While the president offered no hard evidence to back up his startling claim, he insisted that the so-called secret North Korean nuclear weapons program was actually a secret Iraqi nuclear weapons program.
He went on to quote intelligence reports suggesting that Saddam Hussein had sent the weapons to North Korea in big wooden crates stamped with the logo of Harry & David’s, a popular food-by-mail gift service, to avoid interdiction en route.
“This may be the evilest thing this doer of evil has ever done,” Bush said.
Bush’s stunning revelations may have been meant to deflect criticism of the administration’s policy of being mean to Iraq but not quite so mean to North Korea.
But North Korea complicated that effort somewhat by announcing later in the day that the weapons were in fact their own and did not come from Iraq, adding that Saddam Hussein did not even have North Korea’s mailing address or home phone number.
For his part, the President quickly dismissed North Korea’s denials, calling the North Koreans “dupes” of Saddam’s evil plan to sneak nuclear weapons into their country.
“The fact that Saddam has snuck evil weapons into North Korea and has somehow convinced the North Koreans that they made them themselves just goes to show you how dangerous Iraq is and how not-dangerous North Korea is,” the President said.
