Kristol: Bush Made Misstatements on Iraq WMDs

Newsmax ^ | 06/08/03 | Carl Limbacher

[joesbucks]

Sunday June 8, 2003; 12:56 p.m. EDT

Kristol: Bush Made Misstatements on Iraq WMDs

In comments sure to be seized upon by Bush administration critics at home and abroad, one of the leading proponents of the war in Iraq said Sunday that President Bush may have misstated the case that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction before the U.S. attacked.

"We shouldn't deny, those of us who were hawks, that there could have been misstatements made, I think in good faith," Weekly Standard editor Bill Kristol told "Fox News Sunday."

Asked, by whom, the leading Iraq war backer explained, "By the president and the secretary of state, [statements] that will turn out to be erroneous."

Kristol stressed that he didn't believe charges from Bush administration critics that the president had deliberately distorted WMD intelligence.

But the leading neoconservative writer and former chief of staff to Vice President Dan Quayle added, "I hope [the WMDs] are found but I'm very skeptical.

"We have interrogated a lot of people and we haven't found a single person who said he participated in disposing, destroying the stock of weapons of mass destruction. Or in hiding them."

Kristol said that Saddam probably "did bluff a little bit" when it came to acknowledging he possessed WMDs in 1998, saying that "[U.S.] intelligence estimates were wrong, too."

"I don't think we need to be apologetic about the war," Kristol insisted. But he said the U.S.'s inability to uncover significant quantities of Iraqi WMDs means that the war may not have been as necessary and urgent as previously believed.

"People like me, who were hawks, said the war was both just, prudent and urgent," he said. "I think just and prudent - fine. But it is fair to say that if we don't find serious weapons of mass destruction capabilities, the case for urgency, which Bush and Blair certainly articulated, is going to be undercut to some degree."

Kristol, who made his comments just minutes after Secretary of State Colin Powell said on the same broadcast that there was no doubt Saddam had WMDs when the U.S. attacked, did acknowledge, however, "There has been evidence that they had an ongoing weapons of mass destruction program, I think, even if they did not have as large a stock of the weapons as we thought."

[Corin Stormhands]

Will you take one to see if you're a troll?

ROFLMAO! 'scuse me whilst I go clean up my keyboard...

[snooker]

Terror is fear not necessarily quantity.

As I recall we found a large chemical manufacturing plant south of Baghdad. It had been scrubbed clean and was being gaurded by the Iraqi army. It was surrounded by barbed wire fencing. An odd way to run a benign fertilizer plant, don't you think. Looks like the plant was on stand-by ready to produce on short notice. Blix even said the UN didn't know about it. But don't worry, it's just another baby milk factory.

There are many nuclear sites that are being gone through right now. The worry is the UN sealed material has been stolen by looters or others unknown. What would happen if the regime had given a few containers of radioactive material to their terrorist buddies. Ready made dirty bomb. Oh yeah, since the UN knew about the nuclear material we were safe. Sure like the UN did with north korea. Oops sorry NK made some nuclear bombs. Some safety.

Odd no one wants to say anything about the nuclear material stored in a terrorist state.

What I am worried about is not the silly game of blame Bush but where are the weapons, chemical material and nuclear material. What happened to them. Who has control of them. We should all be worried about that until every last bit of it is accounted for.

There is no doubt WNDs were there. That is unless you subscribe to ludicrous notion that everyone was lying. Including the left's sacred cows the UN and the French.

Selected amnesia isn't very useful. Common sense is.

[jwalsh07]

Was Habalja also a figment of President Bush's imagination?

Are you arguing that Iraq had neither the means nor the capability to manufacture and possess CB weaponry?

Because if you are, you lost the argument before you started. Ask the Kurds about Chemical Ali and the Ba'athist bastards.

[jwalsh07]

For that matter, the 90% of those who opposed the war weren't going to vote for Bush anyway, so that's no loss for him.

Neither are you.

[billbears]

I have a LOOONG theory of Kristol's trouble-making

What theory? He just got tired of towing the PNAC line and actually spoke the truth. Granted, hearing a neocon actually speak the truth is a bit rare, but maybe the rest of the former members of the PNAC that overpopulate this administration could get a clue from Kristol

[eleni121]

There are way too many talking heads Kristal's included -feeding off each other and off the public's willingness to be manipulated by these jokers. That said, even if we never find the damn WMD what America did was heroic and necessary. The constant beligerancy of Sadaam and his perpetual support of terrorists would have ended in something worse than what has happened.

That said, it's about time that George Tenet was dismissed permanently.

[roses of sharon]

No risk?

When was the last time the US attacked a country who had not attacked first?

The risks were and are: oil wells burning, Iraq attacks on Israel, and all surrounding countries, WMD or nukes used by Saddam, the Arab street rising against its leaders in Jordon, Eqypt, ect, Saddams massacre of civilians, daily terrorists attacks in US malls, schools, and government buildings, anger of allies, and on and on.

Plenty of domestic policy risks also.

Some voters are emotionally attached to Bush since 9/11, and he will get their vote regardless.

But most will vote according to their mood that day, because most pay little attention to news.