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WMD Reaction:  How were Congress, candidates for President, and the press reacting to the lack of WMD evidence?

Also see "Candidates on Iraq" FAQ and see "Op-Ed Views" and pre-war WMD issues

In Congress, though some Democrats were criticizing the administration even before the war, the issue became a front page story when no WMD were found during or after the war.  Then, after the administration finally admitted on July 7, 2003 that President Bush should not have included the "uranium from Africa" accusation in his State of the Union speech, Congress became more upset and contemplated a larger investigation to include other accusations of WMD. 

For example,  Senate Intelligence Member and Illinois Senator Dick Durbin sponsored an amendment , passing unanimously, which "called for the inspectors general of the State Department and the CIA to investigate the controversy". (Chicago Tribune, 7/12/03).  One week later, after closed-door hearings, Durbin's Tribune quote was, the president has on "his staff some person who was willing to spin and hype and exaggerate and cut corner on the most important speech that the president delivers in any given year."  He suggested some in the White House should resign. The White House termed Durbin's assessment "nonsense." (7/18/03).

Durbin saw a campaign against him from the White House. 

Detailed Sen. Carl Levin (D-MI), also of the Senate Intelligence Committee: "The way in which the administration has responded in the last few days raises more questions than it answers, because now it looks as though there was just a conscious effort here to create a false impression."  The Niger claim, "was not an inadvertent mistake.  It was negotiated between CIA and NSC officials, and it was highly misleading" (Chicago Tribune, 7/20/03).  Levin continued his push for a thorough investigation throughout the summer.

In February 2004, Levin renewed his claim that Tenet misled Congress in the lead up to war when he claimed that the CIA had given UN inspectors all of the top suspect weapons sites. It turns out that 21 of the 105 "high and medium priority top suspect sites" were not shared.  Levin felt that Tenet's "lack of candor" was "more evidence of the shaping of intelligence to fit the administration's policy objectives."
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A60818-2004Feb21.html

Rep. Henry Waxman's staff has developed a site specifying 237 misstatements from Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, Powell, and Rice.  The site has a search function by person or by topic.  
http://www.house.gov/reform/min/features/iraq_on_the_record/

Senator Edward Kennedy spoke up on July 15, urging the President to finally ask NATO troops to help.  "Pride goes before the fall...it's a disgrace that the case for war seems to have been based on shoddy intelligence, hyped intelligence and even false intelligence...All the evidence points to the conclusion that they put a spin on the intelligence and a spin on the truth," he said in a speech at the John Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies. In mid-July, the Senate rejected a bi-partisan panel to further investigate the pre-war intelligence.  By September, Kennedy was calling the countdown to war a "fraud."  Republicans severely criticized him.

In October the limited investigation of the evidence presented before the war was criticized as  Democrats wanted a more thorough investigation. 
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A13974-2003Oct24?language=printer

Among Republicans, Rep. Tom Delay (TX), House majority leader, defended the President:  "It's very easy to pick one little flaw here and one little flaw there.  The overall reason we went into Iraq is sound and morally sound" (Tribune, 7/9/03).

Sen. Pat Roberts (KS), normally supportive of the President, gave sharp criticism:  "I am very disturbed."  Sen. Hagel joined his critique.  Other members of Congress think the accusations are politically motivated or much ado about nothing.

Five months later Kerry was more upset over the O'Neill accusations (see PS WMD).  Kerry felt the charges meant that the President and his advisers "were dead set on going to war alone since almost the day they took office and deliberately lied to the American people, Congress, and the world."  After the Richard Clarke accusations of late March 2004, he remained silent for a few days while vacationing in Idaho.

Kerry's comments on Iraq became very public and specific with his op-ed piece in the April 13 Washington Post, "A Strategy for Iraq." 
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A6753-2004Apr12?language=printer

Howard Dean wanted others besides Tenet to be scrutinized.  "They will not get away with simply throwing George Tenet over the side," he told CNN (Tribune, 7/12/03). See more on Tenet's resignation of June 2004. 

Bob Graham of Florida, while still a candidate, was upset over "the selective use of intelligence." To believe that Cheney did not know about Wilson's report, "is ludicrous", says Graham.  "I've got some swamp land to sell to you."  Graham and Dean are joined by Kucinich as the most fervent critics of the faulty intelligence and misleading information. Graham subsequently dropped out of the race.

Former Democratic President Jimmy Carter, following the Richard Clarke accusations, says Bush "lies" led to war. "That was a war based on lies and misinterpretations from London and from Washington claiming falsely that Saddam Hussein was responsible for [the] 9/11 attacks, claiming falsely that Iraq had [WMD]...And I think that President Bush and Prime Minister Blair probably knew that many of the allegations were based on uncertain intelligence."  Carter was quoted by the AP on March 23, 2004.

In the press, in June 2003, some press began to use to "L" word--lie, about the evidence presented to help sell the war. Those who have long been critical of the President's accusations of faulty evidence started in June talk of the possibility of impeachment.

New York Times editorials on the uranium claims are, "Uranium Quicksand" (7/15/03) and "The Uranium Fiction" (7/12/03). Throughout much of August and September, Times  editorials focused on the violence in Iraq and the role of the UN.  Their September 26 "The Failure to Find Iraqi Weapons" returned to the subject.  "Like the President, we thought those weapons posed a grave danger to the U.S. and the rest of the world.  Now it appears that premise was wrong...But even the best intelligence can turn out to be mistaken, and the likelihood that this was the case in Iraq shows why pre-emptive war, the Bush administration's strategy since 9/11, is so ill conceived as a foundation for security policy...Before the war, we objected not to the stated goal of disarming Iraq but to the fact that the U.S. was waging war essentially alone, in defiance of many important allies.  We favored using international inspectors to keep Iraq's destructive programs in check while diplomats forged a UN effort to force Mr. Hussein to yield his weapons.

This Times editorial concluded:  "But it was the fear of WMD placed in the hands of enemy terrorist state made doing something about Iraq seem urgent.  If it had seemed unlikely that Mr. Hussein had them, we doubt that Congress or the American people would have endorsed the war.  This is clearly an uncomfortable question for the Bush administration.  Yesterday, [Powell] met with Times editors.  Asked whether American would have supported this war if WMD had not been at issue, Mr. Powell said the question was too hypothetical to answer.  Asked if he, personally would have supported it, he smiled, thrust his hand out and said, 'It was good to meet you.'"
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/09/26/opinion/26FRI1.html

The July 21 Time magazine cover was entitled, "Untruth and Consequences" with a photo of the State of the Union speech. This cover is subtitled, "How flawed was the case for going to war against Saddam?"

The New Republic has the most detailed analysis of the WMD evidence in, "The Selling of The Iraq War", which was written before Wilson's uranium op-ed. 

Among columnists, the Washington Post's Richard Cohen writes of "Bush the Believer" (7/22/03) and then "Sword-Passing" (7/24/03). E.J. Dionne Jr. opines in "George W. on the Defensive" (7/11/03). Jim Hoagland discusses incompetence (7/16/03) while Charles Krauthammer supports the administration in "Middle East:  The Realities". David Ignatius contributes "Spying and Speeches" on July 25. 

In the New York Times, Nicholas Kristof , often a critic of the war, writes his latest, "Whose Unpatriotic Now? " (7/23) and  "16 Words and Counting" (7/15/03).  

Paul Krugman contributes "Pattern of Corruption" (7/15/03) and "Who's Unpatriotic Now?" (7/22/03).   Maureen Dowd, usually critical of the President, writes of what she calls the pattern of faulty evidence, laying blame heavily on Cheney,  in "National House of Waffles."

Times news articles include stories of "sketchy data."  and "chronicle of confusion."

Post articles spoke of CIA warnings going unread, , White House/CIA miscommunication., uranium claim was known for months earlier and "A Handle on Scandal" (7/24)

The Chicago Tribune's Steve Chapman continued to be critical of the President's Iraq policy in September and continued to focus on WMD while few Post or Times op-eds still did so.

Also in the Tribune was Leonard Pitts in March 2004 in "Bush against all enemies, even when they are right."  Commenting on Clarke's accusations of the previous few weeks and the inevitability of the war, Pitts writes: "Clarke's account dovetails neatly with that of another former administration official, Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neill, who also criticizes what he saw as a Bush fixation on Iraq.  He, too, was treated as the lions treat the zebras.  Still, it becomes ever more apparent that this war was based on half-truths, untruths, and that stubborn fixation.  Ever more apparent that the show of diplomacy predicting the invasion was just play-acting, an insincere genuflection to world opinion" (3/30/04). 

Polls in mid-July 2003 from ABC and reported on NPR showed that about half of Americans think intelligence was misleading, 62% thought U.S. was more secure, 63% thought U.S. image was damaged.  Cokie Roberts concludes, "People are confused."  

By July of 2004 a polls showed that a majority of Americans feel the war has made us less safe against terrorism (USA Today).  

In October the first large protest in months was held in Washington and in San Francisco.

Protests were larger on the one year anniversary of the war, March 2004.  If the next debate is over the Al Qaeda link, the Times begins it on July 20. 

How is the world reacting to missing WMD?
The Washington Post explored this important question in their mid-January 2004 report, "Arms Issue Seen as Hurting U.S. Credibility Abroad"
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A27978-2004Jan18?language=printer

President Bush joked about the missing WMD during a large ballroom dinner in late March.  According to the Chicago Tribune, the President showed several slides of him looking under White House furniture and saying, "Those weapons of mass destruction got to be here somewhere...Nope, no weapons over there."  Illinois Senator Dick Durbin responded critically:  "I didn't see the humor in it.   I don't think there's anything humorous about the American people being misled about the reason for going to war."  Added John Kerry, "If George Bush thinks his deceptive rationale forgoing to war is a laughing matter, then he's even more out of touch than we thought." (3/26/04).

In mid-April 2004, Bob Woodward's book Plan of Attack, was released.  He recalled that in December  2002, the President was not convinced by the CIA case of WMD. CIA Director Tenet assured Bush not to worry:  "It's a slam-dunk case."  Woodward reports that the President decided to go to war in January, just week after the Weapons Inspections had begun. He had assured the public up until March that his mind was not made up. "It's a slam-dunk, Mr. President," assured Tenet in the fall of 2002.  The President had expressed doubts about the WMD evidence with which he was presented. Woodward further reported that Cheney was "obsessed" with a war against Saddam.

It was only in April that Dana Priest of the Washington Post reported that back in the fall of 2002 as Congress was debating the war resolution, copies of a 92-page National Intelligence Estimate assessment of Iraq's alleged WMD were seen by only a few members.  Only  6 Senators and a handful from the House read more than the 5 page summary provided to them.  Priest described this lack of attention to detail as "symptomatic of Congress's approach to a range of intelligence matters."

The New York Times admitted serious pre-war errors in their reporting of the Iraq threat.  To pre-war press critics like the author of this web site, if the Times is admitted errors of their thorough coverage, certainly other media outlets should be even more embarrassed. At times in the Times, no one but a meticulous reader could have seen through the misinformation 

The editors wrote "The Times and Iraq" (page 10 on May 26,) which generated a whole new round of responses in the press.  Among their points were admissions but not apologies that "we have found a number of instances of coverage that was not as rigorous as it should have been.  In some cases, information that was controversial then, and seems questionable now, was insufficiently qualified or allowed to stand unchallenged.  Looking back, we wish we had been more aggressive in re-examining the claims as new evidence emerged--or failed to emerge."  When follow-up stories contradicting early claims of Iraqi arms, the stories were not usually prominent, leaving the casual reader to be misinformed. Stories depended on exiles or defectors, sources who desired regime change, like Chalabi, sometimes lacked credibility.  "These exiles were often eagerly confirmed by U.S. officials convinced of the need to intervene in Iraq."  Chalabi, subsidized by the Pentagon provided "most of the front page exclusives on WMD" to the paper.

One of  the WMD stories concerned aluminum tubes and their use in nuclear weapons.  "There were hints that the usefulness of the tubes in making nuclear fuel was not a sure thing, but the hints were buried deep, 1700 words into a 3600-word article...Five days late the Times reporters learned that the rubes were in fact a subject of debate among intelligence agencies.."  But that story, on page A13, was under a headline "that gave no inkling that we were revising our earlier view."

Other stories not independently verified included allegations of a secret camp where terrorists were trained and biological weapons were produced.  

The unique story of admission concludes, "We consider the story of Iraq's weapons, and of the pattern of misinformation, to be unfinished business.  And we fully intend to continue aggressive reporting aimed at setting the record straight."

Detailed samples of the Times coverage, by category, is at nytimes.com/critique.
For thorough pre-war coverage, analysis, and articles, see "Iraq's Nuclear Ties" and "Should We Go To War?--Editorials"

Reaction to the Times admission included Gen. Anthony Zinni, Sen. Dick Durbin, and Clinton press secretary Joe Lockhart. The news stories, said Durbin, "blunted a lot of criticism and cowed a lot of critics.  I know it.  It was too much for some of my colleagues in Congress.  The safe vote was the vote for the war." Commented Lockhart, "There's an echo chamber or circular feel to all of this, which really should worry everybody."  For example, The Chicago Tribune was one of many papers which carried many of these same stories as part of The New York Times News Service.

Reaction from Times  readers, in the form of numerous Letters to the Editor, was entitled, "A Mea Culpa, and a Debate."

In new developments from June 2004 and beyond came Michael Moore's Movie Fahrenheit 9/11.  The film, critical of President Bush's foreign policy, had its avid supporters and detractors.  Some movie theaters in the U.S. refused to show it. The movie was banned in the country the U.S. liberated from Iraq in 1991, Kuwait.  It was not banned in Saudi Arabia because there are no movie theaters in that country. 

New WMD news was slow in late 2004, as the nation focused on the November election.  

Candidate John Kerry was criticized for being inconsistent (flip-flopper) in regards to Iraq, voting to give the President the power to go to war but later calling it "the wrong war in the the wrong place at the wrong time."  The Democrat said that knowing what he now knows (about no WMD, etc) he still would have voted the same way in October 2002. After the US Presidential election, Kerry visited Iraq.

Condoleezza Rice, in her testimony before the Senate to become Sec. of State declared that the US was making "some progress" in training Iraqi security forces.  One supporter, Sen. Lugar, had positive things to say about Dr. Rice:  "She's knowledgeable, she's smart she honorable."  Rice was questioned most severely by Senator Boxer, worried about the pre-war nuclear exaggerations.  Said Boxer, "I personally believe...that your loyalty to the mission you were given, to sell this war, overwhelmed your respect for the truth."

Boxer also commented on  the reasons for going to war.  "You should read what we voted on when we voted to support the war, which I did not, bust most of my colleagues did.  It was WMD--period."  I (the author of this web site) would add that the language in the vote included other reasons, but the administration emphasized WMD and al Qaeda connections much more than any other cause. 

Kerry commented, "You know, we went in to rescue Iraq from Saddam Hussein.  Now I think we have to rescue our policy from ourselves...You sat there this morning and suggested it was the right number of troops contrary to the advice of most thoughtful people who have been analyzing this."

Kerry also asked the longest one sentences question:  "Despite Paul Bremer saying he thought they need more troops, despite General Shinseki talking about more troops, despite the acknowledged mistake by so many people...about the disbanding of the military, the de-Baathification that went as deep as it did; despite the failure to guard ammo dumps, the weapon of which are now being turned on our troops; despite the failure to guard nuclear factories, when after all the purpose of the invasion was to deal with WMD,; despite the inability to deliver services immediately; despite the security level that we have today, you stand there this morning and suggested that it was the right number of troops contrary to the advice of most thoughtful  people who have been analyzing. this."

Rice replied, "This was never going to be easy; it was also going to have ups and down...But the strategic decision to overthrow Saddam Hussein was the right one...the elections are an important event.  It's a next step on the Iraqi people's road to a better future.

Other comments on the Senate were from Hagel (R):  Would you explain...what you and the president see as an exit strategy...  Rice talked of training more Iraqis as being most important 

Only Boxer and Kerry voted in committee against Rice. The vote on the full Senate was 85-13, the most who have opposed a Sec. of State since at least World War II.  At his news conference before the final vote, the President was asked to respond to the accusation that Rice had lied about WMD before the war.  He refused to answer the question. For more on Rice, see Congress and Polls FAQ.

WMD news and reaction in 2005 (1/14) came from a Chicago Tribune editorial reaction to the announcement of the end of the WMD search.  In "assessing what we've learned...First, there was a colossal failure of US intelligence...at every turn, from a lack of human intel sources on the ground...to analysts who were quick to draw erroneous conclusions from sketch and contradictory data."  US agencies fell victim to "group think."  On weapons, "it was an astonishing failure."  However, the paper saw cause for alarm.  "Most alarming [US inspector] Duelfer wrote that Hussein wanted to re-create Iraq's WMD capability."  Former top Iraqi nuclear scientist said "In many ways, Saddam was himself a weapons of mass destruction."  On the continuation of sanctions had there been no war, the paper felt "There's little doubt that once sanction were lifted, Saddam's nuclear ambitions would again threaten the world."  Before the war, I did not read of any plans to lift sanctions on Iraq, though Saddam certainly desired such a change in policy.

White House press secretary Scott McClellan said the president had "no regrets" about invading Iraq.  "Based on what we know today, the president would have taken the same action, because this is about protecting the American people." See much more on the Tribune and other editorials

The New York Times had more to say.  In their lead editorial that day sarcastically titled "Bulletin:  No WMD Found", the paper writes that this search may have been "one of the greatest nonevents of the early 21st century...This proves once again the difficulties of debunking hard-held convictions.  Mr. Bush id such a good job selling the weapons hunting nostrum that 40% of Americans recently said the weapons were there.  The fact that nothing was found does not absolutely, positively prove that there wasn't something there once, something that was disassembled and trucked over the border to Syria or buried in yet another Iraqi rose garden.  But its not the sort to  possibility you'd want to fight a war over.  what all our loss and pain and expense...has actually proves that the weapons inspections worked, that international sanctions--deeply, deeply messy as they turned out to be--worked, and that in the case of Saddam Hussein, the UN worked.  whatever the Hussein regime once had is gone because the international community insisted.  It was all destroyed a decade ago, under world pressure.  This is no a lesson that many people in power in Washington are prepared to carry away, but it is what the national adventure in the reckless doctrine of preventive warfare has to teach us."  The editorial concluded with hopes that the insurgency would be defeated.  If not, "large swaths of Iraq could become a no man's land, where terrorists will be free to work on WMD projects and UN weapons inspectors cannot go to thwart them." 

In March 2005 we learned that Congress did not plan to continue its WMD investigation.  After investigation how the intelligence was wrong, they do not plan to find out why or how the administration used the intelligence.  In July 2004  the lead Senator, Pat Roberts, of the Intelligence Committee had said they don't have time to investigate before the election. At first, this story was not picked up by the mainstream media.  The President's own commission on WMD and other issues was due to make a report before the end of March.

On the day Terri Shaivo died, (March 30) we heard the details of the Presidential Commission which took a year to investigate WMD and US intelligence. For more on this report, see WMD.  Reaction to the commission included David Ignatius in the Washington Post, titled "Fooling Ourselves."
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A17353-2005Mar31?language=printer

Maureen Dowd was not pleased with the "screw up."  "On the comic side, The Times reported yesterday that administration officials were relieved that the new report...had 'found no evidence that political pressure from the White House or Pentagon contributed to the mistaken intelligence.'  That's hilarious.  As necessity is the mother of invention, political pressure was the father of conveniently botched intelligence.  Dick Cheney and the neocons at the pentagon started with the conclusion they wanted, the massaged and manipulated the intelligence to back up their wishful thinking."  Dowd describes Cheney "lurking" at the CIA and Douglas Feith setting up the office of Special Plans "as a shadow intelligence agency to manufacture propaganda bolstering the administration's case."  This OSP "turned to the con man Ahmad Chalabi to come up with the evidence they needed."

Powell told Germany's Stern magazine, Dowd writes, "Some of the information was wrong.  I did not know this at the time [of the UN presentation]."  On the National Intelligence Estimate of Oct 2, 2002, nine days before the Senate vote, "there was one key change":  suddenly the agency agreed with Dick Cheney that Iraq was pursing the atomic bomb....It is laughable that the report offers its most scorching criticism of the CIA when the CIA was doing what the White House and Pentagon waned...The hawks don't want to learn any lesson here.  If they had to do it again, they'd do it the same way.  The imaginary weapons of Osama link were just a marketing tool and shiny distraction, something to keep the public from crying while they went to war for reasons unrelated to any nuclear threat.  The 9/11 attacks gave the neocons an opening for their drams of remaking the Middle East, and the drove the Third Infantry Division through it." 

WMD was a less pressing issue in 2006 and 2007.

However, for more on WMD and pre-war intelligence updates, see "Where are the WMD?" section on Joseph Wilson and the CIA leak.  Also see "Was the War Inevitable?" FAQ