By Wendy S. Ross
Washington File White House Correspondent

Washington -- President Bush, for the second day in a row, took on those who now are questioning whether the Saddam Hussein regime in Iraq had weapons of mass destruction prior to the war in Iraq.

"We made it clear to the dictator of Iraq that he must disarm. We asked other nations to join us in seeing to it that he would disarm, and he chose not to do so, so we disarmed him," Bush said in a speech in northern Virginia, June 17.

"And I know there's a lot of revisionist history now going on, but one thing is certain. He is no longer a threat to the free world, and the people of Iraq are free," Bush said.

On June 16, Bush branded as "revisionist historians" those who now criticize his decision to use military force to oust Saddam Hussein from power. "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," the president said in a speech in New Jersey.

Asked about these statements, White House Press Secretary Bush told reporters June 17 that Bush "describes as revisionist history those who would now seem to cast doubt on the accuracy of the intelligence information that stated that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction prior to the war."

Fleischer made clear that Bush remains confident in the accuracy of the intelligence reports he received and believes weapons of mass destruction will be located.

"The President has every confidence that the intelligence that he received was accurate intelligence and that weapons of mass destruction will, indeed, be found," Fleischer said.

He noted that Bush "has repeatedly expressed his confidence that as a result of the actions that we have put in place, with the Department of Defense undertaking the search (for WMD) with the increased number of personnel DOD has now to carry out its mission, as well as the interviews that are being done and will be done with mid-level Iraqi officials, including scientists, that a review of the paperwork that we're finding, as well as the expertise of [former U.N. weapons inspector] David Kay, who is now helping, that we will indeed find the weapons of mass destruction."

The reason they have not been found so far, Fleischer said, "is exactly because of the lengths that Saddam Hussein and the Iraqi officials went to hide" them.

"After all, it was the United Nations [weapons inspectors], when they left Iraq, when they were thrown out of Iraq in 1998, that concluded and told the world that Iraq had failed to account for the thousands of liters of botulin, of VX, of sarin gas. It was the United Nations who put it on the record and reported they had it.

"Now of course we had information that also lent credence to that conclusion," Fleischer said.

"To suggest that Saddam Hussein threw out the inspectors and therefore used the fact that the inspectors were gone to destroy his weapons is fanciful. It's a fit of imagination.

"So the fact is he did design a system that was intended to conceal it from the inspectors. After all, even in the early to mid '90s, when we did find the proof of the weapons of mass destruction, it was only after defectors told us about it. The inspectors were in the country, and they were unable to find it because of the great lengths the Saddam Hussein regime had gone to perfect their ability to hide and to conceal.

"And we still are in an environment where whatever they hid, and whatever they concealed could remain hidden and concealed. ... In addition to the fact, the President said earlier, that they may have destroyed some of it."

The Central Intelligence Agency and the Department of Defense, Fleischer said, are working together to find the weapons of mass destruction.

In a country as large as Iraq -- the size of California -- "it requires a tremendous number of people to help move with the logistics, to get people into place, to carry out their work. Iraq remains a place with great danger in many places, and so there has to be security provided for some of the experts to travel around. So it's a combination, it's a combined effort of the CIA and the DOD," Fleischer said.

In another development, the U.S. Congress is set to begin hearings into the intelligence case for war with Iraq.

President Bush "has welcomed these hearings," Fleischer said, pointing out that the intelligence information about Iraq's weapons of mass destruction had been shared with the Congress for a decade.

"I would suggest to you, go back and read any number of speeches given by members of Congress, Democrat and Republican alike, in 1998, when the Congress passed -- and wisely passed -- the regime change act for Iraq, and you'll find floor speech after floor speech that talks about Iraq's possession of weapons of mass destruction.

"Members of Congress said it with certainty then; the previous administration said it with certainty then. And unless somebody thinks, again, that Saddam Hussein threw out the weapons inspectors and after he threw out the weapons inspectors he got rid of his weapons of mass destruction and didn't tell anybody, and had no proof that he got rid of his weapons of mass destruction -- that's why the intelligence community continues to believe as strongly as it has and does that Saddam Hussein did, indeed, have weapons of mass destruction leading up to the war."