June 2004
Vol. X, No. 2
The Missing Weapons
The former weapons inspector finds no WMDs, but plenty of other reasons for concern.
David Kay, the former chief weapons inspector of the Iraq Survey Group, spoke at the Institute in mid-February about the U.S. failure to find weapons of mass destruction (WMDs) in Iraq, despite the fact that eliminating the threat posed by Iraq's WMDs was the Bush administration's primary rationale for going to war. "We got so used to being deceived by Iraq that it became the only reality we could imagine," explained Kay.
David Kay, chief weapons inspector, spoke about the failure to find weapons of mass-destruction in Iraq at an Institute meeting in mid-February. |
Kay outlined the thinking behind the assessments that Iraq possessed a significant stockpile of WMDs. "We discovered after the first Gulf War that we had seriously underestimated Iraq's nuclear capacity," said Kay, "so no one believed them when they told the truth." In the years through 1998, a robust UN inspections force on the ground in Iraq kept the United States well apprised of the status of Iraq's WMD programs—despite Iraq's constant efforts to "lie, cheat, and deceive." But when the weapons inspectors departed, the United States was deprived of key intelligence, and in the absence of countervailing evidence, it was "difficult to believe that Iraq had relinquished its weapons programs." Nor did it help, said Kay, that the United States had few human intelligence sources in Iraq. Above all, he said, analysts simply failed to appreciate the depth of Iraq's political and economic degeneration in the decade after the Gulf War. "Hussein's totalitarianism destroyed all sense of moral values and led to a situation where everyone was cheating—including the scientists, who were taking money for weapons projects they had no intention of completing."
Kay also addressed the highly politicized questions of whether members of the Bush administration "cherry picked" intelligence, bullied analysts to give them the information they wanted, and exaggerated the extent of the threat as it was presented to them from the intelligence community. Kay downplayed these allegations, saying that he saw no evidence of officials selectively using the data and that, to the best of his knowledge, analysts never felt pressured to change their analyses—although he conceded that this was an issue the independent panel should investigate.
Despite his resignation from the survey group, Kay urged that the investigators be allowed to continue their work, saying that while it was unlikely that any stockpiles of WMDs would be found, important lessons remain to be learned from continuing the search.
First, he said, the international community needs to learn more about the extent of the foreign assistance provided to Iraqi scientists. "We have generally done a good job at tracking large imports of equipment and supplies," said Kay, "but the real heart of any weapons program is the intellectual capital that's needed to make these weapons—the people with the expertise. And we've not done a great job of tracking them."
Second, Kay said, investigators need to follow up on the documents and individuals involved in the WMD programs that did exist.
And third, he said, we need to learn more about why the United States missed signs of the disintegration of Iraqi society—including its weapons programs.
Asked by an audience member whether the failure to find WMDs had undermined American credibility abroad, Kay strongly concluded, "There's no doubt we've shot ourselves in the foot. We'll have a credibility gap for a generation."
Other Institute Resources:
- Event AV Archive and Transcript
- Iraq's Weapons of Mass Destruction (Related Newsbyte)
