Kay Resigns...Doesn't think there were any WMDs

[headscratcher4]

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=574&ncid=721&e=2&u=/nm/20040123/wl_nm/iraq_dc


In a direct challenge to the Bush administration, which says its invasion of Iraq was justified by the presence of illicit arms, Kay told Reuters in a telephone interview he had concluded there were no Iraqi stockpiles to be found.


"I don't think they existed," Kay said. "What everyone was talking about is stockpiles produced after the end of the last (1991) Gulf War (news - web sites), and I don't think there was a large-scale production program in the nineties," he said.




And yet, VP Cheany only yesterday said the proof was there....

[Tricky]

Originally posted by headscratcher4
http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=574&ncid=721&e=2&u=/nm/20040123/wl_nm/iraq_dc


In a direct challenge to the Bush administration, which says its invasion of Iraq was justified by the presence of illicit arms, Kay told Reuters in a telephone interview he had concluded there were no Iraqi stockpiles to be found.

"I don't think they existed," Kay said. "What everyone was talking about is stockpiles produced after the end of the last (1991) Gulf War (news - web sites), and I don't think there was a large-scale production program in the nineties," he said.

And yet, VP Cheany only yesterday said the proof was there....
This is an interesting part of the article:
The CIA announced earlier that former U.N. weapons inspector Charles Duelfer, who has previously expressed doubts that unconventional weapons would be found, would succeed Kay as Washington's chief arms hunter.
Are they having problems finding anybody who believes the WMD story? It looks like they need to send Cheany to look for 'em, since he seems to be the only WMD creduloid left.

[DavidJames]

"And yet, VP Cheany only yesterday said the proof was there...."

And you will keep hearing him saying it right up until the election. He needs to keep feeding that line to the huge chunk of voters who still believe the Saddam - OBL links and the WMD threat.

[Jim Lennox]

In Cairo, on February 24 2001, Powell said: "He (Saddam Hussein) has not developed any significant capability with respect to weapons of mass destruction. He is unable to project conventional power against his neighbours."

On May 15 2001, Powell went further and said that Saddam Hussein had not been able to "build his military back up or to develop weapons of mass destruction" for "the last 10 years".

"We are able to keep his arms from him. His military forces have not been rebuilt."

From here. (http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/allnews/content_objectid=13434081_method=full_siteid=50143 _headline=-THE-BIG-LIE-name_page.html)

Interesting that before 9/11 the Bush administration also didn't believe that Saddam had any weapons.

But, of course, they're not lying they're just misled!

[corplinx]

Originally posted by DavidJames
He needs to keep feeding that line to the huge chunk of voters who still believe the Saddam - OBL links and the WMD threat.

Actually, there is more evidence that Iraq gave aid/comfort to elements of Al Q. than ever before.

And less and less evidence that Iraq had a ready-to-go arsenal.

Funny, ain't it?

[corplinx]

Is there intentional misdirection going on here? "Hasn't built new WMD" isn't the same as "Hasn't accounted for old WMD". The latter was the reason they were in violation of treaty and resolutions.

[Jim Lennox]

Actually, there is more evidence that Iraq gave aid/comfort to elements of Al Q. than ever before.

Do you reckon there's anyone from 'Al Qaeda' in America?

[ssibal]

Originally posted by corplinx
Is there intentional misdirection going on here? "Hasn't built new WMD" isn't the same as "Hasn't accounted for old WMD". The latter was the reason they were in violation of treaty and resolutions.

The only mis-direction is that it is still being claimed that WMD was the U.S.'s only reason for war when in fact it was not.

[corplinx]

Originally posted by Jim Lennox


Do you reckon there's anyone from 'Al Qaeda' in America?


If they are, its not because the government is actively providing them aid and comfort in their endeavors.

Consider the weekly standard article. (http://www.weeklystandard.com/Content/Public/Articles/000/000/003/378fmxyz.asp). I consider that a biased source however so I am not willing yet to call it "case closed" as they assert.

They do raise some good points though.

[Jim Lennox]

There are certainly some interesting points, especially:-

One of the most interesting things to note about the 16-page memo is that it covers only a fraction of the evidence that will eventually be available to document the relationship between Iraq and al Qaeda.

Sounds like just a matter of time until we can all see the compelling evidence. Until then:-

Summarized, the Pentagon press release says essentially that (1) there has been no confirmation of the information in the report, (2) the items were raw reports from the various intelligence agencies, and (3) the items were not a formal analysis -- presumably, they are the reports from which an analysis will be constructed.

But note what the Defense Department is not saying: It is not saying that the actual information that makes up the raw reports was false. Indeed, there was no disavowal of the accuracy of that information.

From here. (http://www.techcentralstation.com/111903D.html)

This (http://www.plusmedium.com/ArticleDetailContainer.asp?ArticleId=86) is a nice response.

Now, very few Americans have ever heard of the Office of Special Plans, and Fox no doubt wants to keep it that way. This was the office created last spring, after the CIA and DIA kept telling Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld and his deputy Paul Wolfowitz that they just couldn't come up with any links between 9-11 and Saddam Hussein.

W. Patrick Lang, former head of the Middle East section of the DIA, said yesterday that the Standard article "is a listing of a mass of unconfirmed reports, many of which themselves indicate that the two groups continued to try to establish some sort of relationship. If they had such a productive relationship, why did they have to keep trying?"

Here (http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/features/2003/0311.ackerman.html) is another article which mentions Atta in Prague.

Although senior Czech officials stand by the story, many Czech intelligence analysts no longer have confidence that the meeting took place. And for good reason: The allegation has only a single source-an Arab student who, in October 2001, recalled witnessing the meeting after pictures of Atta flooded the airwaves in the wake of the 9/11 attacks.

And Zawahiri

Zawahiri had folded his organization into the cash-flush al Qaeda, believing that such an arrangement was "the only solution to keeping the Jihad organization alive," as one of his fellow Jihad terrorists testified.

And an Al Qaeda expert

Rohan Gunaratna, director of terrorism research at Singapore's Institute of Defense and Strategic Studies and arguably the world's foremost expert on al Qaeda.... "After viewing 251 videos, says Gunaratna, "we could not find any evidence of al Qaeda links to Saddam Hussein or the Baghdad administration."

But I'm sure this will run and run. Until somebody comes out with the truth.

[peptoabysmal]

U.S., Iraqis capture al Qaeda 'facilitator' (http://washingtontimes.com/national/20040123-115833-3850r.htm)


In the past, Ghul has worked with senior al Qaeda leader Khalid Shaikh Mohammad, one of the key al Qaeda figures involved in the September 11 terrorist attacks who was captured in Pakistan in March 2002.

Officials said Ghul's capture supports claims by Bush administration officials that Iraq has become the front line in the global war on terrorism.


So what business does Hasan Ghul have in Iraq? Apparently he was trying to organize members of Saddam's ousted regime.

The connection of Saddam to al Qaeda is through Ansar al-Islam, an al Qaeda affiliated group widely known to have been supported by Saddam.

U.S. forces in Iraq captured a leader of the insurgency who is believed to be a close associate of Abu Musab Zarqawi, described by some as a key link between al Qaida and Saddam Hussein, a senior American official said in Washington yesterday.

U.S. troops captured Husam al-Yemeni Thursday, the official said, speaking on condition of anonymity. He is described by U.S. officials as a top member of the al Qaeda linked Ansar al-Islam group and the leader of an insurgency cell in Fallujah, west of Baghdad.


http://www.nj.com/news/ledger/index.ssf?/base/news-13/1074927081102750.xml

[Bjorn]

Originally posted by corplinx
Actually, there is more evidence that Iraq gave aid/comfort to elements of Al Q. than ever before. Powell, on the other hand, in NY Times, January 9th:

concedes that despite his assertions to United Nations last year, he has no 'smoking gun' proof of link between government of Iraqi Pres Saddam Hussein and terrorists of Al Qaeda; says he thinks possibility of such connections did exist, and it was prudent to consider them at that time; his remarks are stark admission that there is no definitive evidence to back administration statements and insinuations that Hussein had ties to Al QaedaFunny, ain't it?

[Jim Lennox]

Far from being "harbored" by Saddam, Ansar al Islam operated out of northeastern Iraq, an area under Kurdish control that was being protected from Saddam's incursions by U.S. warplanes. Indeed, some of its members fought against Saddam during the Iran-Iraq war. Powell asserted that Saddam dispatched an agent to Ansar to forge an alliance with the Kurdish terrorists. If true, the far more likely explanation, however, is that the dictator had placed an agent in the group not to aid them, as Powell implied to the Security Council, but to keep tabs on a potential threat to his own regime.

From there (http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/features/2003/0311.ackerman.html)

I thought Saddam hated Kurds...

[zakur]

Powell casts doubt on Iraq WMDs (http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/3426703.stm) US Secretary of State Colin Powell has conceded that Iraq may not have possessed any stocks of weapons of mass destruction before the war last year.

[...]

Less than a year ago, Mr Powell warned the United Nations Security Council about the danger from Iraq's weapons.

In the run-up to the US-led war against Iraq, he gave a presentation to the Security Council in which he asserted that Saddam Hussein had amassed secret weapons of mass destruction.

He said then that he believed Iraq possessed, among other things, between 100 and 500 tonnes of chemical weapons agents.

But in his latest remarks, he told reporters travelling with him that it was an "open question" whether Iraq had any stocks of weapons of mass destruction at all.

[Crossbow]

Just the other day in the State of Union address, Geogre W. used the preliminary Kay report to justify the war.