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Bush: 'No war plans on my desk' for Iraq
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President Bush attempted to reassure critics of the war on terror at a joint news conference Thursday with German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder in Berlin.
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BERLIN, Germany (CNN) -- President Bush reiterated Thursday that Iraq remains a significant threat, but he stopped short of saying the United States will go to war with the Middle Eastern country.
"I have no war plans on my desk," Bush said at a Berlin news conference during the first stop of his European tour. "We've got to use all means at our disposal to deal with Saddam Hussein."
His statement was in answer to a question about U.S. plans regarding Iraq and heightened concerns voiced throughout the world about the war on terror.
Bush met Thursday with German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder, held a joint news conference with the leader and addressed the German Bundestag. He later traveled to Moscow as part of his four-nation trip to Europe.
"He knows my position, and the world knows my position about Saddam Hussein," Bush said. "He is a dangerous man. He is a dictator who gassed his own people. He's had a history of incredible human rights violations.
"And it's dangerous to think of a scenario in which a country like Iraq would team up with an al Qaeda-type organization, particularly ... when they have the capacity to deliver weapons of mass destruction via a ballistic missile, and that's a threat." (Full story)
Other developments
Bush told the Bundestag that "America and Europe need each other to fight the global war against terror" and that the events of September 11 were the start of a new era for the United States as the 1941 attack on Pearl Harbor had been. "Our generation faces new and grave threats to liberty, to the safety of our people and to civilization itself," Bush said in an address to the German lower house of parliament. "We face an aggressive force that glorifies death, that targets the innocent and seeks the means to murder on a massive scale." (Full story)
A captured senior al Qaeda leader has told investigators the hijacked jet that crashed September 11 in Pennsylvania was intended to hit the White House, U.S. officials said Thursday. Officials said al Qaeda operations chief Abu Zubaydah gave them the information about United Airlines Flight 93 a couple of days ago and they believe him. (Full story)
Vice President Dick Cheney on Wednesday criticized lawmakers who have questioned whether the government missed clues before the September 11 attacks, calling their comments "despicable" and "outrageous." "When members of Congress suggest that the president of the United States had foreknowledge of the attack on September 11, I think that's outrageous, that is beyond the pale," Cheney said in an interview with CNN's Larry King. (Full story)
The FBI has found credit card receipts that appear to place September 11 hijacker Mohamed Atta in Manhattan the day before the attacks, a source close to the investigation said Wednesday. Atta is one of the men authorities say hijacked American Airlines Flight 11 and crashed it into the World Trade Center. (Full story)
The U.S. Navy has brought in more ships than usual for the annual Fleet Week in New York harbor and invited the public aboard for the first time since September 11. Even so, Navy officials said security for the maritime celebration is unprecedented, with airport-type restrictions on visitors' bags and other items, and a commercial blimp, contracted by the Navy, patrolling above the Hudson River and beaming live television images to two ground security stations. (Full story)
A birthday celebration for the Brooklyn Bridge was canceled because recent warnings of a potential terrorist attack against New York landmarks would have made it difficult logistically to pull off, officials said Thursday. The celebration -- marking the fabled bridge's 119th birthday -- had been planned for June 2. (Full story)
Opening statements are set to begin Thursday in North Carolina in a cigarette smuggling trial that will put a 1996 federal antiterrorism law to the test in a courtroom for the first time. The trial of brothers Mohamad and Chawki Hammoud will test a law that prohibits support for terrorist organizations, which accused American Taliban John Walker Lindh is also charged with breaking. The government alleges the Hammouds took part in a conspiracy that bought cheap cigarettes in North Carolina and resold them in Michigan without paying that state's higher cigarette taxes. (Full story)
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