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« The Truth Deficit | Main | On to Syria? » January 26, 2004What David Kay SaidThe media is going nutso over David Kay's latest statements on the hunt for Iraq's weapons of mass destruction. As I see it, Kay said three important things. 1. It now appears that Saddam Hussein's regime did not have large stockpiles of WMD before the war. 2. We must examine why our intelligence services (and indeed most of the world's intelligence services) believed he did retain significant WMD. 3. There is evidence some of Iraq's illegal weapons were shipped to Syria before the war. The press, the Bush-haters and the Democrats running for president are focusing on the first, barely mentioning the other two. Here are some things to consider. 1. Saddam failed to comply with numerous UN resolutions regarding WMD. He acted as if he had the weapons, and as if he refused to willingly disarm. 2. The intel on WMD that the Bush administration used to justify the war was, largely, identical to intel on which the previous administration used to justify its policies and actions toward Iraq. Indeed, former President Clinton said two weeks ago in Portugal that he believed Saddam retained WMD right up to the start of the war. 3. Kay is not the only expert to believe Saddam may have sent WMD to Syria in advance of the invasion. 4. Kay's survey team found ample evidence of ongoing WMD programs - the existence of which alone justified military enforcement of UN Res. 1441. The WMD issue illustrates a couple of things. 1. Our intelligence services need a thorough overhaul. 2. The Democrats who demanded Bush go to the UN before confronting Iraq were wrong to do so. The first is, I think, self-evident. As for the later, remember, it was the Democrats in Congress who demanded Bush take his case to the United Nations to gain international approval. It was the Democrats in Congress who refused to give the president the authority to act in the interest of U.S. national security without first going to the UN. So, for a year, the Bush administration sought to convince the UN- more accurately, the French and Russians because of their veto power on the UN Security Council. For a year, Saddam had time to hide his weapons or ship them to Syria - if they existed and Saddam wasn't just being lied to by Iraqi WMD scientists and bureaucrats too scared to tell their maniac ruler that they hadn't carried out his orders to build more weapons of mass destruction. Going to the United Nations also narrowed the focus of the debate over Iraq. Before Congressional Democrats demanded Bush go to the U.N., Iraq's WMD were only a part of the reasoning given for confronting Iraq. But as WMD was the central focus of the UN's resolutions regarding Iraq, so going to the UN meant focusing on the WMD issue almost to the complete exclusion of all others. That was a mistake. After 9/11 there was a good and solid reason to topple Saddam that had little or nothing to do with ending his WMD program, disarming him, or even ensuring he didn't provide WMD to terrorists to use against America. After 9/11, it was clear that decades of American policy that aimed for "stability" in the Middle East had produced a region that was a breeding ground for terrorists. After 9/11 it was clear that merely topping the Taliban and smashing al Qaeda's training camps would not significantly change the region nor significantly enhance our security. Only by reversing the political direction of the Middle East away from dictatorship, oppression, religious wacko fundamentalism and kleptocracy - and toward more political and economic freedom, prosperity and religious tolerance - would we have a chance of fostering a new Middle East that would be America's friend rather than an endless source of suicide bombers. Regardless of the WMD issue, that hasn't changed. Iran, with its theocratic fascist mullahs seeking nukes and backing Hezbollah, must be changed. Ba'athist Syria, which harbors Hezbollah terrorists and may have secreted Saddam's weapons, must be changed. Saudi Arabia and Pakistan, two allies in the War on Terror, must undergo broad democratic and economic reforms, so that their large, youthful and underemployed populations do not find al Qaeda or its successor alluring. Having forced Bush to go to the UN - even though it gave President Clinton a pass when he deliberately avoided the UN in the decision to intervene in the Balkans - Congressional Democrats narrowed the focus to Iraq's WMD. Now they complain the war was not justified because, it seems, Iraq had little or no WMD. They may be right about Iraq's WMD, but they are wrong about need to go to war. The war in Iraq was not supposed to be about WMD. It was supposed to be about dealing Islamofascist terrorism an ideological death blow by changing the face of the Middle East the way the U.S. changed the face of Nazi Germany and the Empire of Japan. The way to defeat Islamofascist terror is to defeat it ideologically - not by treating it as a global crime wave, nor by treating it as a localized problem that can be solved by lancing a boil called Afghanistan and draining it of the Taliban and al Qaeda. Defeating Islamofascist terror means draining the entire Middle Eastern swamp in which it breeds and fertilizing the dirt with the seeds of freedom and prosperity. Even if Saddam did not have WMD, it was in our national security interest to get rid of him. The debate about WMD is and has always been beside the point. UPDATE: Justin Katz found something very interesting in what David Kay said. UPDATE: Don't miss Paul Miller's analysis and commentary, which I found via Instapundit. Posted in Weapons of Mass Destruction
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Whew! My head is spinning! Translation: "Keep the NeoConservative agenda on track." Posted by: SemiPundit at January 26, 2004 02:11 PMP.S.--Do you mean Weapons of Mass Destruction (Related)(Program)(Activities)(fill in as needed here)? Of course the opposition is all over this. What would you expect? Posted by: SemiPundit at January 26, 2004 02:13 PMSemi, if you think the war was only justified if we found a warehouse full of WMD, you haven't read the applicable UN resolutions. Programs designed to produce WMD were also banned. The existence of such was legal justification for resuming the Gulf War. Posted by: Bill at January 26, 2004 02:27 PMkay indicated that the administration ignored new intelligence from the un and paid attention only to the reports that would support its stand. if the intelligence that the president is using to justify a preemptive strike against iraq and write off the un and the rest of the world coming from intelligence gathered from a former administration? then you are right, there should be an overhaul in our intelligence agencies. also there was no mention of "related programs" when trying to justify the war to the american public. I’m not one for spinning. I just want to know what happened to the three (or four) SCUD launchers and the 19 SCUD missiles Saddam had. We’ve found no trace of them. Are they in Syria or in a valley in Lebanon known for wine-making… among other things. Posted by: The Kid at January 26, 2004 03:15 PMMr. White, go back and read the President's speeches -- there was ample mention of weapons programs not just weapons, and ample reference to UN resolutions that Saddam was flicking a finger at, which are full of demands that he not engage in programs. And for good reason, a good enough reason to go war over, in fact. Posted by: Howard Owens at January 26, 2004 03:23 PM"ignored new intelligence from the un" When did the UN get an intelligence agency? Posted by: Porphyrogenitus at January 26, 2004 04:49 PMTruly weak arguments here on every level. From what the interim Kay report said (it did not say that it found evidence of programs; it said that it found suggestions) to the argument for the war (who cares what you think the basis for the war was? what the bush administration claimed as the basis for the war was that we couldn't trust saddam not to provide wmds to others to use against us) to the deranged notion that confronting islamic fundamentalist terrorism (calling it islamofascism just shows how jejune your arguments are: fascism is a disease of modernity, and islamnic fundamentalist terrorists hate modernity) is an ideological struggle when you are calling for military means to the continued demonstration of how desperate bush-enablers are to cherrypick anything (kay's empty remarks about syria), this posting is an example of why the right can't be trusted to discuss the problems of terrorism in a mature way. Posted by: howard at January 26, 2004 05:42 PMhoward wrote: howard, i'm curious, when exactly was it that the bush adminstration claimed the above as the justification for the war ? for starters, you may wish to review the president's 10/7/02 speech a re-read of the kay report may also be a good idea after taking a look at UN resolution numbers 687 (1991), 949 (1994), 1137 (1997), 1284 (1999), 1409 (2002) and of course 1441... ( summaries ) ken pollack's take on the prevailing intelligence in his book threatening storm is also worthy of your time... Posted by: rob westcott at January 26, 2004 08:01 PMActually howard, you are doing the cherry picking. Which proves once again that the worst liars I've met have always been leftist idealogues. From the Kay interview (I purchased a copy of the transcript) Mr. DAVID KAY (Former UN Weapons Inspector in Iraq): Well, I think what we reported in October and what the president actually cited in the State of the Union address are the most important things we found. We found that the Iraqi government, particularly Saddam Hussein and his senior leadership, had an intention to continue to pursue their WMD activities; that they, in fact, had a large number of WMD program-related activities. Now it's also important what we have not found. We have not yet found actual weapons and certainly not large stockpiles of weapons. So there was a WMD program. It was going ahead. It was rudimentary in many areas--for example, the nuclear area. But it continued without, though, actual stockpiles of weapons.Keep dreaming, howard, the vast majority of the American people will come to believe that you'd sacrifice another 3000 citizens on the altar of party loyalty if you keep talking that way. Posted by: Sparkey at January 26, 2004 08:28 PM Anyone remember, during the early days of the war, seeing news video of an Iraqi bunker filled with crate upon crate of brand new light arms, chemical suits and gasmasks discovered by US troops? Is it reasonable to assume the Iraqi military thought coalition forces intended to use chemical or biological weapons in the assault on Baghdad? If not, why the cache of suits and masks? Posted by: netwing at January 27, 2004 03:57 AMNetwing asks: Why the cache of suits and masks? Given that Saddam had a recent history of using chemical weapons in battle, and the Americans do not, it is not likely the primary reason for Iraqi troops to have the protective suits and masks was that the Iraqi military hierarchy thought the American military would use such weapons. More likel;y: Senior Iraqi commanders had been ordered to use chemical or biological weapons against coalition troops, so they distributed the suits and masks to their troops in preparation for doing so. But then they discovered they had no chemical weapons to fire against us - Saddam had been blustering about using such weapons, and pretending to still have them, and fooling the world, for years. It's reasonable to believe that, given the presence of the suits and masks, at least some in the Iraqi military thought they had a cache of chemical or biological weapons to use against the Americans. Perhaps, once they realized that their feared leader's stockpile of WMD was a mirage, they knew they had no way to stop the Americans and that's why they and the troops fled. Posted by: Bill at January 27, 2004 06:17 AMExcellent post Bill. And in further support of the point that Iraq had banned programs and materials, one must remember the pattern of deception and obfuscation they showed with required documents (three "full & final" disclosures in 1995 alone), their increasing belligerence at surprise inspections in 97-98 until finally kicking the inspectors out, etc. Why would they do all this unless they had a lot to lose? Just to save face? Not likely; they were under strict UN sanctions that hurt them badly. Hussein desperately wanted to lift the sanctions, and so embarked on a dual-use program that could easily be disguised as pesticide production, etc. Easier to hide. Nuclear technology was and is available on the world black market, as we have seen lately, and so there was no urgent need to develop their own. They were attempting to buy long range missiles from NK for outfitting with purchased nuclear warheads (if I remember right). Again, easier to hide. As Belmont Club says, the failure to find WMD in Iraq is a worst case scenario, no matter what your political persuasion. When you discover that you have dug yourself into a hole, the first thing to do is to stop digging. This is like watching a kitten getting tangled up in knitting yarn. Posted by: SemiPundit at January 27, 2004 09:35 AMHoward wrote: "calling it islamofascism just shows how jejune your arguments are: fascism is a disease of modernity, and islamnic fundamentalist terrorists hate modernity." Actually there is an interesting hypothesis of how a modern European mindset like fascism made its way into the Islamic world over the past several decades. I recommend reading Paul Berman's recent book, _Terror and Liberalism_, for the details. Berman is a respected left-leaning intellectual, and he uses "liberalism" as a synonym for "a free society under the rule of law." So don't let the title scare you. Semipundit: If you've studied the Middle East for any length of time, you should know that there's certainly more to the story--any story--than what gets into the news at first. This is far from over. I decided early on to give the U.S. inspectors one-tenth as much time as the U.N. inspectors got. That clocks out to around June of this year, starting from the end of the major combat. Let's keep looking and learning, shall we? I'll second Sanity Inspector's notion that this story is far from over. Semi- “like watching a kitten getting tangled up in knitting yarn.” Really? Not as much fun as watching pantomime Rumplestiltskins pretending the past dozen years of Iraqi surprises and shenanigans – including discovery after the first Gulf War of a nuclear program far more advanced than had been thought – are of no relevance to the decisions we face.
I don't understand the socialist take on the Kay statements. They do not refute what the President has said. They in fact strengthen the arguement that toppling Saddam was the right thing to do. Do the democrats/socialists want the US to collapse? It sure seems that way. And the sad part is that it is all to gain a temporary political advantage as opposed to ensuring the long term health and stability of the Mideast. Posted by: Matt S at January 27, 2004 03:53 PMJust surfed in this place. But I must say, it’s really informal and a great pleasure to read through. See you again sometime. Posted by: danny at July 7, 2004 03:45 AM
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