http://www.nypost.com/postopinion/editorial/16666.htm
January 27, 2004 -- Don't be taken in by all the hot air following David Kay's statement Friday that he didn't think any weapons of mass destruction currently exist in Iraq. After all, Kay's last report confirmed that Iraq had WMD programs, if not weapons. And he now says some weapons may have been moved to Syria.
Kay believes Saddam was trying to boost his WMD programs starting in 2000, but was deceived by his own scientists. In what Kay calls a "vortex of corruption," scientists seem to have stolen the regime's nuke money.
Contrary to the hysterical anti-Bush rants, Kay insists the failure to find WMD stocks suggests not a conspiracy to go to war but yet another huge intelligence failure. That the CIA is in need of massive overhaul has been clear since 1994, when it turned out Aldrich Ames, a top counterintelligence officer, had been working for the Russians for over a decade.
Then came 9/11 - the most catastrophic U.S. intelligence failure since Pearl Harbor. Amazingly, no heads have rolled - not even Director George Tenet's. Yes, other intelligence services, including Great Britain's, were similarly wrong on Iraq. But in an age of terrorism and WMDs, America can't do with anything less than the best intelligence.
Still, even if Iraq's WMD program was much smaller and less threatening than thought, that hardly undermines the justification for war.
The facts?
* Iraq was in violation of multiple U.N. resolutions concerning weapons programs: It failed, for instance, to declare WMD programs and to account for WMD stocks; it also maintained missiles with ranges in excess of U.N. limits.
* President Bush never said there was imminent danger of an Iraqi WMD strike, only that America must act before then.
* Saddam was a clear threat to America's interests even without WMDs: He gave sanctuary to terrorists like Abu Nidal and started two disastrous wars against his neighbors.
* Saddam wasn't just an ordinary Arab dictator, but a genocidal mass-murderer.
* He'd already used poison gas to murder Kurds and during the Iran-Iraq war. As British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw said yesterday, more evidence may yet emerge. If he had no weapons or active WMD programs, then "what on earth explains why Saddam Hussein, . . . months after he was given an ultimatum to come clean, refused to cooperate fully?" Saddam must have had something to hide - besides mass graves.
January 27, 2004 -- Don't be taken in by all the hot air following David Kay's statement Friday that he didn't think any weapons of mass destruction currently exist in Iraq. After all, Kay's last report confirmed that Iraq had WMD programs, if not weapons. And he now says some weapons may have been moved to Syria.
Kay believes Saddam was trying to boost his WMD programs starting in 2000, but was deceived by his own scientists. In what Kay calls a "vortex of corruption," scientists seem to have stolen the regime's nuke money.
Contrary to the hysterical anti-Bush rants, Kay insists the failure to find WMD stocks suggests not a conspiracy to go to war but yet another huge intelligence failure. That the CIA is in need of massive overhaul has been clear since 1994, when it turned out Aldrich Ames, a top counterintelligence officer, had been working for the Russians for over a decade.
Then came 9/11 - the most catastrophic U.S. intelligence failure since Pearl Harbor. Amazingly, no heads have rolled - not even Director George Tenet's. Yes, other intelligence services, including Great Britain's, were similarly wrong on Iraq. But in an age of terrorism and WMDs, America can't do with anything less than the best intelligence.
Still, even if Iraq's WMD program was much smaller and less threatening than thought, that hardly undermines the justification for war.
The facts?
* Iraq was in violation of multiple U.N. resolutions concerning weapons programs: It failed, for instance, to declare WMD programs and to account for WMD stocks; it also maintained missiles with ranges in excess of U.N. limits.
* President Bush never said there was imminent danger of an Iraqi WMD strike, only that America must act before then.
* Saddam was a clear threat to America's interests even without WMDs: He gave sanctuary to terrorists like Abu Nidal and started two disastrous wars against his neighbors.
* Saddam wasn't just an ordinary Arab dictator, but a genocidal mass-murderer.
* He'd already used poison gas to murder Kurds and during the Iran-Iraq war. As British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw said yesterday, more evidence may yet emerge. If he had no weapons or active WMD programs, then "what on earth explains why Saddam Hussein, . . . months after he was given an ultimatum to come clean, refused to cooperate fully?" Saddam must have had something to hide - besides mass graves.
