President Bush said yesterday that the 1993 bomb plot by Iraqi agents that threatened the lives of members of his family has nothing to do with the current U.S. military buildup against the regime of Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein.

Skeptics have suggested that one of Bush's motives is deeply personal as he trains U.S. military might on Iraq, and wholly unconnected to the stated U.S. concerns over Iraqi ties to
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"The fact that he tried to kill my father and my wife shows the nature of the man. He's cold-blooded. He's a dictator and he's a tyrant," Bush said. "The decision I'm making and have made to disarm Saddam Hussein is based on the security of the American people."

Bush said war is not a certainty. But he continued to make his case that Iraq is a threat to the country because of its "terrorist ties - ties with people who hate America." And he brushed aside the recent destruction of Iraqi missiles as insufficient evidence that Saddam was finally abiding by U.N. resolutions to disarm.
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For more than a year, Bush has been the world's leading proponent of using the threat of force to rid Iraq of weapons of mass destruction, but he has rarely addressed the brush his family had with the Iraqi dictator.

In April 1993, a plot to detonate a car bomb near former President Bush as he took part in a celebratory victory tour of Kuwait, which was liberated from Iraq in the Gulf War, was uncovered. Also traveling with the president were his wife, Barbara, brothers Neil and Marvin and current first lady, Laura. The younger Bush stayed in Texas, where he was preparing to run for governor.

Kuwaiti security forces foiled the scheme to blow up a Toyota Land Cruiser packed with 175 pounds of plastic explosives near the former president's entourage.

» Bush denies push to oust Saddam is related to '93 plot against family