] According to The AP, Muhsin Khadr al-Khafaji, No. 48 on
] the 55 most-wanted list, was turned over last weekend to
] US troops in the Baghdad area, the officials disclosed.

Only 11 more to go. Gotta collect 'em all!

US arrests another former Baath Party official

] Tim Russert: And we are in the Oval Office this morning with
] the President of the United States. Mr. President, welcome
] back to Meet The Press.

I watched the interview, and listened, but I dunno if it's going to change any minds. I think people who had already made up their mind up to hate Bush, just came out still hating him, and those who already supported the war, still supported it after the show.

In any case, I still think the transcript is worth reading, but do it quick, since it *is* an election year, so of course it's going to be rapidly and thoroughly misquoted by both sides. ;)

NBC -- Meet the Press with George W. Bush

] We have discovered dozens of WMD-related program
] activities and significant amounts of equipment that Iraq
] concealed from the United Nations during the inspections
] that began in late 2002.
  . . .
] A clandestine network of laboratories and safehouses
] within the Iraqi Intelligence Service that contained
] equipment subject to UN monitoring and suitable for
] continuing CBW research.
 . . .
] Reference strains of biological organisms concealed in a
] scientist's home, one of which can be used to produce
] biological weapons.
]
] New research on BW-applicable agents, Brucella and Congo
] Crimean Hemorrhagic Fever (CCHF), and continuing work on
] ricin and aflatoxin were not declared to the UN

I think I meme-ed this report already from a different location, but I like this one better because it includes pictures.

Kay's Statement to Congress about Iraqi Weapons - October 2003

This is a collection of photos, videos, and journals from when U.S. Rep Pete Hoekstra (R-Michigan) visited Iraq in September 2003. I ran across it because he made a visit to the Tuwaitha nuclear facility and has some video of the yellowcake canisters there (Tuwaitha is still a major story that I'm following).

Unfortunately, this site is mostly summaries, and his "journal" often seems more optimistic spin than genuine observations. There are pictures and video of Tuwaitha, but he never mentions them in his journal, and their significance isn't covered at all.

Still though, after having read through portions of the site, I find myself encouraged. Especially as he recounted what it was like to land at Baghdad Airport, I was reminded about just how dangerous this trip was for him -- He put his life on the line to go visit Iraq and see for himself what it was like, and I have respect for that.

September 2003 - Congressman's 'blog' in Iraq

] Any actual WMD weapons or material is likely to be small in
] relation to the total conventional armaments footprint and
] difficult to near impossible to identify with normal search
] procedures. It is important to keep in mind that even the
] bulkiest materials we are searching for, in the quantities we
] would expect to find, can be concealed in spaces not much larger
] than a two car garage.
 . . .
] We have discovered dozens of WMD-related program
] activities and significant amounts of equipment that Iraq
] concealed from the United Nations during the inspections
] that began in late 2002. The discovery of these
] deliberate concealment efforts have come about both
] through the admissions of Iraqi scientists and officials
] concerning information they deliberately withheld and
] through physical evidence of equipment and activities
] that ISG has discovered that should have been declared to
] the UN. Let me just give you a few examples of these
] concealment efforts . . .

There's an extensive list here of specific things found as of October 2003. Many many items which clearly should have been declared to the U.N. inspectors, which were not.

Iraq was systematically and provably hiding things, and any Democratic candidates who try to say that this all was just "made up" by Bush are being hypocrites.

Text of David Kay's statement - Oct. 2, 2003

Here's a summary of how some of the Democratic candidates are jumping on Kay's report.

- Kerry says that it confirms we were misled. Though it's also pointed out that Kerry voted *for* the war. And he also says that he "trusts Colin Powell implicitly."

- Clark says the administration was playing politics with intelligence. He's also trying to finger-point at Rumsfeld. "A lot of us who have not been privy to secret intelligence simply listened to what people told us."

- Lieberman says, "The fact that David Kay now says they weren't there doesn't say [Iraq] never had them."

If I were voting in tomorrow's primary, I'd vote for Lieberman.

CNN.com - Democrats attack administration over Kay's comments

Fascinating report. Of course, it's going to get mis-quoted all over the place.

Points that I found particularly of note:

- He said Baghdad was actively working to produce a biological weapon using the poison ricin until the American invasion last March.

- He resigned, not because he felt the hunt for weapons was misguided, but "because he disagreed with the decision in November by the administration and the Pentagon to shift intelligence resources from the hunt for banned weapons to counterinsurgency efforts inside Iraq."

- According to Kay, Iraqi scientists realized they could go directly to Mr. Hussein and present fanciful plans for weapons programs, and receive approval and large amounts of money. Whatever was left of an effective weapons capability, he said, was largely subsumed into corrupt money-raising schemes by scientists skilled in the arts of lying and surviving in a fevered police state

- "We know that terrorists were passing through Iraq," he said. "And now we know that there was little control over Iraq's weapons capabilities. I think it shows that Iraq was a very dangerous place. The country had the technology, the ability to produce, and there were terrorist groups passing through the country — and no central control."

(Update: The New York Times article has been moved into archives and is now only freely available in abstract form. A mirrored extract can be seen here:
http://www.dfw.com/mld/dfw/news/nation/7798415.htm )

Ex-Inspector Says CIA Missed Disarray in Iraqi Arms Program

] The October 2002 National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) on Iraq's
] Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMD) has been dissected like no
] other product in the history of the US Intelligence Community.
] We have reexamined every phrase, line, sentence, judgment and
] alternative view in this 90-page document and have traced their
] genesis completely. I believed at the time the Estimate was
] approved for publication, and still believe now, that we were on
] solid ground in how we reached the judgments we made.
 . . .
] The only government in the world that claimed that Iraq was not
] working on, and did not have, biological and chemical weapons or
] prohibited missile systems was in Baghdad.
&nbsp. . .
] Those who conclude that no threat existed because actual weapons
] have not yet been found do not understand the significance posed
] by biological and chemical warfare programs in the hands of
] tyrants.

A November 2003 statement from the CIA's Stu Cohen, the Chairman of the National Intelligence Council.

And yeah, I also have a soft spot for the page, since they use a picture of Kryptos in the banner. :)

Iraq's WMD Programs: Culling Hard Facts from Soft Myths

] Despite the fact that no cache of mass destruction
] weapons has been found in Iraq, a number of crucial
] questions about Iraq's past weapon efforts - raised by
] nearly a decade of U.N. inspections - remain unanswered.

(1) VX - The inspectors never could figure out what happened to 3.9 tonnes of VX, the deadliest kind of nerve gas. Iraq admitted producing VX in 1988 and 1990, but furnished no convincing evidence that it was destroyed in 1991, as Iraq claimed.

(2) Anthrax - Iraq admitted producing 8,425 liters of anthrax

(3) Other Germ Warfare Agents - Iraq did not explain what happened to thousands of liters of other biological agent that it admitted producing, including more than 340 liters of clostridium perfringens - though inspectors concluded that Iraq had enough growth medium to have made "much larger quantities."

(4) Chemical and Biological Munitions - Inspectors could not account for 550 mustard-filled artillery shells that Iraq claimed to have lost. The inspectors determined that Iraqi mustard gas was still of a very high quality. Also unaccounted for are 29 germ-filled bombs, some possibly containing anthrax.

iraqwatch.org : Iraqi Weapons - Unanswered Questions

] Hamdi Shukuir Ubaydi told CIA officials that he was
] ordered to bury a gas centrifuge used to enrich uranium --
] a necessary piece of equipment for developing a
] nuclear weapon -- in order to be ready to rebuild
] Iraq's bomb program.
]
] Ubaydi, who was head of Iraq's pre-1991 centrifuge
] enrichment program, told U.S. intelligence officials he
] was acting on orders from Saddam Hussein's government.
 . . .
] Other items of interest found buried in his garden
] included:
]
] A 2-foot-tall stack of related documents.
]
] A number of the most-difficult-to-make parts.
]
] Examples and templates which would be used to make a
] large number of centrifuges. A large number of
] centrifuges are needed to make nuclear weapons.

This story is from several months ago. *I* read it, but it seems that many other people, including certain Democratic Presidential candidates, haven't.

I find it so frustrating when I hear of anyone trying to make Saddam's regime out as some sort of misunderstood and innocent pawn in an evil Bush-administration plot.

Stories about Iraq's WMD programs were *not* fictional. Iraq had the weapons, had the programs, and was provably concealing those programs. Just because we're not finding stockpiles of weapons, doesn't mean that Iraq was clean.

Nuke Parts Unearthed in Baghdad Backyard