Robert Spencer, one of the nation's leading experts on the Islamic religion, says he doesn't understand why the Bush administration has not jumped on a recent report that confirms former dictator Saddam Hussein intended to reconstitute his weapons of mass destruction.
Recently CBS's 60 Minutes aired an interview with George Piro, a Lebanese-born FBI agent, who debriefed Saddam Hussein following his capture in December 2003. Piro was able to get Hussein to admit that while he did not have active WMD programs in 2003, he wanted to reconstitute all of them -- chemical, biological, and even nuclear.
Robert Spencer, director of Jihad Watch, says the White House should be all over this story. "It's ironic really, that oddly enough the Bush administration -- with so much to lose and so much damage to its credibility over the years because of these allegations -- has not jumped on these kinds of reports and made sure that they came to the broadest audience possible," he ponders.
The Islamic expert says Piro's comments ought to debunk the critics who say the Iraq invasion had nothing to do with the global war on Islamic terrorism. "It's clear that it's all part of the same thing, that there is the Jihad ideology that is universal and is held by those in Iraq as well as so many others around the world -- and that's part of a larger struggle," argues Spencer.
According to Spencer, a "great deal" of evidence indicates clearly that Saddam Hussein was doing exactly what the Bush administration and others -- some outside the administration -- thought he was doing in 2002 and 2003.
