Not everyone got it wrong on WMD

IHT ^ | 2-6-04 | scott ritter

[eagles]

WASHINGTON: 'We were all wrong," David Kay, the Bush administration's former top weapons sleuth in Iraq, recently told members of Congress after acknowledging that there were probably no weapons of mass destruction in Iraq.

Kay insisted that the blame for the failure to find any such weapons lay with the U.S. intelligence community, which, according to Kay, provided inaccurate assessments.

[nicmarlo]

Yeah, I remember that movie deal Ritter made...

[metesky]

61 posts and you haven't defended your views yet, coward.

And you forgot the "barf alert".

[tbpiper]

Don't think so.

That's your problem, you don't think.

As I stated before, the objective was to topple Saddam. If you'd keep up with current events, you'd know the goon is gone.

tied down in a futile nation building operation

Typical 'are we there yet?' childhood inpatients. We haven't been there a year yet and you bellyache because it's not a Utopia.

83 billion and more spending on nation building

Get your facts straight, Willard. Most of that goes to the military. About 17 billion goes to rebuilding two countries. Boston, by the way, spent over 15 billion just to dig a damn tunnel. That's one project, in one city, in one state. I'd say the former is a better deal.

[piasa]

The heroes are the ones fighting in Iraq- and the leaders with the perseverence to help them win.

Here are the sources for some of what I listed above, namely, the twisting of what Kay had to say by the press:

OCTOBER 26, 2003 : (WASHINGTON POST REPORTER BARTON GELLMAN MISREPRESENTS INFO DR. DAVID KAY HAD GATHERED IN IRAQ ABOUT WMD; GELMAN CLAIMS IRAQ HAD NO ACTIVE NUCLEAR PROGRAM TO BUILD A WEAPON, PRODUCE KEY MATERIALS, OR OBTAIN THE TECHNOLOGY NEEDED, AND WRONGLY CITES MEEKIN AS A SOURCE ON KAY'S WMD HUNT) Gellman's front-page story, which ran Oct. 26, was titled "Search in Iraq Fails to Find Nuclear Threat" [www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A17707-2003Oct25.html]. Citing unnamed "investigators" as his source, Gellman stated breathlessly that "it is now clear [Saddam] had no active program to build a [nuclear] weapon, produce its key materials or obtain the technology he needed for either."
Gellman alleged that the Iraq Survey Group headed by Kay was keeping secret its most important internal judgments because they disproved the CIA's key prewar contentions and would embarrass the Bush administration. According to Gellman, Kay's men secretly concluded "that Iraq's nuclear-weapons scientists did no significant arms-related work after 1991, that facilities with suspicious new construction proved benign and that equipment of potential use to a nuclear program remained under seal or in civilian industrial use."
To reinforce the seriousness of his charges, Gellman quoted Australian Brig. Gen. Stephen D. Meekin as saying that the aluminum tubes found in Iraq which the CIA had claimed could have been used for uranium enrichment centrifuges were "innocuous." Gellman called that finding "pivotal, because the Bush administration built its case on the proposition that Iraq aimed to use those tubes as centrifuge rotors to enrich uranium for the core of a nuclear weapon."
Gellman used Meekin to debunk Bush administration claims in several different areas, claiming that the Australian commanded "the Joint Captured Enemy Materiel Exploitation Center, the largest of a half-dozen units that report to Kay." - "David Kay Rebukes Washington Post Coverage,"By Kenneth R. Timmerman , Posted Nov. 3, 2003,
[* My note : This is simply NOT true, as David Kay would point out in his rebuke of Gelman on Oct 31, 2003.]

OCTOBER 31, 2003 : (WASHINGTON POST BURIES DR. DAVID KAY'S REBUKE OF WASHINGTON POST REPORTER GELLMAN FOR GELLMAN'S FALSE CLAIM THAT AUSTRALIAN GENERAL MEEKIN COMMANDED "THE JOINT CAPTURED ENEMY MATERIEL EXPLOITATION CENTER, THE LARGEST OF A A HALF-DOZEN UNITS THAT REPORT TO KAY," IN THE FREE-FOR-ALL SECTION OF THE PAPER; GENERAL MEEKIN 'S LETTER POINTING OUT GELLMAN'S BOGUS ALLEGATIONS IS ALSO PRINTED THERE, WHERE MEEKIN POINTS OUT TO THE REPORTER THAT HE WAS CONCERNED WITH CONVENTIONAL WEAPONS, NOT WMD, AS WAS CLAIMED) Gellman quoted Australian Brig. Gen. Stephen D. Meekin as saying that the aluminum tubes found in Iraq which the CIA had claimed could have been used for uranium enrichment centrifuges were "innocuous." Gellman called that finding "pivotal, because the Bush administration built its case on the proposition that Iraq aimed to use those tubes as centrifuge rotors to enrich uranium for the core of a nuclear weapon."
Gellman used Meekin to debunk Bush administration claims in several different areas, claiming that the Australian commanded "the Joint Captured Enemy Materiel Exploitation Center, the largest of a half-dozen units that report to Kay."
The only problem, as Kay wrote to the Post in a comment editors relegated to the "Free for All" section on Saturday [www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A49199-2003Oct31.html], was that none of it was true.
Meekin, Kay wrote, "does not report, nor has he ever reported, to me in any individual capacity or as commander of the exploitation center." Furthermore, Meekin was not involved in the Iraq Study Group's investigation of Saddam's WMDs. Instead, his outfit was responsible for making a repertory of Saddam's conventional weapons programs.
Gellman had no excuse for missing these key facts. Indeed, as Meekin wrote in a separate letter that the Post printed side-by-side to Kay's, he had "stressed on a number of occasions" in his interview with Gellman that he did not report to Kay and that his outfit looked only at conventional weapons. "I did not provide assessments or views on Iraq's nuclear program or the status of investigations being conducted by the Iraqi Study Group," Meekin wrote.- "David Kay Rebukes Washington Post Coverage,"By Kenneth R. Timmerman , Posted Nov. 3, 2003,

[texasflower]

Thank you for that extra information. I agree with the true heroes part, of that there is no doubt, but you are doing your part also. :)

[Jorge]

Like everyone else, I thought France and Germany would have egg all over their "faces' after we could show proof that our intelligence on Saddam was correct. Am I the only conservative who's a bit disillusioned with the fact that the major objective for going to war with Iraq didn't pan out?

The intelligence agencies of France, Germany, Russia etc all agreed that Saddam likely had stockpiles of unaccounted for WMD as did the UN Security Council.

It wasn't just "our intelligence".

To quote Charles Krauthammer;

"The fact that he was not stockpiling is relevant only to the question of why some prewar intelligence was wrong about Iraq's WMD program. But it is not relevant to the question of whether a war to preempt his development of WMD was justified.

The fact that Hussein may have decided to go from building up stocks to maintaining clandestine production facilities does not mean that he got out of the WMD business.

Otherwise, by that logic, one would have to say that until the very moment at which the plutonium from its 8,000 processed fuel rods is wedded to waiting nuclear devices, North Korea does not have a nuclear program."

[piasa]

You might like this: see above for "Things you have to believe to think Iraq has no WMD"

[doc]

The main reason for going to war was that Iraq had WMD's, period. Do you forget Colin Powell's speech given to the UN to convince the world about Iraq's WMD? We can all admit Sadaam was a horrible dictator but can't we say that about alot of countries. What about North Korea whose leader publicly threatened the US with their illegal nuclear weapons? Or do nuclear weapons not fall under the category of WMD? Bush claims we're handling that issue diplomatically, HUH!