Bush on *Meet the Press* (3a)

Bush made a striking argument about the conclusions to which David Kay of the Iraqi Survey Group came regarding Saddam's non-existent "weapons of mass destruction": "But David Kay did report to the American people that Saddam had the capacity to make weapons. Saddam Hussein was dangerous with weapons. Saddam Hussein was dangerous with the ability to make weapons. He was a dangerous man in the dangerous part of the world."

(The somewhat confusing wording in that passage was typical of Bush's performance throughout the interview).

One of his defenders makes a similar point in an op-ed piece: Indeed, where's the outrage? by Larry Kelley San Francisco Chronicle 02/08/04 (my emphasis):

But the anti-war/anti-Bush coalition's attacks on this administration's decision to wage what arguably is one of the most benevolent wars of liberation ever is really rage over Bush's semantics, amplified by the biased media that have excerpted Kay's statements to suit their agenda. (For instance, the press has largely omitted many of Kay's statements such as, "I actually think what we learned during the inspection(s) is that Iraq was a more dangerous place, potentially, than, in fact, we thought it was before the war. ")

Bush also referred to Kay's statement, but compare what the President said to the Kay quotation just cited:

For the parents of the soldiers who have fallen who are listening, David Kay, the weapons inspector, came back and said, "In many ways Iraq was more dangerous than we thought." It's we are in a war against these terrorists who will bring great harm to America, and I've asked these young ones to sacrifice for that.

I haven't scoured Kay's testimony from recent days. And I don't have the immediate context of Kay's quotation from the Chronicle op-ed (which I assume for the moment that the Chronicle fact-checked for accuracy.) But Kay didn't come up with anything that showed that Saddam had any chemical, biological or nuclear weapons or programs to produce them in any kind of immediate future.