“Where are Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction? It’s a good question, and unfortunately we don’t yet have a good answer. There is hope that the capture of Abid Hamid Mahmoud al-Tikriti, Saddam Hussein’s closest aide, will provide the first solid clues. In any event, the mystery will be solved in good time; the search for Iraq’s nonconvential weapons program has only just begun.”
“In the meantime, accusations are mounting that the Bush administration made up the whole Iraqi weapons threat to justify an invasion. That is just not the case — America and its allies had plenty of evidence before the war, and before President Bush took office, indicating that Iraq was retaining its illegal weapons programs.”
“As for allegations that some in the administration may have used slanted intelligence claims in making their case against Saddam Hussein, they seem to have merit and demand further investigation. But if the truth was stretched, it seems to have been done primarily to justify the timing of an invasion, not the merits of one.”
“the failure so far to find weapons of mass destruction in no way invalidates the prewar intelligence data indicating that Iraq had the clandestine capacity to build them.”
Read more: Saddam’s Bombs? We’ll Find Them (archived)
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