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You need a sarcasm tag on that.

This whole exercise is beyond pointless. We already know how unreliable the CIA is (quite so) and we know why: We've gutted human intel since the 1970s, and liberals like John Kerry and Clinton state dept appointee weenies have influenced our foreign policy apparatus to be incapable of realism in our estimates and approach; even today, the CIA is mainly trying to undermine rather than support the Iraq effort in a massive CYA campaign.

While we fret our brows over the CIA overestimating WMD capabilities, we ignore the more serious problem of our all-too-common underestimations: Libya 2003; Iran 2003; North Korea's scamming the U.S. since 1994 with nuclear programs that broke pledges they made; and Iraq's nuclear capabilities in 1991 and their bioweapons such as anthrax in 1995, which were hidden from the UN for 4 years of inspections.

What the investigation will find, I suspect beyond the insitutional flaws of the CIA, is that a country that has programs and projects in chemical, biological and nuclear weapons, and which at points in time had stockpiles of such weapons - anthrax, VX, sarin, etc., and which engages on an ONGOING basis to continue programs (which Kay has proved), would be reasonably expected to have such stockpiles. Reasonable inferences were drawn. It's like finding a burglar's lair; you'd expect to find not just the plans to burgle homes, and the projects and tools, but some of the loot. No loot was found. Was it never there? Nope. Still hidden? Possibly, but Kay plausibly makes the case that more likely materials were secretly destroyed to maintain a position of "strategic ambiguity" where Iraq could get away from sanctions but still threaten neighbors and internal groups (Kurds) with the possibility of the weapons.

So the unreliability of intel is not really the issue at all. It was the deliberate campaign of Saddam to play 'poker' with the UN and the West. He didnt count on Bush.

David Kay if nothing else has made clear that Iraq was in clear and multiple violations of 1441, in missile and bioweapons development and in other areas. He makes clear that the invasion was not only justified but was the only way they would have gotten to the truth; during inspections, Iraqi scientists continue to withhold what they knew from inspectors. Inspections didnt work. Invasion and liberation did work.

So although the anti-war crowd will want to use to undermine Bush and Blair credibility to undermine support for the war, they will ignore the fact that most of what both said was reiterating UNSCOM estimates and intelligence conclusion, and enough of what was claimed WAS CORRECT to justify the war. Finding only WMD programs and no stockpiles bolters the "Iraq was not a threat" crowd, if you ignore Saddam's *pursuit* of WMDs, his programs, his support for terrorists like Ansar Al Islam/Abu Nidal/, his brutal repression, his venomous anti-americanism, the need for a state of semi-war with the no-fly zones that required US troops in S.A. which enraged the Bin Ladens and which created the 'strategic configuration' that lead to terrorism against us.

So this result, while surprising, CONFIRMS that we did the right thing. We have no doubt now of these points: Saddam WANTED WMDs and he would have gotten them post-sanctions; he had links to Al Qaeda deeper than we knew about prior to the war; and Al Qaeda was wanting access to WMDs and was trained in such matters by Iraqi intelligence.

And we also know who the real Weapon of Mass Destruction was - Saddam Hussein himself.

"The day after the liberation, my aunt put out a black banner--an Arab mourning ritual--with the names of all her relatives who had been murdered by the regime on it. And she looked down her street, and there were black banners on almost every house. On some houses it looks like a long shopping list. She said to her neighbour, 'You too?' Under Saddam it was a crime
to mourn people killed by the regime--it made you seem suspicious too. Everyone was suffering terribly, but they were suffering alone. They just didn't know that everyone else was hating it too."
-- Yasser Alaskary, co-founder of Iraqi Prospect Organisation, an Iraqi freedom group, The Independent (London), September 18, 2003

US officials knew in May Iraq possessed no WMD

Blair comes under pressure as Americans admit it was widely known that Saddam had no chemical arsenal

Peter Beaumont, Gaby Hinsliff and Paul Harris

Sunday February 1, 2004

The Observer

Senior American officials concluded at the beginning of last May that there were no weapons of mass destruction (WMD) in Iraq, The Observer has learnt.

Intelligence sources, policy makers and weapons inspectors familiar with the details of the hunt for WMD told The Observer it was widely known that Iraq had no WMD within three weeks of Baghdad falling, despite the assertions of senior Bush administration figures and the Prime Minister, Tony Blair.

The new revelation came as White House sources indicated that President George Bush was considering establishing an investigation into the intelligence, despite rejecting an inquiry the previous day.

The disclosure that US military survey teams sent to visit suspected sites of WMD, and intelligence interviews with Iraqi scientists and officials, had concluded so quickly that no major weapons or facilities would be found is certain to produce serious new embarrassment on both sides of the Atlantic.

According to the time-line provided by the US sources, it would mean that Number 10 would have been aware of the US doubts that weapons would be found before the outbreak of the feud between Number 10 and Andrew Gilligan, and before the exposure of Dr David Kelly as Gilligan's source for his claims that the September dossier had been 'sexed up' to exaggerate the Iraqi threat.

It would suggest too that some officials who defended the 24 September dossier in evidence before the Hutton inquiry did so in the knowledge that the pre-war intelligence was probably wrong. Indeed, comments from a senior Washington official first casting serious doubt on the existence of WMD were put to Downing Street by The Observer - and rejected - as early as 3 May.

Among those interviewed by The Observer was a very senior US intelligence official serving during the war against Iraq with an intimate knowledge of the search for Iraq's WMD.

'We had enough evidence at the beginning of May to start asking, "where did we go wrong?",' he said last week. 'We had already made the judgment that something very wrong had happened [in May] and our confidence was shaken to its foundations.'

The source, a career intelligence official who spoke on condition of anonymity, was also scathing about the massive scale of the failure of intelligence over Iraq both in the US and among its foreign allies - alleging that the intelligence community had effectively suppressed dissenting views and intelligence.

The claim is confirmed by other sources, as well as figures like David Albright, a former UN nuclear inspector with close contacts in both the world of weapons inspection and intelligence.

'It was known in May,' Albright said last week, 'that no one was going to find large stockpiles of chemical and biological weapons. The only people who did not know that fact was the public.'

The new disclosure follows the claims last week by Dr David Kay, the former head of the Iraq Survey Group, a hawk who believed Iraq retained prohibited weapons, that he now believed that the alleged stockpiles 'had never existed'.

It also comes as the House and Senate intelligence committees, which have been hearing evidence on why no weapons have been found, prepare to publish their reports this month.

Although it is expected that they will conclude that there was no political interference in the intelligence process, as some critics have alleged, the reports are expected to be damning about the quality of the intelligence that led to war.

The revelation is likely to lead to increased pressure both in Britain and the United States for an inquiry into the intelligence marshalled in favour of war.

In recent weeks Bush has come under concerted pressure over the issue, with Democratic presidential candidates accusing both him and Vice-President Dick Cheney of manipulating pre-war intelligence to make the case for invasion.

White House sources said that President Bush is considering the formation of an independent panel to investigate pre-war intelligence on Iraq that he used to justify going to war.

Aides are discussing it with congressional officials, sources familiar with the discussions said last night.

Bush had rejected an independent investigation amid White House fears of a political witch-hunt by Democrats hoping to unseat him in elections this year, but began in recent days to reconsider the position.

'I want the American people to know that I, too, want to know the facts,' Bush told reporters on Friday.

The sources, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said a range of options for such a panel was being explored and that an agreement was hoped for soon.

The White House would not comment.

Arizona Republican Senator John McCain broke party ranks to join Democratic demands for an independent probe into how US intelligence got it wrong, given the failure by searchers to find weapons of mass destruction.