Posted on 01/27/2004 5:24:28 AM PST by governsleastgovernsbest
If one reasonably fair-and-balanced Today Show interview is a fluke, could two be a trend?
Back on January 15th, I reported on Katie Couric's interview with Ted Kennedy in which she had been remarkably tough on the senior splasher from Massachusetts regarding his speech on Iraq.
This morning, it was Matt Lauer's turn to offer, dare I say it, a thoroughly fair performance in his interview of former chief US weapons inspector in Iraq David Kay.
From a national security and political perspective, what was much more important than the tone of Lauer's questions was the substance of Kay's remarks. Democrats looking to exploit Kay's earlier remarks to accuse the Bush administration of misleading the American people will come away from this interview bitterly disappointed, their arguments in tatters.
For on every issue down the line, Kay forcefully made the case that the Bush administration acted in good faith, that Saddam was indeed a threat, and that war against him was absolutely justified.
Began Lauer: "Some people have relied on your earlier statement to say that the US misled the American people into war on the basis of a claim that Saddam had WMDs. Do you think the US misled the American people?"
Kay: "It wasn't only the US who came to that conclusion. The French, Germans, and UN all thought Saddam had WMDs."
Lauer: "If you didn't find WMDs, does that mean they never existed, or could they have been moved prior to war?"
Kay: "We looked at that possiblity but we didn't find evidence that there were large stockpiles prior to the war."
Lauer than ran a clip from Pres. Bush's State of the Union Address from one year ago, in which he stated that Saddam had been employing huge resources to develop WMDs and had built up a large stockpile.
Lauer: "Was that inaccurate?"
Kay: "It was inaccurate in terms of the reality we found on the ground now, but it was accurate in terms of the intelligence at the time.
"It was also accurate in the sense that Saddam did spend large sums of money trying to get WMDs but he simply didn't get what he paid for.
"There was lots of corruption in the Iraq WMD development program."
Lauer: "So scientists lied to Saddam, they told him they could develop WMDs, took huge sums of money and didn't deliver?"
Kay: "Right. There was widespread corruption, lots of money wasted. People were concerned about the money, not about working."
Lauer: "But the intent to develop WMDs was there?"
Kay: "Absolutely, Saddam surely wanted to get WMDs and spent a lot of money trying to do so."
Lauer then showed a clip from Colin Powell at the UN saying Saddam had at least 500 tons of WMDs. Again, Kay explained that Powell was not being intentionally misleading and that his statement was based on the best intelligence available at the time.
Added Kay, responding to what some of the Dems are alleging: "To say there must have been pressure from the White House on the intelligence community is wrong. We've also been wrong about Iran and Libya. We clearly need better intelligence."
Lauer then quoted from Kay's earlier interview with Tom Brokaw in which Kay had said that "if anyone was abused (by faulty intelligence) it was the President of the US rather than the other way around."
Kay confirmed the accuracy of that remark.
Lauer: "Is it true that in 2000 and 2001 Saddam was pushing his nuclear progarm?"
Kay: "Yes, he was pushing hard for nuclear and long range missiles. Look, it's clear the man had the intent. He simply wasn't successful."
"He clearly lied to UN and was in material brach."
In a key moment in the interview, Lauer asked: "Based on everything you now know, was it prudent to go to war against Saddam?"
Kay: "It was absolutely prudent to go to war. The system was collapsing, Iraq was a country with desire to develop WMDs, and it was attracting terrorists like flies to honey."
Lauer: "Are your earlier comments being exploited for political reasons?"
"Inevitably yes, but what we have is a national security issue that shouldn't be exploited as a political issue."
Lauer: "Should we continue to search for WMDs as VP Cheney has suggested?
Kay: "Absolutely."
Come on....Iraq is the size of Californina. IMHO, it's still too soon to make a conclusive decision.
Yeah, what Saddam had left could be hidden in a few tractor trailer loads. There's a lot of sand in Iraq to hide in. Some in-the-know Saddamite has to come forward and give it up - totally doubtful.
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????? If there were no weapons there, there isn't really a national security risk now is there? So your argument of national security sort of falls flat on its face
BTW, where do you think WMD come from, if not WMD programs?
Do I know? Do I care? If he wasn't producing them, which Kay now admits, they could have come from previous production or nations friendly to Iraq at a time before the Gulf War. Now I'm not sure we want to start delving into that now do we?
Actually, Kay does NOT admit that Saddam was not producing weapons of mass destruction. Remember those sacks of mislabeled castor beans? I'm sure you do since you insisted that they were harmless.
Kay said that Iraq was working on producing ricin RIGHT UP UNTIL THE END.
And for you to pretend that you aren't aware that WMD programs lead to WMD is -- well, no one is that foolish.
Oh, and yes, there was, according to Kay -- even more of a risk than we thought before going in.
Given your posting history, I'm sure you'll conveniently ignore what Kay actually said and stick to repeating selective soundbites taken out of context.
Oh, and yes, there was, according to Kay -- even more of a risk than we thought before going in.
Given your posting history, I'm sure you'll conveniently ignore what Kay actually said and stick to repeating selective soundbites taken out of context.
I don't think they existed.
I think there were stockpiles at the end of the first Gulf War and those were a combination of U.N. inspectors and unilateral Iraqi action got rid of them. I think the best evidence is that they did not resume large-scale production, and that's what we're really talking about, is large stockpiles, not the small. Large stockpiles of chemical and biological weapons in the period after '95.
"thoroughly fair" ? Lauer was thoroughly fair only because Kay left no room for subtle innuendo. It was as if Kay came out swinging today because his first interview was so politically twisted by hopeful democrats and media.
I watched another great (and surprising) voice last night in protecting Bush from Democrat crazed blame. You're not going to believe it. The very liberal republican Peter King was soooooo articulate and specific in defending the motives of the administration, and he had to fight both the lefty that was on, and Scarborough, who kept interrupting him. But King was determined, and he finished his thoughts. (Scarborough is such an amateur at this.)
I missed TODAY this morning, but MSNBC has been replaying snippets all day long. The record is now clear, Kay has made it so. But.... Let's not hold our collective breaths waiting for the media to challenge democrats who are deceptively calling for Bush's head on a platter.
Oh and another bonus from this afternoon: President Bush and the head of Polish government took questions today in the White House. The guy told reporters Hans Blix had visited with him before the war and told him there was no doubt Saddam had WMD or the capability of getting them. (Love bitchslapping Blix!)
And he's a Clinton hold-over, which rattles my chain that Bush is still defending him, but he surely did today when taking questions with the Polish president. President Bush congratulated Kay, the work of the team, and he had praise for Tenet and the intelligence community.
Loyalty is a good thing, but there's no doubt in my mind, Tenet's version wouldn't be a two way street. Maybe Bush's loyalty to Tenet goes back to Dad's CIA. Oh don't get me wrong, I think the intelligence on WMDs came from everywhere, including the UN, and Tenet doesn't deserve to be tarred and feathered, but maybe he does need to just move on. He's not helping Bush at this point.
The real explanation: The Clintons et al put out the word that Bush better win in 04' so Hitlery can coast in 08'. Having a RAT win the presidency in 04' precludes Hillary from running in 08' In 2012, she'll be even more butt ugly than she is now.
washington post.com
Text of Reuters Interview with David Kay
Friday, January 23, 2004; 5:13 PM
The following are excerpts of a telephone interview conducted with David Kay, after he stepped down Friday as the chief U.S. arms hunter in Iraq:
Q: Why did you decide to step down?
A: "It was, as usually it is in these cases, a complex set of issues, it related in part to a reduction in the resource and a change in focus of ISG (Iraq Survey Group). When I had started out, I had made it a condition that ISG be exclusively focused on WMD. That's no longer so. The reduction of resources. And the reason those were important is, and at least to me they were important, is I didn't feel that we could complete the task as quickly as I thought it important to complete the task, unless we exclusively focused ISG.
Q. You're talking about that they were asking some of the analysts to do the insurgency work, right?
A. Yes.
Q: Is it true that one of the reasons you wanted to step down was because you don't believe that anything will be found, is that true?
A: "No. No, that wasn't the reason. In fact, the reason I thought it important to complete everything is that ... by the time we get to June ... we're not going to find much after June. Once the Iraqis take complete control of the government it is just almost impossible to operate in the way that we operate. In fact it was already becoming tough. We had an important ministry that would not allow its people to be interviewed unless they had someone present. It was like the old regime.
"I think we have found probably 85 percent of what we're going to find.
"The country is such and he hid so much that you can probably spend the next decade of your life in the country, and you will find things, but I think in terms of understanding that program, we're well on the way, almost at the end, so that you can say what went wrong, what they had."
Q: What happened to the stockpiles of biological and chemical weapons that everyone expected to be there?
A: "I don't think they existed.
"I think there were stockpiles at the end of the first Gulf War and those were a combination of U.N. inspectors and unilateral Iraqi action got rid of them. I think the best evidence is that they did not resume large-scale production, and that's what we're really talking about, is large stockpiles, not the small. Large stockpiles of chemical and biological weapons in the period after '95."
Q. After '95?
A. "We're really talking about from the mid-90s, when people thought they had resumed production."
Q. What about the nuclear program?
A. "The nuclear program was as we said in the interim report, I think that will be a final conclusion. There had been some restart of activities, but they were rudimentary.
"It really wasn't dormant because there were a few little things going on, but it had not resumed in anything meaningful."
Q: You came away from the hunt that you have done believing that they did not have any large stockpiles of chemical and biological weapons in the country?
A: "That is correct."
Q. Is that from the interviews and documentation?
A. "Well the interviews, the documentation, and the physical evidence of looking at, as hard as it was because they were dealing with looted sites, but you just could not find any physical evidence that supported a larger program."
Q: Do you think they destroyed it?
A: "No, I don't think they existed."
Q. Even though in the mid-1980s people said they used it on Halabja?
A. "They had stockpiles, they fought the Iranians with it, and they certainly did use it on the Kurds. But what everyone was talking about is stockpiles produced after the end of the last (1991) Gulf War and I don't think there was a large-scale production program in the '90s."
Q: What are you going to do now?
A: "I'm going back to the private sector. I know that. But I haven't done anything. I said I wouldn't do that until I left."
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