From the Liveblog of
Friday, June 20, 2025
Netanyahu says he told US in 2003 that invading Iraq would lead to quick fall of Saddam Hussein
Lazar Berman is The Times of Israel's diplomatic reporter
Standing in front of the Weizmann Institute of Science in Rehovot, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu says that the world-renowned medical research institute was “smashed by a rocket from this evil regime.”
Speaking in English, he accuses Iran of working “to destroy human progress. That’s what this regime is about.”
“They subjugate their own people,” he continues. “They’ve trampled on them for almost 50 years — the long-suffering Iranian people whom we embrace. We understand what they’ve been going through, and we understand what the region has been going through, and what the world has been going through.”
Netanyahu argues that Israel is operating against Iran to save itself from annihilation, “but by doing so we’re saving many, many others.”
On Sunday morning, an Iranian ballistic missile, destroyed two buildings — a life science building and an empty building that was still under construction. Dozens more were damaged.
Established in 1934 by Israel’s first president and prominent scientist, Chaim Weizmann, the Weizmann Institute is a world-leading multidisciplinary research institution in the natural and exact sciences.
He says he told then-US defense secretary Donald Rumsfeld ahead of the 2003 Iraq invasion that “you will finish this very quickly. But your primary goal is the Iranian regime. And the Iranian regime is trying to develop a nuclear weapon, even then.”
He says Israel had no evidence that Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein was trying to develop a nuclear weapon then, apparently contradicting congressional testimony he gave in 2022 in which he said there was “no question whatsoever that Hussein was developing weapons of mass destruction.
Netanyahu has been ridiculed by some in the American press over the past week, which has been airing footage of that congressional testimony during which he urged the US to invade Iraq, insisting that it would stabilize the region.
Benjamin Netanyahu testifying to US congress in 2002 about Iraqs “Weapons of Mass Destruction”. pic.twitter.com/Dn0cEzd1Wn
— Morgan Cameron Ross (@Morgan_C_Ross) June 18, 2025
In 2002, Netanyahu addressed the United States Congress, saying Israel is certain Saddam Hussein has weapons of mass destruction and that America ‘must do something about this.’
This man has been playing this game for decades pic.twitter.com/4c4H9ED8zq
— Matthew Joseph (@matthew_sede) June 19, 2025
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