Rice offers defiant defence of Iraq invasion
By Joshua Chaffin in Washington   Oct 10 2004 19:19

The US would have taken the same decision to invade Iraq even had it known that Saddam Hussein did not possess weapons of mass destruction, Condoleezza Rice, the president's chief national security adviser, said on Sunday, offering a defiant defence of the administration's war policy just three weeks before national elections.

"He was someone who had an insatiable appetite for weapons of mass destruction. He had the means, he had the intent, he had the money to do it," Ms Rice told Fox News. "You were never going to break the link between Saddam Hussein and weapons of mass destruction."

"It was time to take care of him," she added.

Ms Rice's defence of the war followed the release last week of a 966-page report by Charles Duelfer, the chief US weapons inspector in Iraq, which undermined the Bush administration's central argument for the invasion by concluding that the country did not possess weapons of mass destruction and was a diminishing threat.

Senator John Edwards, the Democratic vice-presidential nominee, hit back at Ms Rice's remarks on Sunday. "There are lots of threats waiting to happen all over the world," Mr Edwards said. "That doesn't mean that that justifies invading a country."

The argument over Iraq has dominated the run-up to the November 2 election. Both candidates sparred over the war during the second presidential debate on Friday night in St Louis and on the campaign trail over the weekend. Contrasting interpretations of the Duelfer report featured heavily in their exchanges. While President George W. Bush again cast Iraq as a central front in the war on terrorism and claimed that Iraq was a "gathering threat", Senator John Kerry insisted that there was no link between Saddam Hussein and al-Qaeda and accused the president of being unable to "face reality".

Polls gave Mr Kerry a narrow edge in the second televised debate, which included testy exchanges about abortion, taxes and legalising the importation of prescription drugs from Canada. Overall, the candidates continue to run in a dead heat. An ABC News poll released on Sunday gave Mr Bush a 50 per cent to 46 per cent advantage among likely voters, while a Reuters/ Zogby poll put Mr Kerry one point ahead at 46 to 45 per cent.

The campaigns have said they intend to turn the discussion to domestic issues, the subject of the third debate in Tempe, Arizona, on Wednesday and the last face-to-face encounter before the election.

Events in Iraq, however, appear to be upsetting those plans. Two blasts in Baghdad on Sunday killed 18 people, including a US marine, just hours before a visit by Donald Rumsfeld, the defence secretary. Mr Rumsfeld told marines at a base near Baghdad that the battle with insurgents was a "test of wills".

He also met Iraq's interim prime minister, Iyad Allawi, and the US ambassador, John Negroponte.

The continued violence in Iraq came against the backdrop of a relatively peaceful election in Afghanistan over the weekend - the first since US forced removed the Taliban from power.

Ms Rice praised the election as an "extraordinary day" for the Afghan people and said she was confident it would be found legitimate despite complaints of fraud lodged by the candidates.

Mr Edwards said the election was a "good thing" but insisted there were still "lots of problems in Afghanistan".