The UN nuclear watchdog has protested to the US government over a report on Iran's nuclear programme, calling it "erroneous" and "misleading". In a leaked letter, the IAEA said a congressional report contained serious distortions of the agency's own findings on Iran's nuclear activity. There was no immediate comment from Washington over the letter.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/5346524.stm
Here we go again...
Memories
"Simply stated, there is no doubt that Saddam Hussein now has weapons of mass destruction." Dick Cheney - August 26, 2002.
"Right now, Iraq is expanding and improving facilities that were used for the production of biological weapons." George W. Bush - September 12, 2002.
"If he declares he has none, then we will know that Saddam Hussein is once again misleading the world." Ari Fleischer - December 2, 2002.
"The president of the United States and the secretary of defense would not assert as plainly and bluntly as they have that Iraq has weapons of mass destruction if it was not true, and if they did not have a solid basis for saying it." Ari Fleischer December 6, 2002.
"We know for a fact that there are weapons there." Ari Fleischer January 9, 2003.
"Our intelligence officials estimate that Saddam Hussein had the materials to produce as much as 500 tons of sarin, mustard and VX nerve agent." George W. Bush - January 28, 2003.
"We know that Saddam Hussein is determined to keep his weapons of mass destruction, and is determined to make more." Colin Powell - February 5, 2003.
"We have sources that tell us that Saddam Hussein recently authorized Iraqi field commanders to use chemical weapons -- the very weapons the dictator tells us he does not have." George W. Bush - February 8, 2003.
"So has the strategic decision been made to disarm Iraq of its weapons of mass destruction by the leadership in Baghdad? . . . I think our judgment has to be clearly not." Colin Powell - March 7, 2003.
"Intelligence gathered by this and other governments leaves no doubt that the Iraq regime continues to possess and conceal some of the most lethal weapons ever devised." George W. Bush - March 17, 2003.
"Well, there is no question that we have evidence and information that Iraq has weapons of mass destruction, biological and chemical particularly . . . all this will be made clear in the course of the operation, for whatever duration it takes." Ari Fleisher - March 21, 2003.
"There is no doubt that the regime of Saddam Hussein possesses weapons of mass destruction. And . . . as this operation continues, those weapons will be identified, found, along with the people who have produced them and who guard them." Gen. Tommy Franks - March 22, 2003.
"I have no doubt we're going to find big stores of weapons of mass destruction." Kenneth Adelman, Defense Policy Board member - March 23, 2003.
"One of our top objectives is to find and destroy the WMD. There are a number of sites." Victoria Clark, Pentagon Spokeswoman - March 22, 2003.
"We know where they are. They're in the area around Tikrit and Baghdad and east, west, south and north somewhat." Donald Rumsfeld - March 30, 2003.
"Obviously the administration intends to publicize all the weapons of mass destruction U.S. forces find -- and there will be plenty." Robert Kagan, Neocon scholar Robert Kagan - April 9, 2003.
"I think you have always heard, and you continue to hear from officials, a measure of high confidence that, indeed, the weapons of mass destruction will be found." Ari Fleischer - April 10, 2003.
"We are learning more as we interrogate or have discussions with Iraqi scientists and people within the Iraqi structure, that perhaps he destroyed some, perhaps he dispersed some. And so we will find them." George W. Bush - April 24, 2003.
"There are people who in large measure have information that we need . . . so that we can track down the weapons of mass destruction in that country." Donald Rumsfeld - April 25, 2003.
"We'll find them. It'll be a matter of time to do so." George W. Bush - May 3, 2003.
"I'm absolutely sure that there are weapons of mass destruction there and the evidence will be forthcoming. We're just getting it just now." Colin Powell - May 4, 2003.
"We never believed that we'd just tumble over weapons of mass destruction in that country." Donald Rumsfeld - May 4, 2003.
"I'm not surprised if we begin to uncover the weapons program of Saddam Hussein -- because he had a weapons program." George W. Bush - May 6, 2003.
"U.S. officials never expected that we were going to open garages and find weapons of mass destruction." Condoleeza Rice - May 12, 2003.
"I just don't know whether it was all destroyed years ago -- I mean, there's no question that there were chemical weapons years ago - - whether they were destroyed right before the war, or whether they're still hidden." Maj. Gen. David Petraeus, Commander 101st Airborne - May 13, 2003.
"Before the war, there's no doubt in my mind that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction, biological and chemical. I expected them to be found. I still expect them to be found." Gen. Michael Hagee, Commandant of the Marine Corps - May 21, 2003.
"Given time, given the number of prisoners now that we're interrogating, I'm confident that we're going to find weapons of mass destruction." Gen. Richard Myers, Chairman Joint Chiefs of Staff - May 26, 2003.
"They may have had time to destroy them, and I don't know the answer." Donald Rumsfeld - May 27, 2003.
"For bureaucratic reasons, we settled on one issue, weapons of mass destruction (as justification for invading Iraq) because it was the one reason everyone could agree on." Paul Wolfowitz - May 28, 2003.
"It was a surprise to me then — it remains a surprise to me now — that we have not uncovered weapons, as you say, in some of the forward dispersal sites. Believe me, it's not for lack of trying. We've been to virtually every ammunition supply point between the Kuwaiti border and Baghdad, but they're simply not there." Lt. Gen. James Conway, 1st Marine Expeditionary Force - May 30, 2003.
"But for those who say we haven't found the banned manufacturing devices or banned weapons, they're wrong, we found them." George W. Bush - pagename=article&node=&contentId=A60140- 2003May30¬Found=true">Interview with TVP Poland - May 30, 2003.
"You remember when [Secretary of State] Colin Powell stood up in front of the world, and he said Iraq has got laboratories, mobile labs to build biological weapons ...They're illegal. They're against the United Nations resolutions, and we've so far discovered two...And we'll find more weapons as time goes on And we'll find more weapons as time goes on." George W. Bush - Press Briefing - May 30, 2003.
"We are going to assemble that evidence and present it properly to people… a complete picture." (Of a new intelligence dossier with fresh evidence about Iraq's illegal arsenal) Prime Minister Blair - London Daily Telegraph - June 2, 2003.
"We've made sure Iraq is not going to be used as an arsenal for terrorist groups. We're going to look. We'll reveal the truth. But one thing is certain: no terrorist network will gain weapons of mass destruction from the Iraqi regime because the Iraqi regime is no more." President Bush - New York Times - June 5, 2003.
"We didn't just make them up one night. Those were eyewitness accounts of people who had worked in the program and knew it was going on, multiple accounts. 'Oh, it was a hydrogen-making thing for balloons. ' No, There's no question in my mind what it was designed for." Secretary Powell - Time - June 9, 2003.
"For bureaucratic reasons we settled on one issue, weapons of mass destruction, because it was the one reason everyone could agree on." Deputy Secretary Wolfowitz - Vanity Fair - July 2003
"Iraq had a weapons program. Intelligence throughout the decade showed they had a weapons program. I am absolutely convinced with time we'll find out that they did have a weapons program." (From a Cabinet meeting on June 9) President Bush - Washington Post - June 10, 2003.
"The president, in saying programs, also applies that to weapons. The president had repeatedly said that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction and that includes everything knowable up to the opening shots of the war. We still have confidence in that information. You could say Iraq continues to have weapons of mass destruction. We have confidence we're going to find them. They're still there." Press Secretary Fleischer - Washington Post - June 10, 2003.
"We did not know at the time â maybe someone knew down in the bowels of the agency â but no one in our circles knew that there were doubts and suspicions that this might be a forgery. Of course it was information that was mistaken." (From Sunday interview) Condoleezza Rice, National Security Advisor - Los Angeles Times.
"I don't know anybody that I can think of who has contended that the Iraqis had nuclear weapons… I don't know anybody in any government or any intelligence agency who suggested that the Iraqis had nuclear weapons. That's fact number one." Donald Rumsfeld - June 2003.
"The evidence indicates that Iraq is reconstituting its nuclear weapons program. Saddam Hussein has held numerous meetings with Iraqi nuclear scientists, a group he calls his ‘nuclear mujahideen’.... his nuclear holy warriors… Facing clear evidence of peril, we cannot wait for the final proof.... the smoking gun.... that could come in the form of a mushroom cloud." George W. Bush - October 2002.
"This nation acted to a threat from the dictator of Iraq. Now there are some who would like to rewrite history; revisionist historians is what I like to call them" George W. Bush - June 17, 2003.
"The 1991 Persian Gulf War and subsequent U.N. inspections destroyed Iraq's illicit weapons capability and, for the most part, Saddam Hussein did not try to rebuild it, according to an extensive report by the chief U.S. weapons inspector in Iraq that contradicts nearly every prewar assertion made by top administration officials about Iraq."
"Iraq did not have the weapons that our intelligence believed were there ..." George W. Bush - October 7, 2004 - Source
www.whitehouse.gov 
