So Where's the WMD?

Opinion Journal ^ | 01/28/04 | editors

[Pokey78]

Anti-Bush partisans aren't listening to what David Kay is saying.

Iraq weapons inspector David Kay speaks to the Senate today, and our (probably forlorn) hope is that his remarks will get wide and detailed coverage. What we've been hearing from him in snippets so far explains the mystery of whatever happened to Saddam Hussein's weapons of mass destruction.

[COEXERJ145]

I think more libs are hearing it then it appears. Another website that I am a member of has forums that are like clones of DU. So far, not one of the rabid Bush haters or the large collection of U.S. hating Eurotrash has said a word about Kay's statements. Normally, anything bad about Bush is posted as fast as it would be at DU.

[chicagolady]

So Where's the WMD?

In Syria where else??

[TheLibrarian]

John Kerry of all people now claims that, because Mr. Kay's Iraq Study Group has not found stockpiles of WMD or a mature nuclear program, President Bush somehow "misled" the country

Sounds very close to George Romney's campaign-killer, "I was brainwashed."

[Cosmo]

A fine article to juxtapose with tomorrow morning's NYT editorial

[Congressman Billybob]

Again, it is worthwhile to crack a history book. Was Hitler dangerous before he invaded Poland and started World War II? All he had then was "conventional weapons." Not a "weapon of mass distruction" in sight.

Of course, after the war began he developed V-2 rockets, a prototype of jet planes, and was working on the atomic bomb. And it was Hitler's intent to seek an atomic bomb that led Einstein and others to write their famous letter to FDR which led to the Manhattan Project.

Should the world have waited until Hitler DID have confirmable WMDs before acting against him? If so, what level of proof would have been sufficient for the doubters? The murder of half of the citizens of London? The murder of all of them?

I know that most of the Democrat candidates and most of their voters would flee in terror from a history book. Facts are just a record of right-wing conspiracies of the past, don't you know. But isn't there just a single, lame-stream media reporter who can find the history section in the nearest library and wants to get a scoop?

If that one reporter is lurking here, he/she should look under "Third Reich," and then under "technological development." Nobody else in the press has the story. It's the scoop of a lifetime.

Congressman Billybob

Click here, then click the blue CFR button, to join the anti-CFR effort (or visit the "Hugh & Series, Critical & Pulled by JimRob" thread).

[o_zarkman44]

makes me wonder how credible the orange terror alerts really are. if intelligence is that far off that it completely missed its marks in Iraq, how accurate is it in American homeland security? Let us pray the intelligence is being accurately portrayed. Tenet should resign. Intelligence should not have a large margin of error substantiated with speculation.

[COEXERJ145]

As I said in another thread, we found the WMD's. The main one was hiding in a hole in the ground. His two biological weapons were shot to bits months earlier.

[lucidloony]

I see WMD everywhere. Wimpy Metrosexual Democrats

[The Raven]

Remember what the Dems were telling us during the cold war.....that the Soviets were nice people and it was all our fault.

[FreedomPoster]

>>I think more libs are hearing it then it appears.

I hope you're right. The Neo-Libs on a neutral forum I'm on, were whining incessantly about Kay's recent statements, quoting from the MSNBC piece, which of course was pretty slanted, and which of course they were interpreting in a pretty slanted manner. The Today Show Kay interview quotes didn't even begin to shut them up, they are easily able to ignore facts that don't support their position.

[Monty22]

Yep, our intelligence services plain suck. Simple as that. 9/11 broadsided us without a clue. And now we get lots of possible false alarms (though I think the new years ones were probably real).

We need to clean house fast.

[OESY]

But Mr. Kay's Study Group has also discovered plenty to suggest that Saddam couldn't come clean because he knew he wasn't. In his interim report last year, Mr. Kay disclosed a previously unknown Iraq program for long-range missiles; this was a direct violation of U.N. resolutions....

By all means let Congress explore why the CIA overestimated Saddam's WMD stockpiles this time around. But let's do so while recalling that the CIA had underestimated the progress of his nuclear, chemical and biological programs before the first Gulf War. We are also now learning that the CIA has long underestimated the extent and progress of nuclear programs in both Libya and Iran. Why aren't Democrats and liberals just as alarmed about those intelligence failures?

Intelligence is as much art and judgment as it is science, and it is inherently uncertain. We elect Presidents and legislators to consider the evidence and then make difficult policy judgments that the voters can later hold them responsible for. Mr. Kay told National Public Radio that, based on the evidence he has seen from Iraq, "I think it was reasonable to reach the conclusion that Iraq posed an imminent threat." He added that "I must say I actually think what we learned during the inspection made Iraq a more dangerous place potentially, than in fact we thought it was even before the war."

This may be too complex for most Dems to grasp. Even the Dem candidates acquired their epithet "naive" the old fashioned way; they earned it.

[HenryLeeII]

If GOP'ers were as dishonest as the Dems and their media psychophants these would be the headlines:

KERRY MISLED COUNTRY INTO WAR!
Cited Hussein's possession of WMD as reason for war vote

KERRY LIED!
Alleged WMD stockpiles not found despite senator's assurances

[HenryLeeII]

Our intelligence programs are good given what they're designed to do and the restrictions placed on them. Before 9/11 the CIA and domestic organizations were barely allowed to communicate; our Intelligence Community was budget-gutted over the past decade; satellite photos of suspected WMD facilities can't be verified without HUMINT; NSA can't use the millions of pieces of information they receive everyday without the proper tools, personnel, and Arab-language experts; the CIA can't infiltrate al-Qaeda and other terrorist organizations without mingling with not-so-nice people once in a while; young Arab males in the U.S. on phony or expired visas can't be watched or investigated without hysterical shrieks of "racial profiling" being raised; little old ladies must be cavity-searched in our airports while young Arab males are not in order to appease the PC fascists (post-9/11!!!).

Now, when you couple that with the successes we've had (preventing New Years 2000 attacks that were planned; uncovering terrorist cells in the U.S. near Buffalo and elsewhere; the capture of Khalid Sheik Mohammed; the prevention of numerous attacks that the public will never know about; etc.), our intell services have done a good job. Its our Oprahized public and the spineless Frank Church/Jimmy Carter-type politicians that need to be negated so that the IC can do its job. Freegards...

[HenryLeeII]

Remember what the Dems were telling us during the cold war.....that the Soviets were nice people and it was all our fault.

"Before, during, and after the Cold War" is what you meant to type, right? ;>)

[OESY]

[aikido7]

And remember, President Bush looked into Putin's eyes and pronounced his soul "good."