OAK RIDGE, Tenn. (AP) - Invading Iraq made America safer, President Bush said Monday, defending his war decision in the face of a Senate report debunking White House justifications for attacking Saddam Hussein's government.
Bush presented his case in a speech at Oak Ridge National Laboratory while Condoleezza Rice, his national security adviser, was made available for cable television interviews to defend the administration's decisions.
It was Bush's ninth trip to Tennessee, a state he won from Al Gore in 2000 and wants to win again in November. If listeners missed Bush's political message, they needed only to look at the red-white-and-blue sign posted behind the podium that read: "Protecting America." Underscoring his message, Bush said eight times in his speech that America was safer.
Three days ago, the Senate Intelligence Committee said the administration's belief that Saddam had chemical and biological weapons and was working to make nuclear weapons was wrong, based on false or overstated CIA analyses.