SAYLIYAH, Qatar, 6 June 2003 — US troops roared with approval yesterday at this Qatari base from where the coalition ran the war on Iraq, as President George W. Bush defiantly vowed to find Saddam Hussein’s weapons of mass destruction.
Ignoring the heated debate about the failure so far to turn up firm evidence that Saddam possessed the weapons which sparked the war, Bush renewed the US charges. “Here’s a man who spent decades hiding tools of mass murder,” he told some 2,500 cheering US Air Force, Navy and Army troops, as well as some Australians and Britons.
“He’s got a big country in which to hide ‘em. Well, we’ll look. We’ll reveal the truth. We found two mobile biological weapons facilities which are capable of producing biological agents,” Bush said, although experts say there is no evidence to suggest they did produce any such weapons.
Despite the furore in Britain and the United States, Bush put in a barnstorming performance before an easy audience, relaxed and smiling in shirt and tie, sleeves rolled up.
He briefly mingled with the troops. He lavishly praised all those involved in the war from Gen. Tommy Franks to Secretary of State Colin Powell, Australian, British, Polish and Qatari forces as well as Kuwait, which served as a launchpad for the war and “always said yes whenever we asked.”
