For whatever reason, the president continues to think David Kay is an asset in proving the necessity for the war in Iraq. Just last week, Bush said:
“In 2002, the United Nations Security Council yet again demanded a full accounting of Saddam Hussein’s weapons programs. As he had for over a decade, Saddam Hussein refused to comply. In fact, according to former weapons inspector David Kay, Iraq’s weapons programs were elaborately shielded by security and deception operations that continued even beyond the end of Operation Iraqi Freedom.”
OK, Mr. President. If you really want to talk about Kay’s conclusions about Iraq, then let’s talk about Kay’s conclusions about Iraq.
President Bush and Prime Minister Tony Blair of Britain should have realized before going to war that intelligence on Iraqi weapons was weak and did not indicate that Saddam Hussein posed a danger to the West, the former chief US weapons inspector in Iraq said yesterday.
David Kay resigned from the CIA in January, and his conclusion then that Iraq did not have stockpiles of forbidden weapons caused serious problems for both Bush and Blair, undercutting their main justification for war.
Kay told Britain’s ITV network that Bush and Blair ”should have been able to tell before the war that the evidence did not exist for drawing the conclusion that Iraq presented a clear, present, and imminent threat on the basis of existing weapons of mass destruction.”
”That was not something that required a war,” he said.
Your witness, George…