~~ Saddam Hussein while in power easily qualified as one of the worlds most dangerous men. He killed tens – if not hundreds – of THOUSANDS of his own country men every year, and Saddam was the major obstacle to the political & democratic stabilization of the Mid-East. But did that justify going in after him with the full force of the U.S military? Well maybe it did.
But the Bush administration did not think Saddam slaughtering his own people, nor his perpetual torturing the Kurdish nation, was a strong enough argument to justify toppling Saddam. So the Bush Administration exaggerated --and it seems even fabricated --the Weapons of Mass Destruction [WMD] threat, which today the CIA admitted never were there. ~~ tp
But the Bush administration did not think Saddam slaughtering his own people, nor his perpetual torturing the Kurdish nation, was a strong enough argument to justify toppling Saddam. So the Bush Administration exaggerated --and it seems even fabricated --the Weapons of Mass Destruction [WMD] threat, which today the CIA admitted never were there. ~~ tp
CIA Rectifying Prewar Estimates on Iraq WMD
Tue Feb 1, 2005 06:47 PM ET
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The CIA is publishing a series of classified reports revising its prewar intelligence assessments of Iraq's weapons of mass destruction, an intelligence official said on Tuesday.
A Jan. 18 report, titled "Iraq: No Large-Scale Chemical Warfare Efforts Since Early 1990s," concludes that Saddam Hussein abandoned major chemical weapons programs after the first Gulf War in 1991.
Former CIA Director George Tenet, who resigned last July, told Bush that finding WMD in Iraq would be a "slam dunk" according to journalist Bob Woodward's book "Plan of Attack."
But no WMD have been found in Iraq and U.S. weapons inspector Charles Duelfer is expected this month to issue a final addendum to his September report concluding that prewar Iraq had no such stockpiles.
"The CIA has finally admitted that its WMD estimates were wrong," Rep. Jane Harman of California, ranking Democrat on the House intelligence committee, said in a statement.
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