The NYT
reports:
Iraq had essentially destroyed its illicit weapons capability within months after the Persian Gulf War ended in 1991, and its capacity to produce such weapons had eroded even further by the time of the American invasion in 2003, the top American inspector in Iraq said in a report made public today.
The report, by Charles A. Duelfer, said the last Iraqi factory capable of producing militarily significant quantities of unconventional weapons was destroyed in 1996. The findings amounted to the starkest portrayal yet of a vast gap between the Bush administration's prewar assertions about Iraqi weapons and what a 15-month postinvasion inquiry by American investigators concluded were the facts on the ground.
This has to be the single largest opening for Kerry and Edwards against Bushco.
The UN inspectors were onto this, having reported that they did not find anything but inconsistencies between Saddam's rhetoric and the reality on the ground in Iraq. Given more time, they would have revealed the same thing that we are now learning, over eighteen months and thousands of dead later.
Kerry's line should now be: "Saddam wasn't a danger to the United States, he was delusional. We should never have rushed to war like this President did. Instead, as I have always said, we should have let the inspections continue while we strengthened our alliances and built the coalition necessary to win the peace. This President has shown neither the wisdom nor the judgement that I will bring to the White House when I am President."
The Duelfer report, although it won't be given our media and the GOP spin machine, should be Game Over for Bushco.
