And re-enforcing what every thinking person has already known for the past year and a half or so....
WASHINGTON - U.S. intelligence agencies need to explain why their research indicated Iraq possessed banned weapons before the American-led invasion, says the outgoing top U.S. inspector, who now believes Saddam Hussein had no such arms.
"I don't think they exist," David Kay said Sunday. "The fact that we found so far the weapons do not exist — we've got to deal with that difference and understand why."
Kay's remarks on National Public Radio reignited criticism from Democrats, who ignored his cautions that the failure to find weapons of mass destruction was "not a political issue."
Sure it's not a political issue, Mr. Kay.
Kay told The New York Times in a later interview posted for Monday's editions that U.S. intelligence agencies did not realize Iraqi scientists presented Saddam with fanciful plans for weapons programs and then used the money he authorized for other purposes.
"The whole thing shifted from directed programs to a corrupted process," he told the Times. "The regime was no longer in control; it was like a death spiral. Saddam was self-directing projects that were not vetted by anyone else. The scientists were able to fake programs."
He said he has had U.S. intelligence analysts some to him, "almost in tears, saying they felt so badly that we weren't finding what they had thought we were going to find — I have had analysts apologizing for reaching the conclusions they did."
Sorry, not good enough. WMD was never the issue. (By the way, who coined that obnoxious phrase anyway? And why is the United States' massive weapon stores never referred to by the same name?) These administration clowns had a list of reasons to use as a smokescreen for blasting Iraq, and they picked the one that would frighten enough Americans into going along for the ride. "Human rights abuses" simply wouldn't have done it. Just as "mass graves" don't do it now. (Why not? Because these grave sites are 15 years old or more, dating back to the time when Hussein was a U.S. ally against Iran. We sure as hell did not care back then.)
I'm going to go on record and predict resounding defeat for Bush come November. His spin monkeys are already getting desperate. Bill Safire's column today is now about how Kerry and Edwards are resorting to "class warfare." Is that the biggest attack you can mount? Class warfare? You're goddamn right that's what it is. Next!
Safire even more pathetic as he pulls a column he wrote 25 years ago and replaces some names. Desperate!
Posted by mike at January 25, 2004 11:25 PM