Kay says Iraq war was ‘prudent’

WASHINGTON: David Kay, who recently resigned as the chief US weapons inspector in Iraq, said Tuesday it was “absolutely prudent” for the US to go to war there.

“In fact,” he told NBC television, “I think at the end of the inspection process, we’ll paint a picture of Iraq that was far more dangerous than even we thought it was before the war.”

“It was of a system collapsing. It was a country that had the capability in weapons of mass destruction areas, and terrorists, like ants to honey, were going after it.”

Kay pointed out that prior to the war, the French, the British, the Germans and the UN “all thought Saddam (Hussein) had weapons of mass destruction. Not discovering them tells us we’ve got a more fundamental problem”.

He said, “The tendency to say, well, it must have been pressure from the White House, is absolutely wrong.” Saddam “was putting more money into his nuclear programme, he was pushing ahead his long-range missile programme as hard as he could”.

“We have collected dozens of examples of where he lied to the UN, violated Resolution 1441 and was in material breach,” Kay added. He noted that Saddam “had the intent to acquire these weapons. He invested huge amounts of money in them. The fact is that he wasn’t successful”. —AFP

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