Fri Feb 13,11:12 AM ET
By BARRY SCHWEID, AP Diplomatic Writer
WASHINGTON - Former U.S. weapons inspector David Kay is advising President Bush to acknowledge he was wrong about hidden storehouses of weapons in Iraq and move ahead with overhauling the intelligence process.
In an Associated Press interview, Kay said the "serious burden of evidence" suggests Saddam Hussein did not have caches of chemical, biological and nuclear weapons at the beginning of the Iraqi war, but was seriously engaged in developing missiles.
"You are better off if you acknowledge error and say we have learned from it and move ahead," Kay said in a 90-minute session Thursday with AP editors and reporters.
"I'm afraid if you don't acknowledge error, and everybody knows why you are afraid to acknowledge error, your political opponents will seize on it, the press will seize on it, and no one will give you credit," Kay said.
Since resigning last month, Kay has said repeatedly that U.S. intelligence was wrong in claiming that Saddam had stockpiles of chemical and biological weapons and advanced nuclear weapons programs. Those programs were the main justification for the Iraq war.
U.N. and U.S. searches have failed to find the weapons, and Bush has appointed a bipartisan commission to conduct an investigation. Democrats in the meantime are accusing the administration of misleading the American public.
White House press secretary Scott McClellan, asked about the suggestion that Bush acknowledge error, said Kay "has said the regime was possibly more dangerous than we thought before the war. He has pointed out that, absolutely yes, he agrees that it was a gathering threat."
He pointed out that Bush has said he had expected to find weapons in Iraq.
Bush and other officials insist weapons still could be discovered. In an interview on NBC-TV's "Meet the Press" program last weekend, Bush said, "They could be hidden, they could have been transported to another country." Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld has also said he believes weapons could still be uncovered.
Secretary of State Colin Powell said this week he was surprised that the inspectors did not find the weapons in Iraq. "We presented what we believed the truth to be at the time," he told the House International Relations Committee.
Kay said satellites have shown a lot of traffic going from Iraq to Syria, but that U.S. investigators could not figure out what was being transported and "Syria wouldn't help."
"My only serious regret about the continued holding on to these hopes that eventually we will find it (weapons) is it allows us to avoid the hard steps necessary to reform the process," the former U.N. and International Atomic Energy Agency inspector said.
Kay stepped down from his role as CIA adviser for the weapons search after the military diverted resources from the search to bolster security for troops and fight insurgents. He described a constant battle to keep his staff of 1,400, in which he initially prevailed but began to lose ground in the fall. He said he wasn't informed of the final changes until after the decision had been made.
Without flatly ruling out the weapons might turn up, Kay said his search was complicated by the fact that Iraqis quizzed about Saddam's weapons programs "will lie to you without embarrassment."
Despite the lack of weapons of mass destruction, Kay said, Iraq had an aggressive program to develop missiles assisted by foreign technology and scientists.
Some of the scientists eventually left the country but they still helped Saddam by transmitting information to Iraq electronically, he said.
"We have absolute evidence and proof," Kay said. But he declined to identify those who he said helped Iraq or their countries.
Kay also said "the dominance of analytical opinion" was that two trailers found in northern Iraq were meant to make hydrogen for balloons, not biological weapons. CIA Director George Tenet said last week that the issue was still under debate.
Part of the problem, Kay said, was that the trailers had never been used for anything and that their equipment was not well suited for either hydrogen or biological weapons production. Documents and testimony from Iraqis point strongly toward the hydrogen idea, he said.
Another issue was the discovery of thousands of high-strength aluminum tubes in Iraq. Before the war, Bush administration officials said those tubes were meant to be used in centrifuges to make nuclear bomb fuel out of uranium.
Although Tenet said the issue was still open, Kay said analysts have concluded Iraq had no active nuclear program.
"There's no substantial disagreement that there was no centrifuge program," Kay said.
The most likely explanation for the tubes, Kay said, is that they were to be used for artillery rockets.
Kay repeated statements that he did not believe analysts felt pressured to shape their reports to bolster the case for war, a claim made by some Democrats.
Asked whether analysts believed their findings had been distorted, Kay said: "Were some people uncomfortable about some of the rhetoric? I think the fair answer to that is `yes.'" He stressed that analysts are generally uncomfortable with any change to their wording, but understand that is the nature of politics.
"Politicians choose the best possible argument that will support the course of action they've decided on regardless of whether it's foreign policy or not," he said. "Is that cherry picking? That's the nature of the political process."