Thomas Daschle: “American intelligence agencies failed to detect that Iraq's unconventional weapons programs were in a state of disarray…”

“American intelligence agencies failed to detect that Iraq's unconventional weapons programs were in a state of disarray in recent years under the increasingly erratic leadership of Saddam Hussein, the C.I.A.'s former chief weapons inspector said in an interview late Saturday. Mr. Kay, the head of our government's effort to determine precisely which weapons Saddam possessed prior to the start of the war, offered the view on whether Saddam actually had weapons of mass destruction. His quote: I don't think they exist. The fact that we found so far the weapons do not exist--we've got to deal with that difference and understand why. I also think it is important for us to understand why. On Saturday, Secretary of State Colin Powell held out the possibility that prewar Iraq did not possess any weapons of mass destruction. That is quite an admission, given the Secretary's presentation to the United Nations, given his assertions publicly and privately to us and many others as the case for war in Iraq was made last spring. These views are consistent with a report issued earlier this month by the nonpartisan Carnegie Endowment. The report by the Carnegie Endowment concluded that the assertion that the fundamental justification for the war with Iraq, namely that Iraq possessed stockpiles of weapons of mass destruction, was not real.”