No Trace of WMD

President Bush Speaks With Barbara Walters
Jan. 12, 2005 - The invasion of Iraq, which ousted Saddam Hussein and has cost the lives of some 1,300 U.S. military personnel and billions of dollars, was "absolutely" worth it, despite the absence of any weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, President Bush told ABC News' Barbara Walters in an exclusive interview that will air this Friday.

Watch Barbara Walters' full interview with President Bush this Friday at 10 p.m. on "20/20."

The White House acknowledged today that there is no longer an active search for Iraqi weapons. The final report from chief U.S. weapons inspector Charles Duelfer, due out next month, has concluded that "the former regime had no formal written strategy or plan for the revival of WMD."

The Bush administration does not hold out hopes that any weapons will ever be found.

Duelfer's predecessor David Kay reached the same conclusion a year ago. "It's taken them another year, and in fact we were right a year ago. There were no weapons there," Kay said in response to Duelfer's announcement.

Bush told Walters, "I felt like we'd find weapons of mass destruction -- like many here in the United States, many around the world. The United Nations thought he had weapons of mass destruction. So, therefore: one, we need to find out what went wrong in the intelligence gathering. ... Saddam was dangerous and the world is safer without him in power."

When asked if the war was worth it even if there were no weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, Bush responded, "Oh, absolutely."

Saddam insisted he had no weapons of mass destruction, and U.N. inspectors failed to uncover them. But the Bush administration was adamant that Saddam was deceiving the international community. The administration justified its decision to wage war on Iraq largely on its contention that Iraq possessed weapons of mass destruction.

Kay estimates that more than $1 billion and countless man hours were spent looking for weapons.

Today House Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., said, "Now that the search is finished, President Bush needs to explain to the American people why he was so wrong."

The 1,700-member Iraq Survey Group, a U.S. team responsible for the weapons search, is now tasked with what commanders had long wanted them to do -- gather intelligence about the real threat now in Iraq: the insurgents.

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