Another usage of the David Kay Iraq-was-more-dangerous-than-we-thought quote is by Frank Gaffney, Jr., in the conservative, pro-war National Review Online: Get Thee to the CIA 01/29/04:
He told the Senate Armed Services Committee: "Based on the intelligence that existed, I think it was reasonable to reach the conclusion that Iraq posed an imminent threat. Now that you know reality on the ground as opposed to what you estimated before, you may reach a different conclusion — although I must say I actually think what we learned during the inspection made Iraq a more dangerous place, potentially, than, in fact, we thought it was even before the war."
That danger lay in the reality that, no matter how large the stocks of weapons of mass destruction retained by Saddam Hussein at the beginning of Operation Iraqi Freedom, he surely retained at least small quantities, a likelihood David Kay acknowledges. As Secretary of State Colin Powell reminded the U.N. Security Council in his appearance before it on the eve of war, even a tiny vial of biological weapons could be employed to kill tens of thousands of people.
That quote seems to have become an instant hit witht he Iraq War fans. But if Bush is still crediting claims like this, we certainly have reason to think that the misuse of intelligence information is continuing. Because Kay has provided found no evidence to back up such a statement. We found that Saddam had none of the WMDs the Bush team claimed he had before the war - but he was potentially more dangerous than we thought?
I suppose if China gave Micronesia control over a few dozen nuclear missiles, we could say that they were potentially more dangerous than we thought. But no one but war fans who have no problem rewriting the history of the conflict on a weekly basis will find such claims about Iraq credible.
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