2004-1-30
This is Steve Ember with In the News in VOA Special English.
Former chief United States weapons inspector David Kay has called
for an independent investigation into the United States intelligence
failure over weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. Mister Kay said he
has found no such weapons in Iraq even though he and a number of
governments, including the United States, believed they existed.
Mister Kay blamed bad intelligence for the failure to find weapons
of mass destruction.
Mister Kay said he does not believe Iraq had many nuclear,
chemical or biological weapons when American forces invaded the
country last year.
The Bush administration noted intelligence showing Iraq had such
weapons as the main reason for going to war to oust Iraqi leader
Saddam Hussein.
Mister Kay spoke Wednesday before the Senate Intelligence
Committee and the Senate Armed Services Committee in Washington,
D-C. He said that people who believed Iraq had weapons of mass
destruction were almost all wrong. He also said there was evidence
that Saddam Hussein had made efforts to disarm long before President
Bush began making the case for war.
However, Mister Kay also noted evidence that Iraq was involved in
weapons programs banned by United Nations resolutions.
Some Democrats have suggested that the Bush administration
pressured intelligence experts to shape the intelligence to help
President Bush make the case for invading Iraq. But Mister Kay
dismissed such comments. He said intelligence experts were never
under political pressure.
Democrats also have called for an independent investigation. But
Congressional Republicans and the Bush administration oppose such an
investigation. They say it could harm intelligence efforts.
Mister Kay said questions about Iraq's possible weapons of mass
destruction may never be answered. He said that may be because many
documents and other evidence were stolen following the American
invasion of Iraq last year.
David Kay was special adviser to Central Intelligence Agency
Director George Tenet. He was chosen last year as the leader of the
Iraq Survey Group, partly because he believed that weapons would be
found. Mister Kay resigned last week as the top American weapons
inspector in Iraq. He said he did so because resources for the
search were being redirected.
In another development this week, a British judge cleared Prime
Minister Tony Blair's administration of any wrongdoing over charges
he overstated the Iraq weapons threat as a reason for war. Judge
Brian Hutton said the British government's understanding of the
Iraqi threat came from intelligence officials. The judge denounced
the British Broadcasting Corporation for a report accusing the Blair
administration of falsely representing the evidence about Iraq's
weapons. The chairman of the B-B-C later resigned.
In the News, in VOA Special English, was written by Cynthia Kirk.
This is Steve Ember.