Bad Intentions Are Not Good Enough

US inspector David Kay has finally revealed the findings of his Iraq Survey Group's $300 million search for WMDs in Iraq. The result? Orwellian thought-crime.

"We have not found at this point actual weapons... At this point, we have found substantial evidence of an intent of senior level Iraqi officials, including Saddam, to continue production at some future point in time of weapons of mass destruction"

So now we have gone from the deadly and imminent threat of WMDs to "programs" for WMDs to "intent" to produce WMDs. Kay's team is requesting a further $600 million to continue their operation.

The BBC also quotes Kay as saying: "We are actively engaged in searching for such weapons based on information being supplied to Iraqis."

TO? To Iraqis? One hopes that is a typographical error (blame the BBC?).

"It's not clear that it (the intelligence) was off by a little bit or a mile at this stage. That's yet to be seen," says Donald Rumsfeld. "If it is off by a lot that will be unfortunate, and then we'll know that."

Rumsfeld did not say whether or not he would resign if no evidence is found.

Kay says his team is scouring the desert sands with metal detectors and warns the public to expect further surprises. It seems likely that Kay's team will only find WMDs once Baghdad airport becomes safe enough for the CIA to transport dangerous chemicals into Iraq without the potential disaster of a well-aimed "Ba'athist" surface-to-air missile. But Bush's team will have to mend some fences with the CIA first...

Of course Saddam was a bad guy, I am not disputing that. If he tricked the USA into believing he had WMDs, they should just 'fess up and say "OK, he got us. Our intelligence sucked."

But then the CIA will say that even if some of the intelligence did suck, it was the political manipulation of the intelligence that really sucked bit time.