Tuesday, Jan. 27, 2004 10:58 a.m. EST
Kay: Bush Was Right to Attack Iraq
Critics of the Bush administration have seized on Iraq weapons hunter David Kay's pronouncement over the weekend that Baghdad didn't have any WMDs immediately before the U.S. attacked last March.
But Tuesday morning Kay gave President Bush a full-fledged endorsement on his decision to go to war.
In an interview with NBC's "Today Show," Kay told host Matt Lauer that the U.S. decision to attack was "absolutely prudent."
"In fact," said Kay, "I think at the end of the inspection process, we'll paint a picture of Iraq that was far more dangerous than even we thought it was before the war."
Kay described Iraq's government as "a system collapsing."
"It was a country that had the capability in weapons of mass destruction areas, and ... terrorists, like ants to honey, were going after it."
Meanwhile, Saddam Hussein "was putting more money into his nuclear program, he was pushing ahead his long-range missile program as hard as he could," Kay said.
Although Baghdad wasn't successful, Kay said Iraq "had the intent to acquire these weapons," adding that Saddam had "invested huge amounts of money" to do so.
The chief weapons hunter also debunked the notion that the White House pressured U.S. intelligence to exaggerate the Iraq threat.
"The tendency to say, well, it must have been pressure from the White House is absolutely wrong," he told "Today."
