Tram Town
Monday, January 26, 2004
| Category: WMDs Melanie Phillips has taken some UK rags to task for misreporting David Kay's comments and report as head of the Iraq Survey Group. No WMDs? That's not what he said... "We are not talking about a large stockpile of weapons," he said. "But we know from some of the interrogations of former Iraqi officials that a lot of material went to Syria before the war, including some components of Saddam's WMD programme. Precisely what went to Syria, and what has happened to it, is a major issue that needs to be resolved."and, Phillips notes, David Kay said in his interim report he had uncovered a network of clandestine biological warfare programmes which Saddam had gone to huge efforts to keep secret.[shot of Semi Googling to the source] In the statement on the interim progress report that David Kay made on October 2 last year, Iraq's WMD programs spanned more than two decades, involved thousands of people, billions of dollars, and were elaborately shielded by security and deception operations that continued even beyond the end of Operation Iraqi Freedom.There's no point me quoting anymore of the report, just read the whole thing. When you have done so, I defy you to come to the same, simplistic "No WMDs" conclusion that our friends in the press came to. Just for the record, I have to say that I do NOT believe WMDs were necessary for the war to be justified. |
