David Kay says that he now believes we will never find any WMD in Iraq because they did not exist after the Gulf War. On Feb. 5, 2003, Colin Powell told the UN Security Council, “While we were here in this council chamber debating Resolution 1441 last fall, we know, we know from sources that a missile brigade outside Baghdad was disbursing rocket launchers and warheads containing biological warfare agents to various locations, distributing them to various locations in western Iraq.” Powell went on to say the launchers and warheads were hidden in palm tree groves and that the U.S. had satellite photos of banned materials being moved from WMD facilities.

After Kay made his statements about the absence of WMD, Powell said, “The open question is how many stocks they had, if any, and if they had any, where did they go. And if they didn’t have any, then why wasn’t that known beforehand?”

I keep hearing that it would be wrong to accuse the Bush administration of misleading the American people when it comes to the build-up to the invasion of Iraq. If the facts now tell us that the intelligence for war was “unanswered questions,” don’t we need to ask how Mr. Powell could have made the declarative statements of Feb. 5? How do we explain that nine months and thousands of deaths later, we haven’t a clue as to what happened to those warheads containing biological warfare agents? With the departure of David Kay and the continuing morphing of the reason for war, it is time for the American people to wake up and hold this administration accountable. In November, we have the opportunity to demand the truth from those who would send our young into harm’s way.

Everett