What David Kay said and what they report
 

Outgoing weapons inspector David Kay gets interviewed by everyone and what he says is selectively reported.

What he said that they do report (source AP): Kay Says Iraq Likely Had No Banned Arms

What he also said, which they don't report (source UK newspaper): Saddam's WMD hidden in Syria, says Iraq survey chief

What Syria thinks of this notion (source same story):

The key to all of this is simple. Any given party will state the situation in a manner that furthers their own best interest, whatever they feel that best interest will be.

David Kay tells what he knows.

The press reports what they think will result in an administration that will futher the best interests of the press.

Syria says everyone is fucked and it is Israel's fault.

No surprises here...sadly.

Last May I said Saddam would have moved, hidden or destroyed any WMD's he had. He knew they would not stop the US military and would only make the US look better in world opinion. They could have gone to Syria or anywhere for that matter. Every weapon the US military owns could be hidden under Iraq's desert.

Just because some material and components may have been moved doesn't necessarily mean that Iraq had enough to produce WMD. Besides, if this news were that important, FOX would have been all over it.

MSNBC mentions the Syria link, but not in the same way as the Telegraph:

Kay also said chaos in postwar Iraq made it impossible to know with certainty whether Iraq had had banned weapons.

And, he said, there is ample evidence that Iraq was moving a steady stream of goods shipments to Syria, but it is difficult to determine whether the cargoes included weapons, in part because Syria has refused to cooperate in this part of the weapons investigation.

It looks more and more likely that the Iraqi scientists put together a deception program of their own, to convince Hussein that they had weapons in some cases when they actually didn't.

This would explain why the scientists acted like they did in UN interviews, why they had an active program in place to deceive the UN inspectors, why the country acted like it was armed even when it wasn't.

I remain unconvinced by people who claim they understood all the issues and knew there were no WMDs before this point in time. If a country believes it is a threat and acts like it is a threat, it has to be dealt with.

If you stick your hand in your pocket and tell me you have a gun. I'll act accordingly. :shotgun:

CIA Director George Tenet delivered one hell of a speech just now, defending US intel on Iraq and in general. Amongst the points:

-- It ain't over: despite Kay saying the search is 85% done, it isn't anywhere near that point and the search for bio in particular will take a long time.

-- When the facts of Iraq are all in we will neither be completely right or completely wrong, and that's simply how it is with intel.

-- It's very clear that Hussein wanted to build bio weapons, and very clear that he was building non-permitted long-range missiles. It's very clear that they were working to deceive UN inspectors and were in extreme violation of 1441.

-- Before, during, and AFTER the fall of the Hussein regime, there was a program of deliberate destruction of useful information.

-- For the last 7 years the CIA has been working to recoup its human intel program, and it is strong and has led to many huge wins, including Libya and Al Qaeda and Pakistan.

The CIA won't let Tenet be the scapegoat.

When the facts of Iraq are all in we will neither be completely right or completely wrong, and that's simply how it is with intel.

Well, they didn't find the 1,000 tons of VX nerve gas they were looking for, or the 2,245 gallons of anthrax, or the yellow cake purchased in Africa, but they did find a drawing done by a child of some, uh, tubes or something.

I guess that is not completely wrong, but I would sure say they weren't completely right.

That's nice Kit, but I'm sure you don't have access to *all* the intel.

That's nice Kit, but I'm sure you don't have access to *all* the intel.

It is true that I don't. I guess my big frustration is that with us invading a country and all for the reasons they gave, we sure haven't seen much proof. I suppose we might see it someday, but I just question as to why they would keep such a hot topic so secret for so long. It would be nice to have some answers before the public changes their mind as to why we went to war.

If I was in Saddam's shoes (sandals), and I wanted to build WMD's in the post desert storm era, I wouldn;t be building them IN Iraq. I'd have a super secret deal with an ally and build them in THAT country. Syria? will we invade THEM next? or does that depend on what happens in November?

I know next to nothing about politics and matters of the state, so the above is based in nothing but conjecture. would it be feasible to build weapons on foreign soil? or would the potential loss of control of said weapons be too risky?

I honestly don't think it can be said any better than that.

If [insert your name here] are Prez fresh off 9/11 and everyone on the planet from Kofi Annan to Bill Clinton to Jacques (you can't spell Iraq without) Chiraq says Iraq has all this stuff and it is your sworn duty to protect this country, what choice do you really have?

I'm as pissed and mortified as the next guy that we didn't find what everyone thought was there but what else was Bush supposed to do I ask incredulously? Sit back and wait for 9/11 part II? Whether I like Bush or not he did the dirty work that needed to be done. If it costs him his job then I'm sure he's prepared to accept that.

There is absolutely no excuse to sit back and let a threat mount. That is exactly what we did with bin Laden and did we ever pay for that.

There is absolutely no excuse to sit back and let a threat mount.

Then what are we waiting for? Next up is: Syria, North Korea, Saudi Arabia, and Iran.

I was thinking we needed to whip Grenada's ass again but whatever.

Everyone except the PNAC members knew that Saddam was contained, and that the sanctions were working. Colin Powell said as much. And now we're dealing with Iraq, and making deals with the Taleban in Afghanistan. We're providing recruitment material for terrorists, and allowing women's rights to collapse back to prewar levels in Afghanistan.

I listened to Tenet's speech. His primary claim was that Saddam had an extensive wishlist.

Providing recruitment material to terrorists: you mean aside from the primary material we always give... the example of being free and heathen and still massively successful and wealthy, a living example of heresy, of Allah not really coming through on his promises?

How DARE we! We MUST get in line!

No. "They hate us because we're free?" Come on.

Anyway, here's an article on how supportive the CIA was of the administration's war hype.

edit: Sorry, should have said "the intelligence community" rather than "the CIA".

I saw a TV show the other day where women were going to school in record numbers, taking karate and doing things unthinkable in the days of the Taliban.

Besides, the US is not responsible for the cultural attitudes Afghans have towards females. In addition it takes time to instill new notions. Hell, 50 years ago, black people couldn't sit in the front of the bus here! I think its asking a bit much to expect hot pants and halter tops this soon after the Taliban was deposed. The people there are still Afghans and they still believe what they believe. But the women they showed in this program (hosted by Dianne Sawyer now that I think about it) enjoyed rights, priviliges and, more importantly, attitudes that indicate otherwise. Although, for the sake of completeness, the women did concede that they do fear the men who are very threatened by their newfound self-worth and self-determination.

Like I said, they hate us because we're heathen and our very successful existence is heretical to their beliefs.

And, HM, your Guardian article is written by a relentlessly political former member of the Clinton administration... which put the current intel community into place and believed it when it held that Saddam had WMDs.

Nobody (almost) disputes that almost everybody believed there were weapons. The debate was over whether what weapons they were thought to have were grounds for war. I'm not sure what you were going for with the "put the current intel community into place", since the article supports the intelligence community against the administration's scapegoating. And if "relentlessly political" is grounds for discounting the article, then I hope you don't accept anything coming out of the White House.

But back to the belief in weapons. When the new doctrine of "preemptive war" was unveiled, the State Department provided "imminent threat" as the trigger. When Bush went to war, he and his spokespeople used everything but those exect words. When it eventually was proven that there was, in fact, no imminent threat, Bush said that he never said there was. He didn't say "We all thought it was an imminent threat", he said that we had to take Saddam out before he became an imminent threat. That's like using a self defense claim in a murder trial after killing someone who may have threatened you in the future. It's alright in a pride of lions, but not in human society.

But even that doctrine fails to cover possible imminent threats.

http://www.belmontclub.blogspot.com/...63193280039775

Libya was found to have purchased, not produced its nuclear program. The question the Belmont Club poses is: what if rogue nations collaborate to produce nuclear weapons? No one particular state would be seen as even being capable of an imminent threat. Maybe the early lesson from Libya is that not only is it possible, it's probable.

Going directly to Iraq may well be the least bloody of all solutions if it produces productive change in the mideast. There are promising signs but we won't be able to judge the whole thing for some time now, I imagine.

So, journalists are expected to be politically biased propoganda machines whose role is to advance an agenda under the guise of objective reporting (provided, I assume, they share your viewpoint) and politicians are not supposed to politicize?

Guffaw! I didn't know Andrew Gilligan posted here! :)

If the ends justify the means, then perhaps. I'm not sure I want to adopt that philosophy.

Within days, Bush declared that he would, after all, appoint a commission to investigate; significantly, it would report its findings only after the presidential election.

This is rather surprising -- an actual investigation is going to take place? I'm impressed.

At the same time, I'm confused: I can't understand why the American people have not demanded an investigation into the intelligence failure/intelligence misinterpretation/ignorance of intellicence/whatever. Do people just trust the government this much these days? We sent our sons and daughters off to war for a threat that was hyped up to be bigger than the 9/11 attacks only to find that there really wasn't an incredible danger. We didn't find gallons of biological weapons ready to be launched at the invanding troops, we didn't find any evidence of a nuclear program, and we didn't even find radio controlled planes that could be flown from "just off US shores hundreds of miles inland to launch an attack". Many of our soliders died to find no masses of missiles, tons of gases, links to 9/11, connections to Al Queda, or a even a small slice of yellow cake. Yet, no one really seems to care that such a possible huge blunder was made. We've seen some fingerpointing, but that's about it.

When the police raid a home and shoot a man who doesn't even have a gun, the cities riot with people demanding that someone's head roll. When we invade a country and hundreds of our soliders die while thousands more become embedded in a lengthy stay in a hostile country because somewhere, somehow, someone screwed up, what do we hear in reply?

Crickets.

Whichever side people are on in this matter, I don't get why more aren't asking questions and seeking answers. Most people I've spoken with seem complacent to simply trust assurances from above that the right thing was done, regardless of what information was handed out before the war, after the invasion, and has yet to be found. An even greater number shrug it off as though it isn't a big deal. (Currently "the boob" has proven to surpass the importance of all current and previous war discussions.)

Don't any of these dealings seem shady to most people? Why are so many so quick to scoff at questions and dismiss asking them as an unpatriotic thing? (I'm not suggesting any of this of The Cellar's population. In fact, I'm always really impressed with the debates that go on here and the discussion that takes place.)

When we invade a country and hundreds of our soliders die while thousands more become embedded in a lengthy stay in a hostile country because somewhere, somehow, someone screwed up, what do we hear in reply?

I wouldn't say Chiraq "screwed up", so much as that he made a few simple miscalculations.

Don't be too impressed. Bush is appointing the investigators, last I heard.

It's an election year so cover as many bases as possible.

Bush usually gets the rap for mangling English, but sometimes Rumsfeld shows him up.

"There are known knowns, and there are known unknowns..."

At least that one parsed as English. It was a meaningless tautology, but the sentence was diagrammable. This, however:
:confused: :whofart:

Yogi Berra for President.

Could we do any worse than we are doing better?

Let's assume for a minute that Iraq has tons and tons and tons of nuke/nio/chem weapons hidden in a giant fortress under the desert sands of Iraq.
Why did we invade if we still haven't found said fortress (or whatever)? There were UN inspectors on the ground. Why not support them with a division of special forces types, rather than a full-scale invasion? Or, why not wait until there was international support for the whole magilla?
There were lots of options, and only one was taken. Only one outcome was seriously planned for. We have blown all of the international goodwill we accrued as a result of 9/11. That's drastic strategic mismanagement and is not something that I want from the leader of my country and his cabinet.
Of course, he isn't much better than lots of top-level managers these days, but that's another thread entirely.

I think you're violating tw's copyright here.