I found this op-ed in the Arizona Republic concerning the Kay lack of WMD issue. The author doesn't seem to have the background to make the claims he/she does.
People of sciences and reporters are supposed to be neutral as to the facts. Hence an op-ed writer's opinion is just that. An opinion. It may or may not have any relation to the facts. I'll illustrate some issues with the author's reasoning.
Without further blather:
Level with us
Come clean on Iraq intelligence flaws, Mr. President
If critics of the Iraq war, as well as President Bush himself, are to accept the conclusions of former chief weapons inspector David Kay, an honest appraisal dictates that neither side can be selective in what it chooses to see.
This is a logical fallacy perpetrated by David Kay, and many others. I do not believe that it was an intelligence failure as much as it was a failure of the the thought processes of those involved.
The true critical thinker would ask; "what do I actually know to be true?" The answer would be nothing. Deriving conclusions form old data is the hazard that the Bush Administration may have used to push for war. The other possibilities, and there is evidence to support this view, that Bush cherry-picked information to support a foregone conclusion. This is of course, an error in logic.
Critics of the war, have on their side, statements form high ranking administration officials stating the Iraq had no active weapons programs, and that ten years of sanctions had weakened their military substantially.
David Kay, and others, chose to believe in a fantasy. Whether by improperly reading of data, or for to suit a political agenda, their thinking was erroneous.
Unless you truly know something; I.E. you have irrefutable evidence to justify your beliefs, it must remain in the abstract.
Kay has not found large caches of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. But he has uncovered deep flaws in the U.S. intelligence-gathering capabilities, which led the world to conclude they would be found:
"We have to remember that this view of Iraq was held during the Clinton administration and didn't change in the Bush administration," Kay said on Wednesday on Capitol Hill. "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 (facts)."
Has David Kay uncovered deep flaws in the, "U.S. intelligence-gathering capabilities?" No one outside of the loop of the inner circle of intelligence community knows for certain. Greg Thielmann knew that items used by the President and the Administration used bad information for some reason. What that reason is, one can only speculate. So, at least some of the people involved in the U.S. intelligence community knew that the administration was using either bad information, and/or unproven information.
I agree, it is not a political 'got you' issue. It is a critical thinking, 'got you' issue. Many people, including Secretary Treasury Paul O'Neill are on record as stating that GW Bush was intent on Saddam Hussein's removal from power from essentially the day of his inauguration. I cannot accept such a claim without corroboration.
It is not yet known what role the Pentagon's Office of Special Plans had, if any in selective use of intelligence.
If the Bush Administration had already planned to invade Iraq prior to March 2003, then it is not an intelligence failure, it is a failure by the Bush Administration. They will have to concede at some point that they had a conclusion, and needed evidence to support it. This is a serious matter. If this was the case, then GW Bush should vacate the office of President.
What Clinton may have believed about Iraq is irrelevant. Clinton did not send an army to overthrow a sovereign nation. That rests squarely upon Mr. Bush's shoulders.
David Kay's arresertions about what the U.S. intelligences thought they knew, are not matched bt Mohammed el-Baradei, and Hans Blix. It is these two men that had the people on the ground in 2003, and could not find any evidence of ongoing weapons programs activities.
It is always the last evidence that you must parse. The White House did not allow these men to finish their work. When they reported to the UN, their findings should have been the last word in intelligence gathering.
The president's critics cannot choose to gloss over the undeniable fact that, working from the same intelligence data, previous administrations - governments around the world, in fact - arrived at precisely the same conclusions as did Bush regarding the threat posed by Saddam Hussein:
"(S)ome day, some way, I guarantee you, he'll use the arsenal," President Clinton said in 1998.
Quite simply, yes you can. Blix and el-Baradei's reports to the UN were the latest word in Iraqi weapons capabilities. Both of these men came to the conclusion that they had no evidence of ongoing weapons programs, and that sanctions and inspections had worked. The last information is the information you use.
I don't know what Clinton was thinking at the time. Not-critically is the answer. No sane person can guarantee that another will perform a given action. That's just absurd. I do not know what the author of the op-ed's motive were for adding that bit of red-herring, but it serves no purpose.
All that noted, however, Bush owes it to the American public to acknowledge the harsh reality of what Kay did not find.
The vast stores of unspeakable weapons Bush expected to find upon deposing Saddam just do not exist, according to Kay.
In the president's State of the Union address earlier this month, Bush referred to the Kay report thusly: "We are seeking all the facts. Already the Kay report identified dozens of weapons of mass destruction-related program activities."
Such phrases beg to be repeated sarcastically on Saturday Night Live's "news" segment.
What Bush needs to do, is explain what the OSP had to do, if anything with the handling of intelligence, why weren't the people who really knew about Iraq's WMD programs allowed a voice, and why we had to go to war.
There are dozens of pre-war statements that were refuted well in advance of the actual march to Baghdad. Why weren't these looked into?
Since Sept. 11, 2001, a large majority of the American people have trusted their president's judgment in pursuing the terrorists who would destroy us if they could. The Kay report should do nothing to diminish that trust.
Saddam was not the garden-variety thug that historical revisionists now suggest. He was the most murderous, most volatile powder keg in the most explosive region of the world.
But hair-splitting, reality-avoiding phrases such as "mass destruction-related program activities" certainly do threaten that trust.
This president doesn't deserve the American people's trust. From Cheney's Energy Policy to 9/11 to Plame, this Administration, like any other is not to be given the benefit of doubt.
Kay's report alone does nothing to cast further doubt on this administration, but neither should it give them anything remotely like cover for their actions. There seems to be much more than just erroneous intelligence interpretation -- if in fact that occurred -- that is ominous about the pre-war situation. Bush's assertion that war was a last resort is absurd. Inspectors were inside Iraq doing their jobs...Perhaps too well for the Bush Administration, and everything form plagiarised dossiers to WMD on the battlefield was all a fantasy.
Now of course there are dozens if not hundreds of statements that were made to move public sentiment toward war that had nothing to do with WMD that the Administration should also be held accountable for. These are chronicled on many websites, and in print. I needn't expound on them here.
If the president wishes to give credence to the politically motivated hysterics of the "Bush lied!" crowd, all he needs to do is to keep concocting phrases of such distressing ambiguity.
David Kay concluded that even Saddam Hussein believed he had weapons he did not possess.
Being wrong about the immediate capabilities of such an unstable tyrant does little to change the fact that Saddam had to go.
But if Bush wishes to maintain his nation's support for the ongoing regime change in Iraq, he needs to acknowledge that, in fact, the intelligence upon which he relied was flawed.
Ah yes, here we see the author's agenda. "Being wrong about the immediate capabilities of such an unstable tyrant does little to change the fact that Saddam had to go."
Sorry, but We didn't go to war and kill tens of thousands and have over 500 of our own killed because Saddam was a bad guy. We've known that for thirty years.
I'll never trust this Administration. They have either lied, or distorted on so many occasions that they do not warrant one iota of doubt beneficence.
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