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Sunday, January 25, 2004

Kay covering for Bush, sort of
Newly-resigned weapons inspector was interviewed by NPR today. He repeated his statements from Friday that he believes Saddam Hussein had no weapons of mass destruction before the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq. He also attempted to provide some cover for the war criminals in the Bush administration:

"We led this search to find the truth, not to find the weapons. The fact that we found so far the weapons do not exist, we've got to deal with that difference and understand why,'' Kay said Sunday on the National Public Radio program "Weekend Edition.''

Asked whether he feels President Bush owes the American people an apology for starting the war on the basis of apparently flawed intelligence, Kay said: "I actually think the intelligence community owes the president rather than the president owing the American people.

"You have to remember that this view of Iraq was held during the Clinton administration and didn't change in the Bush administration. It is not a political 'got you' issue. It is a serious issue of how you could come to the conclusion that is not matched by the future.''


Actually, I don't mind him saying this. For one thing, it should enhance his credibility with fence-sitters who haven't been willing to believe that our lying liar of a pResident has been lying. Kay is trying to say what he found (nothing), rather than attacking Bush. Harder to marginalize than O'Neill was with his "blind man deaf people" quote.

And, if we can get anybody to pay attention, his mention of the Clinton view contradicts what Powell said in February 2001--that sanctions had worked, Saddam had no significant WMD's, and posed no threat to his neighbors.

We should recall that aWol claimed that the war was necessary because Saddam was in violation of any number of UN resolutions. Most of these hinged on WMD's; without the WMD's, it seems as though Saddam certainly wasn't violating as many resolutions (of course, the US-British aggressive war violates the UN CHARTER). And lets look back at why Congress, including candidates Kerry, Edwards and Lieberman, authorized aWol to go to war in the first place:

Whereas after the liberation of Kuwait in 1991, Iraq entered into a United Nations sponsored cease-fire agreement pursuant to which Iraq unequivocally agreed, among other things, to eliminate its nuclear, biological, and chemical weapons programs and the means to deliver and develop them, and to end its support for international terrorism;

Whereas the efforts of international weapons inspectors, United States intelligence agencies, and Iraqi defectors led to the discovery that Iraq had large stockpiles of chemical weapons and a large scale biological weapons program, and that Iraq had an advanced nuclear weapons development program that was much closer to producing a nuclear weapon than intelligence reporting had previously indicated;

Whereas Iraq , in direct and flagrant violation of the cease-fire, attempted to thwart the efforts of weapons inspectors to identify and destroy Iraq's weapons of mass destruction stockpiles and development capabilities, which finally resulted in the withdrawal of inspectors from Iraq on October 31, 1998;

Whereas in Public Law 105-235 (August 14, 1998), Congress concluded that Iraq's continuing weapons of mass destruction programs threatened vital United States interests and international peace and security, declared Iraq to be in `material and unacceptable breach of its international obligations' and urged the President `to take appropriate action, in accordance with the Constitution and relevant laws of the United States, to bring Iraq into compliance with its international obligations';

Whereas Iraq both poses a continuing threat to the national security of the United States and international peace and security in the Persian Gulf region and remains in material and unacceptable breach of its international obligations by, among other things, continuing to possess and develop a significant chemical and biological weapons capability, actively seeking a nuclear weapons capability, and supporting and harboring terrorist organizations;
-- from the Joint Resolution

I'd say their "Whereas's" are looking pretty bare-assed about now. And where'd they get those lies from? George W. Bush.

Impeach. Now.