispute," Rice told ABC's "This Week" program.