Exerpt from David Kay's NPR interview:
Liane Hansen: Knowing what you know now, though, did Iraq pose an imminent threat?
Kay: Liane, I think this is one of the questions the American public and politicians are going to have to grapple with. "Imminent" depends -- it's a risk assessment. How risky are you to run? And in the shadowing effect of 9/11, it seems to me that you recalculate what risk based on the intelligence that existed.
I think it was reasonable to reach the conclusion that Iraq posed an imminent threat. Now that you know reality on the ground, as opposed to what you estimated before, you may reach a different conclusion -- although I must say
I actually think Iraq, what we learned during the inspection, made Iraq a more dangerous place potentially than, in fact, we thought it was even before the war.
Hansen: Maybe we should define "imminent." Was it, you know, 45 minutes, a year or two, five or six, seven or eight?
Kay: Well, it's quite clear, before the war, it was reasonable for people to think "imminent" meant "a very short order," because you assessed that they had those weapons. After the war, and with the inspection effort that we have carried out now for nine months, I think we all agree that there were not large amounts of weapons available for "imminent" action. That's not the same thing as saying it was not a serious imminent threat that you're not willing to run for the nation. That is a political judgment, not a technical judgment. [Emphasis added.]
Threaded Mode
