Will the Hutton Report and the Kay Statements slow down the Democratic talking points? It should:
Lord Hutton said that the central 45-minute claim contained in Mr Gilligan’s report could be proved to be wrong in future, but his allegation that the government knew it was wrong when the dossier was published was “unfounded” because intelligence chiefs did believe the source from which it came was reliable.
He described Mr Gilligan’s report as a “grave allegation” and a slur on the government’s integrity.
Mr Blair arrived in the Commons chamber soon afterwards, to a roar of support from his own backbenchers. He was cheered again as he rose to speak.
And then there is this:
In essence, Dr. Kay concludes that while Saddam never ceased trying to build sophisticated WMDs, he probably did not succeed. But Saddam himself probably didn’t know that because his scientists were lying to him and stealing much of the money he gave them.
More specifically, Dr. Kay says it is clear Saddam was attempting to develop nuclear weapons as late as 2001, but his scientists never got as far as Iran did, nor as far as we now know–to our astonishment–that Libya did.
Dr. Kay adds that Saddam was actively working to produce a biological weapon using the poison ricin right up until the American invasion last spring.
But as the CIA underestimated Saddam’s nuclear-weapons program prior to 1991 and Libya’s nuclear program prior to this year, so the CIA overestimated Saddam’s progress toward developing and amassing WMDs prior to 2003. This, Dr. Kay believes, is the result of U.S. intelligence relying on satellites, electronic eavesdropping, exiles, and U.N. inspectors, and failing to put agents in place within the Baathist regime.
Some people will misrepresent the complex reality that Dr. Kay has described. Some people will say that Saddam never had WMD, had no intention to build them and was never a threat.
But Dr. Kay knows what his work shows. “We know that terrorists were passing through Iraq,” he says. “And now we know that there was little control over Iraq’s weapons capabilities. I think it shows that Iraq was a very dangerous place. The country had the technology, the ability to produce, and there were terrorist groups passing through the country–and no central control.”
Don’t expect this to slow down the partisan catcalls (‘Bush lied- People Died,’ or ‘Seventeeen words,’ or my personal favorite because they are too damned cowardly to call him a liar- ‘Bush misled the country into war.’, especially considering that I heard Kerry last night making this a centerpiece of his campaign. Of course, the facts don’t matter- the election is what matters. And of course, we all know that when matters of foreign affairs and national security get in the way o a domestic election, the Democrats are not concerned with facts. Some might classify their spin as ‘truthesque.’
(via the Instapundit)
Ricky
John, recall the memo unearthed weeks ago where NO MATTER WHAT the senate Dems were going to push the issue & scream for inquiries? You know, the one where Drum unsurprisingly saw nothing untoward in between claiming the world would end if Bush were re-elected.
It was planned that nothing would stop them and nothing will stop them.
A marchout in mid-May of actual WMDs would certainly end a few careers and destroy lots of credibility, wouldn’t it?
Charlie
A quibble: sixteen words.
CadillaqJaq
I watched a portion of the Senate committee hearings today with Mr. Kay as their “guest.” The Dems amaze me, especially Senator Levin, “my Senator,” but I don’t want them to wake up yet. Let them keep harping on the war and trying to make it an issue. Every poll I’ve seen of late has Iraq/war down the list of issues that important to voters nationally.
Apparently the Iraq/war is a thorn in the anti-war pacifists side but they represent a minority of the people that will vote.
Better the Dems attempt to cover the tracks left behind by their current presidential front runner Kerry and his 25 years of ultra-liberal politics in DC.
HH
Now we find out that the “16 words” nonsense is even less of a “scandal than before…
As for the memos, forget what they actually said… Someone got them off someone else’s server. WATERGATE!!!
S.W. Anderson
Militarily, Saddam Hussein was a complete screwup. The greatest danger he presented was to his own troops and his own people.
In fact, Saddam was in a box, well contained, as he had been during the Clinton years. Yes, the intelligence flowing to Bush was faulty. What else is new? Part of the reason may well have been the atmosphere Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld and all the rest created. Turning in a “no way, no how” report to any of them would not be a good career move for CIA or DIA types — and you can bet in some corner of their bureaucratic minds they knew it.
The same seems true of Kay. If he’d bent over backwards any farther in an effort to not diss the boss while testifying today, he would’ve needed emergency chiropractic care.
Sorry, but the score is 516 lives wasted, $167 billion blown just for starters, U.S. credibility badly damaged, NATO in shambles, critical time, attention and resources diverted from the real war against al Qaeda, and counterinsurgents are drawing more blood in BOTH Iraq and Afghanistan daily.
Probably the truest test of America’s strength is that it will survive this worst president in my lifetime. But not without being the worse for wear.
CadillaqJaq
I feel we already survived the “worst president” over the eight years preceding GWB.
Unfortunately for Saddam Hussein, he didn’t survive GWB and 25-million or so Iraqis can now get a taste of freedom if the USA doesn’t get cold feet and split.
Slartibartfast
Turning in a “no way, no how” report to any of them would not be a good career move for CIA or DIA types — and you can bet in some corner of their bureaucratic minds they knew it.
Oh, please. If Tenet weren’t dismissed out of hand for maintaining Deutch’s security clearance, he wasn’t going to be dismissed for disagreeing with the President. Sorry, this argument has absolutely no traction. People are responsible for doing their job, period, regardless of any pressure (real or perceived) from management to do otherwise.
S.W. Anderson
Startibartfast, I fully agree people ought to do their job properly, period. And no doubt most do. But I wasn’t just talking about Tenent but others a layer or two or three below him.
It doesn’t take someone barking orders or making phone calls to put their order in. Things tilt one way or another. People realize which way the wind’s blowing, so to speak. In the Clinton years, the impetus was toward avoiding a full-scale invasion response, especially a unilateral one. Containment was the favored option and it was working tolerably well, at much less expense in lives and money.
Clearly, when Bush got to the White House, the impetus changed. After 9-11, the tilt became a straight-down dump chute toward war, as soon as could be arranged and with whatever it took to get off the dime and get on with it.
skh
Hum. If the current president is the “worst of your lifetime” then you are either younger than 24, or a typical liberal revisionist. Jimmy Carter can be quantitatively shown to be the worst president of my lifetime, in the area of economic indices.
Liberals love to waste “baloon-juice” on this screed (“worst president [ever, in my lifetime, this century, in the modern era, etc]), but can never overcome the logical fallacies of their argument. Thus, trying to reason with intellectual cripples who base their reality on their “feelings” is an exercise in futility.
Stick Kucinich with a fork. He’s done. And so are all of the looney liberals who “feel” that Bush is taking this country in the wrong direction. Give it 5-10 more years, and most of the Western world will be right where we are now…trying to deal with ROP asshats who have done a fine job up to this point taking advantage of our pluralistic, multi-cultural society (force-fed to us by those same liberals). It is past time for us to say to the apologists, “All we have is bubblegum and cans of whoop-ass…and we just ran out of bubblegum.”
Slartibartfast
“It doesn’t take someone barking orders or making phone calls to put their order in. Things tilt one way or another. People realize which way the wind’s blowing, so to speak. In the Clinton years, the impetus was toward avoiding a full-scale invasion response, especially a unilateral one. Containment was the favored option and it was working tolerably well, at much less expense in lives and money.”
How many levels of supposition are you willing to go through before you see it’s all sheer speculation? Start with an assumption, and make up what has to be true in order to validate. Just for grins, let’s assume the universe is only about 7000 years old (’cause the Bible tells us so, you see) and then contrive a set of events that makes it plausible.
Same sort of exercise.
wallster
I would modify skh’s post to say that the poster would have to be under 16 years old, or a typical conservative revisionist/apologist.
No wait, GW Bush is probably even worse than Reagan.
S.W. Anderson
skh, your intellectual level comes through in your name calling. What you write isn’t enlightening me, it’s a feel-good exercise for you and people like you.
Startibartfast, you’re right about my indulging in speculation; I made no claim what I wrote was otherwise.
That said, I’ll add this, which is based on a solid and growing body of evidence. Facts, straight stories and what I’ll call, for lack of a better word, transparency, are scarcer from Bush and his people than new jobs these last three years. It’s an approach to governing that does breed speculation.
As I look around in posts here, I find I’m not alone in speculating. Being so dismissive on that basis, I take it you must always refrain. I’ll be watching for your all-fact-based, well-documented expositions in future posts.
tgirl
Variatio delectat – There’s nothing like change! (Cicero)