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In the last two or three weeks thousands of words have been written about how we were obviously wrong because David Kay said so. I will grant he probably knows more about the situation than anyone around. However, does that make his opinions infallible? I don't think so.

Ironically, those thousands of stories all talk about how we trusted intelligence we should not have or something to that effect. Now we are putting complete and total faith in one man's opinion. Further it is not an opinion based on fact. At best it can be said that Mr. Kay's opinion is based on a lack of facts. I've always loved the phrase that, "an absence of evidence is not evidence of absence." Kay's opinion is based on an absence of evidence.

We if we collectively [and I'm throwing the dems and other countries in to] made the mistake of relying too much on certain evidence in the past I think it is even more obvious we are making the same mistake with Kay's opinion 10 times over.

The President is appointing a board and all these investigations are starting, all on one man's opinion.

All it will take is one tractor trailer to make all of that look goofy.

I don't know what was in Iraq or what might have happened to it. But I do know the whole country is treating one man's speculation as though it were gospel. That is dumb. And it will quite probably bite us in the end.

As I say, I can't figure out what happened to the WMD. We know Saddam had them at one point. But we've been there almost a year now and haven't found them. The best guess is that they're no longer there.

If there is one thing we can be certain of, there was significantly less evidence of an impending attack by jetliner than there was of the existance of WMD in Iraq.

Another thing we can be certain of, is that had US forces clusterbombed Bin Laden in early September and removed the Taliban, there would have been no evidence found of Al Queda plans to hijack airliners substantive enough to satisfy the political opposition.

So, someone explain to me how is it that
there can be two investigations going on into criticisms of intelligence gathering that are so diametrically opposed in their definition of what constitutes intelligence failure?

And why do you need a committee to answer questions a 9 year old with a stolen toy could answer?

Really, if one were to give the owner of a pawn shop 6 months notice of an impending search warrant, no one in their right mind would expect to find stolen goods in the place.

But when it comes to high stakes enterprises like banned weapons, we are to set simple reason aside and accept the notion that they were going to be left in neat rows in desert bunkers for the finding, and that because there were not there when we looked, that they obviously did not exist.

Political schizophrenia.

The best guess is that they're no longer there.

That is probably the best guess... However that has nothing to do with where they were the week (or day) before the war.

We have 2 known facts.

1) They were there.

2) We can't find them.

#2 does not prove WHEN they were moved/destroyed. Heck, #2 doesn't even prove they ain't there.

But David Kay comes out and says he thinks they were never there and all of a sudden the whole world jumps. Did he even give a plausible explanation where they went?

It is funny... Nobody believes the combined intelligence units of 30 or 40 countries but a single guys makes a statement and the media takes it as gospel. That just triggers my B.S. detector.

I think pretty much everyone believed the intelligence; hardly anyone disputed that the WMD were there. But after a few months of not finding them, most people think we were wrong in thinking they were there at the time of the invasion. Kay's statements just added momentum to that belief.

I somehow think that it doesn't matter what we find in the next year, it will not satisfy those who want to get rid of Bush.

Their actions may cement Republican hegemony for many years to come.