Friday, October 03, 2003

The Kay Report

It's amazing how many people have leapt on the Kay Report as "proof" that Saddam had no WMD and really posed no threat. Kay himself says he
cannot emphasize too strongly that the Interim Progress Report, which has been made available to you, is a snapshot, in the context of an on-going investigation, of where we are after our first three months of work. The report does not represent a final reckoning of Iraq's WMD programs, nor are we at the point where we are prepared to close the file on any of these programs.
This says to me that another report will be forthcoming. However, many of the anti-war folks are using this report to justify their stance. What happens if Kay's next report indicates that he has found more solid evidence of a weapons program?

I had assumed that most people on the left were of the opinion that this Kay led hunt was not as legitimate as the Blix led hunt of last winter. Now that they have used this preliminary report to justify their stance, what happens if the next report undermines their position? Will they accept defeat or then claim that the Kay team was always a tool of Bush and Blair?

As far as I'm concerned, this report is sufficient to justify what President Bush said about Saddam's intentions and what he might get up to if left unchecked. And, since I didn't believe in maintaining the status quo - 25,000 US forces in Saudi Arabia, no possible internal overthrow of Saddam's regime - I still believe the war was justified.