[Congressional Record Volume 150, Number 11 (Tuesday, February 3, 2004)]
[Senate]
[Pages S535-S536]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                   EXCERPTS FROM DAVID KAY TESTIMONY

  Mr. KYL. Mr. President, with respect to the other subject which I 
wish to briefly deal with, this afternoon several of our Democratic 
colleagues have criticized the President and the administration and 
invoked the name of David Kay, a weapons inspector, to make the point 
that they claim proves the administration somehow misled the American 
people and the rest of the world in making the case for taking military 
action against Iraq. That is not true. I think it is time people start 
quoting David Kay properly to see just exactly what he said. I am 
briefly going to do that.
  I have a few excerpts from his testimony before the Senate Armed 
Services Committee on January 28 of this year. Senator McCain asked him 
this question:

       [Y]ou agree with the fundamental principle here that what 
     we did was justified and enhances the security of the world 
     by removing Saddam Hussein from power?

  David Kay:

       Absolutely.

  Senator Kennedy asked this interesting question:

       Many of us feel that the evidence so far leads to only one 
     conclusion: that what has happened was more than a failure of 
     intelligence, it was the result of manipulation of the 
     intelligence to justify a decision to go to war. . . .

  David Kay responding:

       All I can say is if you read the total body of intelligence 
     in the last 12 to 15 years that flowed on Iraq, I quite 
     frankly think it would be hard to come to a conclusion other 
     than Iraq was a gathering, serious threat to the world with 
     regard to WMD.

  And WMD, as we know, is weapons of mass destruction.
  How about its violations of the United Nations resolutions? Somehow 
the impression has been created that maybe it was just a fraud, that 
Iraq

[[Page S536]]

really wasn't in violation of those resolutions, that somehow the 
weapons of mass destruction never existed. Here is what David Kay said:

       In my judgment, based on the work that has been done to 
     this point of the Iraq Survey Group, and in fact, that I 
     reported to you in October, Iraq was in clear violation of 
     the terms of Resolution 1441. Resolution 1441 required that 
     Iraq report all of its activities: one last chance to come 
     clean about what it had. We have discovered hundreds of 
     cases, based on both documents, physical evidence, and the 
     testimony of Iraqis, of activities that were prohibited under 
     the initial U.N. Resolution 687 and that should have been 
     reported under 1441, with Iraqi testimony that not only did 
     they not tell the U.N. about this, they were instructed not 
     to do it, and they hid material.

  Going on:

       Iraq was in clear material violation of 1441. They 
     maintained programs and activities, and they certainly had 
     the intentions at a point to resume their program. So there 
     was a lot they wanted to hide because it showed what they 
     were doing was illegal. I hope we find even more evidence of 
     that.

  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator's time has expired.
  Mr. KYL. Mr. President, if we are going to be quoting David Kay and 
talking about the state of our intelligence, go to the transcript and 
present a more fair and balanced picture than has been done today.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Texas.

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