"This morning the Sunday Times of London is reporting (subscription required) that "Britain and America have decided to delay indefinitely the publication of a full report on Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction after inspectors found no evidence that any such weapons exist."
Let's be honest: there's no reason for delaying or refusing to issue this report, save for domestic political concerns in the US and Britain. None.
Do they need more time? Then they should take it. But fourteen hundred scientists, military and intelligence officials have been scouring the country for four months and interrogating most of the Iraqi government officials and scientists involved in weapons procurement and research. That's more than long enough to produce a preliminary report. Indeed, it appears that Kay is delivering a report to George Tenet this week. The only question is whether it is published.
This isn't the roll-out of a new government program or a press campaign that you can start or stop depending on which way the political winds happening to be blowing. This is the official US-UK government investigation in to the reason we invaded and occupied Iraq. Will the administration be embarrassed? No doubt. But they won't be the only ones. Everyone in the US intelligence community thought the Iraqis maintained some WMD capacity. The irony of this whole mess is that the White House took the solid evidence of Iraq's continued illicit weapons programs and hyped them all out of proportion to get the country into war, only to find out that even the 'solid evidence' turns out to have been false or greatly exaggerated.
Are there 'sources and methods' issues involved in releasing the report to the public? Maybe. And of course any report could be redacted. But the 'sources and methods' issue must be at least greatly diminished now since the Iraqi government no longer exists.
Here's the bottom line: the only reason for supressing the Kay Report is to game and stymie the political debate within the United States. That's unacceptable. Congress should demand the release of Kay's report -- even if redacted in some form. No more game playing. Let the chips fall where they may.
-- Josh Marshall
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