Bush looked past Iraq on spread of weapons (Pakistan, Saudi Arabia) [View All]

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http://www.iht.com/articles/2005/10/13/news/weapons.php

Bush looked past Iraq on spread of weapons

WASHINGTON Two months before the invasion of Iraq, President George W. Bush told Prime Minister Tony Blair of Britain that he "wanted to go beyond Iraq" in dealing with the spread of illicit weapons, and mentioned Saudi Arabia and Pakistan on a list of countries posing particular problems, according to a note taken by one of Blair's advisers that is cited in a new book.

Bush's comment, in a private telephone conversation on Jan. 30, 2003, could be significant because it appeared to add Saudi Arabia and Pakistan to a list that previously had included public mentions only of Iraq, Iran and North Korea, which the president had dubbed an "axis of evil."

The comment is reported in a new, American edition of "Lawless World," by Philippe Sands, a professor at University College, London, and a practicing barrister. An earlier edition of the book, published in Britain in February, included details from other prewar British government documents, but it did not include the detail from the Jan. 30 conversation. The British government has not questioned the authenticity of the documents described in Sands's book.

The New York Times was permitted to review the contents of the Jan. 30 document cited by Sands. It shows that the notes were taken by Matthew Rycroft, then the private secretary to Blair, and addressed to Simon McDonald, then the principal private secretary to the foreign secretary, Jack Straw. The contents show that the document was marked secret and personal, and said the letter "must only be shown to those with a real need to know."