One report-two slants
On Wednesday, Chief weapons inspector* Charles A. Duelfer delivered testimony concerning his comprehensive report on Iraqi WMD to the Senate Armed Services Committee.
Today, I saw two headlines that, along with their accompanying stories, presented the information from this report in completely different ways.
Matt Drudge linked to the AP News version, the headline of which read “U.S. Report: Iraq Didn’t Have WMDs.”
The Washington Times, on the other hand, covered the report with this headline: “Saddam worked secretly on WMDs.”
Here is the actual testimony from the Senate Armed Services Committee website. The report on which the testimony was based can be read on the CIA’s website.
Keep in mind, of course, that whatever the truth about whether Hussein did or did not have WMD at the time of the U.S. invasion has no bearing on whether the President had good reason to view Iraq as a threat.
If the police officer tells a suspect to show his hands and lay down on the ground, and that suspect instead reaches into his jacket or behind his back, the officer’s gotta drop him. If you say that Hussein allowing inspectors into the country (though not everywhere in the country and never without restriction) invalidates this analogy, then feel free to change it. Say instead that the suspect pulls one empty hand from behind his back and says, “See?” Asked to show the other, he puts the one back behind and pulls the other out empty.
It’s funny when I’m playing that game with my three-year-old, but in this situation, again, the perp gets dropped and I don’t shed a tear if it turns out he was unarmed.
*Special Advisor to the
Director of Central Intelligence for Strategy Regarding Iraqi
Weapons of Mass Destruction Programs
