by Rupert Cornwell, Andrew Grice and Anne Penketh
After eight months of fruitless search, George Bush has in effect
washed his hands of the hunt for Iraq's weapons of mass destruction,
in whose name the United States and Britain went to war last March.
David Kay, the CIA adviser who headed the US-led search for WMD, is
to quit, before submitting his assessment to the US President in
February.
The departure of Mr Kay, a strong believer in the case for toppling
Saddam Hussein because of his alleged weapons, comes as a particular
embarrassment to Tony Blair. This week he maintained that Mr Kay had
uncovered "massive evidence" of a network of WMD laboratories.
For Mr Bush, the missing weapons are a politically charged issue.
Pressed to explain why his administration had asserted Saddam
possessed weapons, when at best fragmentary evidence of programmes
had been found, Mr Bush replied: "So what's the difference? "If he
were to acquire weapons, he would be the danger," he said in an
interview with ABC News' Diane Sawyer.
Mr Bush's public dismissal of the weapons issue is the latest move
by Washington and London to change the justification for war. . . .
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on September 11 Remains a Mystery," The Wisdom Fund, December 12, 2002
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[Officials misrepresented threat from Iraq's WMD and ballistic missiles
programs over and above intelligence findings.--Jessica T. Mathews, George
Perkovich, and Joseph Cirincione, "WMD
IN IRAQ: Evidence and Implications," Carnegie Endowment for
International Peace, January 8, 2004]
Glenn Kessler, "
Arms Issue Seen as Hurting U.S. Credibility Abroad," Washington Post,
January 19, 2004