(2003-05-26) -- U.S. Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld apologized to Senate Democrats today for pre-war "hyping" of the threat posed by Saddam Hussein's regime.

"I'm sorry Senators Biden, Rockefeller, Byrd, Roberts and others," said a contrite Mr. Rumsfeld. "We overestimated the threat posed by a lunatic dictator, who hated the U.S. and Israel, and who paid rewards to families of Palestinian terrorists. In an age when two of the world's tallest buildings can be brought down with tools used by the stockboy at K-Mart, we should have demanded more concrete evidence of exotic weapons of mass destruction. Saddam was helpless as a kitten up a tree."

Sen. Rockefeller, D-WV, said Congress must determine whether the administration "intentionally overestimated" Iraq's weapons program, or "just misread it. ... In either case it's a very bad outcome."

Mr. Rumsfeld agreed, "What an awful outcome. We deeply regret freeing the Iraqi people from a murderous gang of thugs masquerading in the United Nations as a representative republic. We're sorry that the Iraqi people have discovered thousands of graves of their Saddam-murdered relatives. It's none of our business if people want to live like that."