Trying to rally the nation and the world behind a possible attack on Iraq, President Bush said Monday night that the Iraqi regime is the single gravest danger confronting mankind.
“While there are many dangers in the world, the threat from Iraq stands alone because it gathers the most serious dangers of our age in one place,” Bush said, citing Iraq’s pursuit of chemical, biological and nuclear weapons.
“By its past and present actions, by its technological capabilities, by the merciless nature of its regime, Iraq is unique.”
Bush traveled to America’s heartland to present his most detailed case yet for war with Iraq, one year after launching the first air strikes against Afghanistan in response to the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.
Although the half-hour speech offered no new information, Bush said past history and continuing evidence of Iraq’s weapons programs show that Iraq is a unique and an immediate threat.
He said his sense of urgency was heightened by fears that Iraq might team up with terrorists to attack the United States.
“Iraq could decide on any given day to provide a biological or chemical weapon to a terrorist group or individual terrorists,” Bush said. “Terror cells, and outlaw regimes building weapons of mass destruction, are different faces of the same evil. Our security requires that we confront both.”
Although the prime-time address was timed to influence this week’s debate in Congress on a