David A. Kay
David A. Kay, arms inspector for the Central Intelligence Agency in search of a stockpile of weapons of mass destruction allegedly hidden in Iraq by Saddam Hussein, resigned his position on January 23, 2004.
Quotes
- "I don't think they existed. What everyone was talking about is stockpiles produced after the end of the [1991] Gulf War and I don't think there was a large-scale production program in the '90s." -- Chief American arms inspector David Kay, resigning his post and referring to the missing Iraqi WMDs, January 23, 2004.
1983-1988: Kay worked under Ronald Reagan as a chief scientist in the Pentagon.
1983-1992: Kay was on the staff of the UN International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), under the direction of Hans Blix. Both Reagan and Bush I sought an excuse to invade oil-rich Iraq, and viewed 'evidence' of nukes the best motivator for the American public. Blix, however, was a man of integrity who could not be bought, and refused to be pressured, marking him forever as an 'enemy' of the Neocon hawks.
1993-2002: Kay becomes the VP of Science Applications International Corporation (SAIC), the same company that Stephen Hatfill, a WMD expert, worked for until March 2002.
Fall 2001:SAIC is commissioned by the Pentagon to create a replica of a mobile WMD "laboratory", alleged to have been used by Saddam (was there ever such a thing - or was the "replica" created to fix an image in the mind of the military and later the public?).
October 2002: Kay leaves SAIC and becomes a 'senior fellow' at the Potomac Institute for Policy Research, where he is thus positioned to become an 'objective expert' for nuclear weapons for the Bush administration in its run up to the war. In all of Kay's citations in the news and before interviews, he is invariably referred to as "David Kay, former chief UN weapons inspector and senior fellow at the Potomac Instsitute for Policy Research. The SAIC connection is neatly omitted.
SourceWatch Resources
- Bush administration propaganda and disinformation
- Commission on the Intelligence Capabilities of the United States Regarding Weapons of Mass Destruction
- nuclear weapons
- weapons of mass destruction investigation
External links
Headlines
- 26 January 2004: "David Kay's Admission. Grounds for Optimism?" by David Leupp, CounterPunch.
- 3 March 2004: "The inspector's final report" by Julian Borger, Guardian/UK: "When chief weapons inspector David Kay bluntly told the senate there were, in fact, no WMDs, he forced a humiliating U-turn in Washington and London. Now, in his first newspaper interview, he tells Julian Borger that the president must admit he got it wrong."
