David Kay.........No WMD!

[Gimpy]

2004 Creators Syndicate
Iraq Illicit Arms Gone Before War, Departing Inspector States
By RICHARD W. STEVENSON


WASHINGTON, Jan. 23 ? David Kay, who led the American effort to find banned weapons in Iraq, said Friday after stepping down from his post that he has concluded that Iraq had no stockpiles of chemical and biological weapons at the start of the war last year.

In an interview with Reuters, Dr. Kay said he now thought that Iraq had illicit weapons at the end of the 1991 Persian Gulf war, but that the subsequent combination of United Nations inspections and Iraq's own decisions "got rid of them."

Asked directly if he was saying that Iraq did not have any large stockpiles of chemical and biological weapons in the country, Dr. Kay replied, according to a transcript of the taped interview made public by Reuters, "That is correct."

Dr. Kay did not respond to telephone calls and e-mail messages from The New York Times.

Dr. Kay's statements undermined one of the primary justifications set out by President Bush for the war with Iraq. Mr. Bush and other top administration officials repeatedly cited Iraq's possession of chemical and biological weapons as a threat to the United States , and the lack of evidence so far that Saddam Hussein actually had large caches of weapons has fueled criticism that Mr. Bush exaggerated the peril from Iraq.

Scott McClellan, the White House spokesman, said the administration stood by its previous assessments that Mr. Hussein had both weapons programs and stores of banned weapons.

"Yes, we believe he had them, and yes we believe they will be found," Mr. McClellan said. "We believe the truth will come out."
With Dr. Kay's departure, the administration on Friday handed over the weapons search to Charles A. Duelfer, a former United Nations weapons inspector who has expressed skepticism that the United States and its allies would find any banned chemicals or biological agents.

Dr. Kay's comments and the appointment of Mr. Duelfer, made by George J. Tenet, the director of central intelligence, appeared to be a turning point in the administration's defense of its assertions that Mr. Hussein had amassed large stores of illicit weapons that he could use or turn over to terrorists for use against the United States or other nations.

The assessment Dr. Kay provided to Reuters on Friday was far more conclusive about Iraq's weapons programs than the report he delivered to the White House and Congress in October. At that time, he said he and his team "have not yet found stocks of weapons, but we are not yet at the point where we can say definitively either that such weapon stocks do not exist or that they existed before the war and our only task is to find where they have gone."

But he also reported in October that his team had uncovered evidence of "dozens of W.M.D.-related program activities and significant amounts of equipment that Iraq concealed from the United Nations during the inspections that began in late 2002."
Although the White House stood by its statements last year that Mr. Hussein possessed stores of banned weapons, a position reiterated on Thursday by Vice President Dick Cheney, other administration officials said anonymously on Friday that the prospects that the search would turn up substantial caches of chemical or biological weapons were much diminished.

Dr. Kay told Reuters that one of the reasons he left was that the team he headed, the Iraq Survey Group, had been diverted to some degree for use in battling the insurgency in Iraq. That diversion, he said, left him short of the resources needed to complete the job by the end of June, when the United States plans to return sovereignty to the Iraqis.

He and his team were "not going to find much after June," he said. "I think we have found probably 95 percent of what we're going to find."

Democrats said Dr. Kay's statements raised serious questions about the administration's case for war and the quality of American intelligence. "It is increasingly clear that there has been a massive intelligence failure," Representative Jane Harman of California, the senior Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee, said in a statement. "The potential threat posed by Iraq's stockpiles of chemical and biological weapons and Iraq's nuclear weapons program was central to the case for war. In light of Dr. Kay's statement, the president owes the American public and the world an explanation."

Mr. McClellan said that the Defense Department had made decisions about providing money and people to the Iraq Survey Group, but that the group had been provided with additional support.

"We appreciate Dr. Kay's service and the ongoing work of the I.S.G.," Mr. McClellan said.

In choosing Mr. Duelfer to replace Dr. Kay, Mr. Tenet turned to an acknowledged expert in the field who has a reputation as a straight shooter. But the choice also highlighted divisions within the administration over the likelihood of finding banned weapons.

In an interview on Jan. 9 with PBS's "Newshour," Mr. Duelfer said that the prospect "of finding chemical weapons, biological weapons is close to nil at this point," and that the search by the United States had been more extensive than what the United Nations had been able to accomplish during the period that it was carrying out inspections in Iraq.

Mr. Duelfer, 51, served as deputy executive chairman of the United Nations Special Commission on Iraq, or Unscom, from 1993 to 2000. Before that he served in the State Department during the administration of the first Mr. Bush. He has most recently been a scholar at the Woodrow Wilson International Center, a research organization in Washington.

In a conference call with reporters on Friday after his appointment was formally announced, Mr. Duelfer said that his duty as an investigator was different from his role as an outside observer and that he had not prejudged the outcome of the search.

"My goal is to find out what happened," Mr. Duelfer said. "So I think you can understand that there would be a difference between someone who is handicapping the outcome of an investigation and one who is then in charge of the investigation."
Dr. Kay had said in October that it would take him another six to nine months to complete his work, suggesting that his final report could land in the middle of the presidential election campaign. Mr. Duelfer said he did not know how long it would take to complete his work.

The top administration officials who had been most vocal in accusing Iraq of building stockpiles of banned weapons, Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld and Mr. Cheney, have stood by their positions in recent weeks. Asked during an interview on Thursday with National Public Radio whether the administration had given up on finding banned weapons, Mr. Cheney replied, "No, we haven't."

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Just MORE evidence to support that this administration has lied and deceived the American public to further their agenda and put our troops in harms way for a LIE!

[travisab1]

Gimpy;
How do these people constantly keep getting by without serving no jail time/prison for the ultra crimes they do? I'm still waiting to see Slick Willie pay for his crimes.

They keep kicking us in the face and they keep on keepin' on. WHY. How do they get away? Are these people really above the law? Look at Senator Kennedy. He's still out there kicking us in the face and laughing about it. Sheesh, When is it going to stop. When are these people going to pay? After they are dead and in the grave for years? When?

Regards,
Travis

[HARDCORE]

GIMPY MY FRIEND -

Asked directly if he was saying that Iraq did not have any large stockpiles of chemical and biological weapons in the country, Dr. Kay replied, according to a transcript of the taped interview made public by Reuters, "That is correct."

Granted, and unlike the political rhetoric that flowed forth from the hinterlands, no WMD was found in Iraqiville. However, I seriously doubt that Hussein destroyed these CBR assets!?

Some day, I feel that we will probably learn that he merely transfered banks, and relocated these weapons to a neighbor's back yard!?

VERITAS

[travisab1]

Gimpy;

This guy killed his own people with WMD.

Why should anybody think for a minute he destroyed all those weapons? He should have been put to sleep in 1991.

From Travis

Insane Hussein,
Here's what I think of you,

[MORTARDUDE]

Travis :

We gave him the WMD in the first place to fight the Iranians.....

Larry

[travisab1]

MORTARDUDE;

How true.
Our politicians concidered him one of the best politicians that ever lived. When you can outwit our politicians, you gotta be good. Thing is, he got to be too good!!!

Now, who's in the sight's of Israel, USA, the Brit's and so on with the BIGGUN'S?

I'll give a hint, it starts with Sy, Le, & Ir.

Travis

The big THREE;

[Gimpy]

again!

[1IDVET]

Saddam's WMD hidden in Syria, says Iraq survey chief
By Con Coughlin
(Filed: 25/01/2004)


David Kay, the former head of the coalition's hunt for Iraq's weapons of mass destruction, yesterday claimed that part of Saddam Hussein's secret weapons programme was hidden in Syria.

In an exclusive interview with The Telegraph, Dr Kay, who last week resigned as head of the Iraq Survey Group, said that he had uncovered evidence that unspecified materials had been moved to Syria shortly before last year's war to overthrow Saddam.

"We are not talking about a large stockpile of weapons," he said. "But we know from some of the interrogations of former Iraqi officials that a lot of material went to Syria before the war, including some components of Saddam's WMD programme. Precisely what went to Syria, and what has happened to it, is a major issue that needs to be resolved."

Dr Kay's comments will intensify pressure on President Bashar Assad to clarify the extent of his co-operation with Saddam's regime and details of Syria's WMD programme. Mr Assad has said that Syria was entitled to defend itself by acquiring its own biological and chemical weapons arsenal.

Syria was one of Iraq's main allies in the run-up to the war and hundreds of Iraqi officials - including members of Saddam's family - were given refuge in Damascus after the collapse of the Iraqi dictator's regime. Many of the foreign fighters responsible for conducting terrorist attacks against the coalition are believed to have entered Iraq through Syria.

A Syrian official last night said: "These allegations have been raised many times in the past by Israeli officials, which proves that they are false."

Telegraph

Oops! Another twist.

[Gimpy]

David Kay said, and I quote ""We are not talking about a large stockpile of weapons, " he said. "But we know from some of the interrogations of former Iraqi officials that a lot of material went to Syria before the war, including some components of Saddam's WMD programme. Precisely what went to Syria, and what has happened to it, is a major issue that needs to be resolved."


I'll venture a supposition it probably was a couple of cans of RAID and about five pounds of FIRE ANT PELLETS! :cd:

[Jake]

Well...I dunno...but it seems to me that if the Iraqis could bury 23 fully functional MIGs in the sand and have them only be found by a fluke of luck, it really shouldn't be that difficult to bury barrels of chemicals...missiles...whatever you want.

I guess it comes from years of seeing news reports and having spent time in the Middle East where Saddam's regime was held in "such high esteem" that I may be skeptical of the claims of Iraqis (who might actually like to have those WMDs they don't have once the US leaves) when they say they're just poor, innocent victims of American aggression.

Think about it, guys. If the US was attacked and forced into submission, would YOU allow your weapons to be confiscated, or would you do what we have been taught to do since day one of basic training? Fight and resist...never surrender. If we feel that way about our country, then you have to allow that another soldier might just feel that way about HIS.

Jake