David Kay Finally Admits the Obvious in Order to Cover Up Lies of Others

Feb 2, 2004

David Kay, the former U.S. chief weapons inspector in Iraq, announced last week what most people had long ago concluded–that there is no evidence of any WMD’s (weapons of mass destruction) in Iraq–that is, no chemical, biological or nuclear weapons, or even any programs to build them.

This flies in the face of everything that every member of the Bush administration had claimed for the past year and a half to justify the invasion of Iraq. Iraq’s supposed stockpiles of WMD’s were alleged to be an immediate threat to the people of the rest of the world.

Of course, it was absolute bull then, and it’s absolute bull now.

Kay is today presented as the impartial observer, making his announcement after a long, careful search for the truth. In fact, he is far from impartial, and he knew long ago there were no weapons.

From the start of his work at the head of the Iraq Survey Group, Kay’s job was to cover up that fact. This coverup started under the Clinton Administration, when "weapons inspectors" were used not to look for weapons, but to spy on the Iraqi regime. Much of what they DID look for, other than Saddam Hussein’s palaces, were facilities which became targets for the bombing the U.S. carried out in late 1998.

Kay’s statements at the time–that there WERE WMD’s and that Iraq was stopping his inspectors from finding them–were used as the pretext for that bombing campaign, which destroyed more of Iraq’s water and electrical systems.

Kay continued in his role as the loyal soldier in late 2002, after the CIA publicly threw doubt on Bush administration claims. He pulled up what he had falsely asserted four years earlier as evidence that Iraq was hiding something.

Now, even as he leaves his position, admitting there is no evidence of WMD’s, Kay continues to cover for the U.S. attempt to take over Iraq’s oil, by blaming "bad intelligence."

Kay immediately tried to deflect attention from Bush himself, stating that this was an "intelligence failure." In calling for an outside inquiry into the pre-war intelligence gathering by the CIA, he told the Senate Arms Service Committee, "It turns out we were all wrong, probably, in my judgement. And that is most disturbing."

Just who, exactly, is he talking about when he says "we" were wrong? He couldn’t be talking about all the people in the U.S. and the rest of the world who said before the war they didn’t believe these claims. He couldn’t have been talking about Hans Blix, the UN weapons inspector, who tried but could find no evidence of WMD’s. He couldn’t even be talking about the CIA, which told Bush AND Kay the same thing, at the same time, only to be told to go back and come to a different conclusion!

In other words, when Kay says "we," he can only be talking about himself and all the members of the Bush administration.

In fact, it wasn’t that they were wrong. They just flat-out lied–first Kay himself, but also Donald Rumsfeld, Colin Powell, Dick Cheney and Condoleezza Rice, not to mention George W. Bush himself–and lied repeatedly when they referred to "intelligence information" that either wasn’t there or was completely made up to justify the invasion.

They knew there were no weapons of mass destruction. And any politician, Democrat or Republican, who today claims they were misled by Bush knew it also. From the beginning.