February 13, 2004

AP - Kay: Bush Should Admit Error on Iraq WMD, by Barry Schweid

Former U.S. weapons inspector David Kay is advising President Bush to acknowledge he was wrong about hidden storehouses of weapons in Iraq and move ahead with overhauling the intelligence process. In an Associated Press interview, Kay said the "serious burden of evidence" suggests Saddam Hussein did not have caches of chemical, biological and nuclear weapons at the beginning of the Iraqi war, but was seriously engaged in developing missiles.

Kay said satellites have shown a lot of traffic going from Iraq to Syria, but that U.S. investigators could not figure out what was being transported and "Syria wouldn't help."

Without flatly ruling out the weapons might turn up, Kay said his search was complicated by the fact that Iraqis quizzed about Saddam's weapons programs "will lie to you without embarrassment."