Harold Pinter acknowledgement speech

[kandrathe]

Before the war, there was alot of suspicion, some heresay evidence, and no presentation of a smoking gun. Before the war, I was pretty convinced by the evidence that Saddam might be working on illegal weapons programs, however I did not see him as any immediate threat.

I agree with you that the reasons presented were weak, and since they had no hard secret evidence up their sleeves, they should not have built the case for war on WMD, or links to terrorists. The world of intelligence (CIA) is hardly black and white, and truths exist only in shades of grey. What we knew was well detailed in the National Security Assessment, which clearly laid out what we knew and did not know and the doubt. If all the members of congress had read that report and understood it, the rush to war would have been delayed. Whenever you are talking about intelligence, you have to qualify it with a % chance or reliability.

The rush to war at that time had more to do with the seasons, since they wanted to avoid the heat iirc. To delay the attack further would push off the possibility of the war for six months, perhaps allowing Saddam to prepare himself for the war better and resulting in many more casualties.