Hi all; American officials in Baghdad in "near panic" according to David Kay, along with more quotes about those WMDs:
Ex-Inspector Says C.I.A. Missed Disarray in Iraqi Arms Program
James Risen, NY Times, January 26, 2004
...
"I'm personally convinced that there were not large stockpiles of newly produced weapons of mass destruction," Dr. Kay said. "We don't find the people, the documents or the physical plants that you would expect to find if the production was going on.
"I think they gradually reduced stockpiles throughout the 1990's. Somewhere in the mid-1990's, the large chemical overhang of existing stockpiles was eliminated."
...
When American troops found that Iraqi troops had stored defensive chemical-weapons suits and antidotes, Washington assumed the Iraqi military was poised to use chemicals against American forces. But interviews with Iraqi military officers and others have shown that the Iraqis kept the gear because they feared Israel would join an American-led invasion and use chemical weapons against them.
...
Dr. Kay said there was also no conclusive evidence that Iraq had moved any unconventional weapons to Syria, as some Bush administration officials have suggested. He said there had been persistent reports from Iraqis saying they or someone they knew had see cargo being moved across the border, but there is no proof that such movements involved weapons materials.
...
Dr. Kay said the decision to shift resources away from the weapons hunt came at a time of "near panic" among American officials in Baghdad because of rising casualties caused by bombings and ambushes of American troops.
He added that the decision ran counter to written assurances he had been given when he took the job, and that the shift in resources had severely hampered the weapons hunt.
He said that there is only a limited amount of time left to conduct a thorough search before a new Iraqi government takes over in the summer, and that there are already signs of resistance to the work by Iraqi government officials.
nytimes.com
-- Carl
P.S. It should be noted that David Kay was hand picked by the Bush administration, and that his views are tilted in their favor. He was one of Bush's own, but for telling just a little bit of the truth, how long before the Bush administration calls him a traitor?
And by the way, does anyone really think that people who are in "near panic" are winning a war? And when is one of the cowards on this thread going to take me up on my challenge to tell me how long before this war begins to trend in our favor and name the month when US casualties dip below the levels of the months after Bush declared victory last May? It ain't gonna be January. Anyone out there think February is going to see Iraq pacified?
Word is now that we've got 3 missing in action in enemy territory. What kind of noise is that going to generate? Is that the kind of news the administration needs in order to convince the American public that progress is being made in Iraq? Is that the kind of news that will convince the Iraqi resistance that their cause is hopeless? |
