Iraq WMD, Case for War
What was the case for war? How was it justified?
Saturday, September 03, 2005
desperate efforts by American officials and CIA chief George Tenet to actually find the weapons after the war.
Special AP Report Reveals Fresh Details on Iraq WMD Controversy: "By E&P Staff | September 02, 2005 8:55 PM ET
NEW YORK An extraordinary recap of U.S. claims about weapons of mass destruction (WMD) in Iraq, to be moved by the Associated Press this weekend, reveals new details about the pre-war misstatements and the desperate efforts by American officials and CIA chief George Tenet to actually find the weapons after the war.
The lengthy report, written by Charles J. Hanley, AP special correspondent, is based on fresh interviews, official documents and other sources.
'There was an absolutely closed mind,' Kay tells AP, referring to American officials. 'They would not look at alternative explanations,” he said, referring specifically to controversies surrounding the aluminum tubes and bio-weapons trailers.
The article opens with a remarkable, and previously unreported scene, from February 2004, after months that found U.S. weapons inspectors, including Kay, failing to find any WMDs at all.
“Beneath the giant dome of a Baghdad palace, facing his team of scientists and engineers, George Tenet sounded more like a football coach than a spymaster, a coach who didn't know the game was over,” Hanley writes.
"’Are we 85 percent done? the CIA boss demanded. The arms hunters knew what he wanted to hear. ‘No!’ they shouted back. ‘Let me hear it again!’ They shouted again. The weapons are out there, Tenet insisted. Go find them.
”Veteran inspector Rod Barton couldn't believe his ears. ‘It was nonsense,’ the Australian biologist said of that February evening last year, when the then-chief of U.S. intelligence secretly flew to Baghdad and dropped in on the lakeside Perfume Palace, chandelier-hung home of the Iraq Survey Group.
"’It wasn't that we didn't know the major answers,’ recalled Barton, whose account matched that of another key participant. ‘Are there WMD in the country? We knew the answers.’ ...
Special AP Report Reveals Fresh Details on Iraq WMD Controversy: "By E&P Staff | September 02, 2005 8:55 PM ET
NEW YORK An extraordinary recap of U.S. claims about weapons of mass destruction (WMD) in Iraq, to be moved by the Associated Press this weekend, reveals new details about the pre-war misstatements and the desperate efforts by American officials and CIA chief George Tenet to actually find the weapons after the war.
The lengthy report, written by Charles J. Hanley, AP special correspondent, is based on fresh interviews, official documents and other sources.
'There was an absolutely closed mind,' Kay tells AP, referring to American officials. 'They would not look at alternative explanations,” he said, referring specifically to controversies surrounding the aluminum tubes and bio-weapons trailers.
The article opens with a remarkable, and previously unreported scene, from February 2004, after months that found U.S. weapons inspectors, including Kay, failing to find any WMDs at all.
“Beneath the giant dome of a Baghdad palace, facing his team of scientists and engineers, George Tenet sounded more like a football coach than a spymaster, a coach who didn't know the game was over,” Hanley writes.
"’Are we 85 percent done? the CIA boss demanded. The arms hunters knew what he wanted to hear. ‘No!’ they shouted back. ‘Let me hear it again!’ They shouted again. The weapons are out there, Tenet insisted. Go find them.
”Veteran inspector Rod Barton couldn't believe his ears. ‘It was nonsense,’ the Australian biologist said of that February evening last year, when the then-chief of U.S. intelligence secretly flew to Baghdad and dropped in on the lakeside Perfume Palace, chandelier-hung home of the Iraq Survey Group.
"’It wasn't that we didn't know the major answers,’ recalled Barton, whose account matched that of another key participant. ‘Are there WMD in the country? We knew the answers.’ ...
