White House: Bush Erred on Mustard Gas

AP ^ | April 15, 2004

[Leroy S. Mort]

(AP) - Once again, President Bush misspoke on a weapons issue, telling the nation that 50 tons of mustard gas were found in Libya - twice the amount actually uncovered.

The White House moved quickly Wednesday to correct the record, with press secretary Scott McClellan seeking out reporters to point out the mistake. The president should have said in his Tuesday night address and press conference that 23.6 tons of mustard gas were found in Libya, instead of 50 tons, McClellan said.

Bush used the 50-ton figure twice.

The first time, he was making the case that his decision to go to war in Iraq has produced foreign policy successes elsewhere. The president argued that Libya's agreement last December to dismantle its weapons of mass destruction programs was the result of the U.S.-led war to topple Iraqi President Saddam Hussein.

``Colonel Gadhafi made the decision, and rightly so, to disclose and disarm for the good of the world,'' Bush said, referring to Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi. ``By the way, they found, I think, 50 tons of mustard gas, I believe it was, in a turkey farm, only because he was willing to disclose where the mustard gas was. But that made the world safer.''

The second time, Bush was using the example of the Libyan mustard gas disclosure to suggest that weapons of mass destruction could still turn up in Iraq. Though Bush's prewar allegations of Saddam's alleged weapons were his main rationale for going to war, none has yet been found.

``They could still be there,'' Bush said Tuesday of the Iraq weapons. ``They could be hidden, like the 50 tons of mustard gas in a turkey farm.''

The White House's fast acknowledgement of this error was sharply different from its handling of Bush's now-discredited claim in his January 2003 State of the Union address that Iraq had sought uranium from Africa for weapons.

It wasn't until July 2003 that the White House said the statement, largely based on evidence of Iraqi activities in Niger that turned out to be forged and that had been doubted beforehand by some in the intelligence community, should not have been included in the speech.

[Leroy S. Mort]

Once again....

You can almost hear the sighhhhhhhhhh.....

[The Old Hoosier]

BUSH LIED!!!!!!!!

[GraniteStateConservative]

Look at it this way. People will just ignore it as nothing new. His numbers should not be affected by this.

[TheBigB]

What can they say? "Oh yeah, Bush said 50 tons of mustard gas! It was only 23 tons of mustard gas! 23 tons is NOTHING!"

[Wright is right!]

"The White House's fast acknowledgement of this error was sharply different from its handling of Bush's now-discredited claim in his January 2003 State of the Union address that Iraq had sought uranium from Africa for weapons."

Discredited memo or not, what President Dubya SAID was that "The British Government has learned that Sadman tried to buy uranium from Africa." The Brits used intelligence OTHER THAN that discredited memo - and still stand by that intelligence. Everyone in the media keeps leaving out the Brits, and no one at the WH seems willing to correct them.

Michael

[dirtboy]

The White House moved quickly Wednesday to correct the record, with press secretary Scott McClellan seeking out reporters to point out the mistake. The president should have said in his Tuesday night address and press conference that 23.6 tons of mustard gas were found in Libya, instead of 50 tons, McClellan said.

File this one under big friggin' deal.

[Riley]

Either way, that's a whole lot of chem.

[Conspiracy Guy]

I only keep 10 tons of mustard gas in my shed.

[goodnesswins]

Soooo...this is like saying there was 1/2 tsp of anthrax instead of 1 tsp of anthrax in the envelope sent to the government offices? WOOOO....big fricken deal.

[No Blue States]

Yeah how many would 23 tons kill?

Only 1 million instead of 2?

[Dutch Boy]

Well if they only had 23.6 tons of mustard gas why bother. Just let them keep it. After all they designed it to only kill republican's......

I can't believe these morons.... 23.6 tons of mustard gas is a hell of a lot of death and destruction that will no longer be on the terrorist black market. This is a good for civilization.

[goodnesswins]

LOL! Thanks for my morning laugh!

[borkrules]

This read like a parody. I can't believe the level of bias.

The president misspoke about the exact tonnage of mustard gas. Big deal. He's got a lot on his mind. What, like 26 tons of the stuff is no big deal or something? Come the eff on!

It even includes a mischaracterization of the SOTU speech mention of GREAT BRITAIN'S intelligence assesment of African uranium procurement. A claim, BTW, that they continue to stand by. A claim that has only been "debunked" by Plame's husband, whatshisname, the democrat hack that Cheney inexplicably picked to go to Africa and sit around drinking tea for a few days.

It's a liberal bias two-fer! Does the journalist get a little something extra in his check for this sort of crap?

[malia]

"File this one under big friggin' deal."

There they go again - - the media, I mean!!!

[ironman]

AP has to use the title "White House: Bush Erred on Mustard Gas" vs. more correctly "White House: Bush Erred on Mustard Gas Weight." And it starts with "Once again"

[Libertarian444]

Once again...

I stopped reading right there. Up yours, AP.

[MrB]

Yes, anything that Bush says that isn't provable right now is a lie according to leftists.

You can always tell which issue they are the most injured with because they ALWAYS accuse their opponents of it.

Lies,
flip flops ("Bush flipflopped on nation building, on the 9/11 commission, on Dr Rice testifying, etc")

these must be solid, on target accusations about their leaders, or they wouldn't try to turn it around.

[Conspiracy Guy]

Let me know if you need a ton or two.

[dirtboy]

I keep a jar in my fridge in case I run out of Gray Poupon.

[ErnBatavia]

23 times 2200 pounds (metric ton) would equal 50,600 pounds....so maybe he just said "tons" meaning "thousand pounds"; no biggie.