The Failure to Find Iraqi Weapons
The New York Times | Editorial
Friday 26 September 2003
This page did not support the war in Iraq, but it never quarreled with one of its basic premises. Like President Bush, we believed that Saddam Hussein was hiding potentially large quantities of chemical and biological weapons and aggressively pursuing nuclear arms. Like the president, we thought those weapons posed a grave danger to the United States and the rest of the world. Now it appears that premise was wrong. We cannot in hindsight blame the administration for its original conclusions. They were based on the best intelligence available, which had led the Clinton administration before it and the governments of allied nations to reach the same conclusion. But even the best intelligence can turn out to be mistaken, and the likelihood that this was the case in Iraq shows why pre-emptive war, the Bush administration's strategy since 9/11, is so ill conceived as a foundation for security policy. If intelligence and risk assessment are sketchy — and when are they not? — using them as the basis for pre-emptive war poses enormous dangers.
A draft of an interim report by David Kay, the American leading the hunt for banned arms in Iraq, says the team has not found any such weapons after nearly four months of intensively searching and interviewing top Iraqi scientists. There is some evidence of chemicals and equipment that could have been put to illicit use. But, to the chagrin of Mr. Bush's top lieutenants, there is nothing more.
It remains remotely possible, of course, that something will be found. But Mr. Kay's draft suggests that the weapons are simply not there. Why Mr. Hussein did not prove that when the United Nations demanded an explanation remains a puzzle. His failure to come clean strengthened the conviction that he had a great deal to hide. His history as a vicious tyrant who had used chemical weapons in war and against his own people lent credence to the fear that he could not be trusted with whatever he was holding and would pose a significant threat.
(more)
http://www.truthout.org/docs_03/092703A.shtmlEven now, the coverup continues. This line really gets my dander up:
But Mr. Kay's draft suggests that the weapons are simply not there. Why Mr. Hussein did not prove that when the United Nations demanded an explanation remains a puzzle.
There is no puzzle; this is a freaking appeal to ignorance, aka "proving a negative." A basic logical fallacy on the NYT editorial page. The burden of proof was always on the Bush mafia to prove Iraq had WMD, not the reverse. Still, the NYT dodges that fundamental issue. Grrrrrrrrr.
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