FOREIGN JOURNALISTS CHALLENGE KAREN HUGHES

Shorter Karen Hughes: "I said it every day on the campaign trail and the American press was content to let me get away with it, so who are you guys to challenge me?"

"The consensus of the world intelligence community was that Saddam was a very dangerous threat," she said. "After all, he used weapons of mass destruction against his own people. He had murdered hundreds of thousands of his own people using poison gas."

Hours later, Hughes was asked twice for the basis for her numbers during a meeting with journalists from foreign news organizations.

"It's something that our U.S. government has said a number of times in the past. It's information that was used very widely after his attack on the Kurds. I believe it was close to 300,000," Hughes said when questioned the first time. She added, "That's something I said every day in the course of the campaign. That's information that we talked about a great deal in America."

...By late in the day, Hughes's aide, Gordon D. Johndroe, offered a correction.

Tags: Karen Hughes, Saddam, poison gas