David Kay Quotes

• This hearing came about very quickly. I do have a few preliminary comments, but I suspect you’re more interested in asking questions, and I’ll be happy to respond to those questions to the best of my ability.

  David Kay

  Topics in Uncategorized

  Tags in Happy

• There’s a long record here of being wrong. There’s a good reason for it. There are probably multiple reasons. Certainly proliferation is a hard thing to track, particularly in countries that deny easy and free access and don’t have free and open societies.

  David Kay

  Topics in Uncategorized

  Tags in Good, Hard

• The result is – document destruction – we’re really not going to be able to prove beyond a truth the negatives and some of the positive conclusions that we’re going to come to. There will be always unresolved ambiguity here.

  David Kay

  Topics in Truth, Uncategorized

• The Libyan program recently discovered was far more extensive than was assessed prior to that.

  David Kay

  Topics in Uncategorized

  Tags in Discovered

• The fact that it wasn’t tells me that we’ve got a much more fundamental problem of understanding what went wrong, and we’ve got to figure out what was there. And that’s what I call fundamental fault analysis.

  David Kay

  Topics in Uncategorized

  Tags in Fact

• The case of Iran, a nuclear program that the Iranians admit was 18 years on, that we underestimated. And, in fact, we didn’t discover it. It was discovered by a group of Iranian dissidents outside the country who pointed the international community at the location.

  David Kay

  Topics in Country

  Tags in Fact

• Sen. Edward Kennedy knows very directly. Senator Kennedy and I talked on several occasions prior to the war that my view was that the best evidence that I had seen was that Iraq indeed had weapons of mass destruction.

  David Kay

  Topics in Uncategorized

  Tags in War

• The Germans certainly – the intelligence service believed that there were WMD. It turns out that we were all wrong, probably in my judgment, and that is most disturbing.

  David Kay

  Topics in Service

  Tags in Wrong

• Let me begin by saying, we were almost all wrong, and I certainly include myself here.

  David Kay

  Topics in Uncategorized

  Tags in Self

• In my judgment, based on the work that has been done to this point of the Iraq Survey Group, and in fact, that I reported to you in October, Iraq was in clear violation of the terms of U.N.Resolution 1441.

  David Kay

  Topics in Work

  Tags in Fact

• I’ve seen looting around the world and thought I knew the best looters in the world. The Iraqis excel at that.

  David Kay

  Topics in Uncategorized

  Tags in Best

• I would also point out that many governments that chose not to support this war – certainly, the French president, Jacques Chirac, as I recall in April of last year, referred to Iraq’s possession of WMD.

  David Kay

  Topics in Uncategorized

  Tags in War

•  

  I think the aim – and certainly the aim of what I’ve tried to do since leaving – is not political and certainly not a witch hunt at individuals. It’s to try to direct our attention at what I believe is a fundamental fault analysis that we must now examine.

   

  David Kay

  Topics in Uncategorized

  Tags in Believe, Political

• I think that shows a level of maturity and understanding that I think bodes well for getting to the bottom of this. But it is really up to you and your staff, on behalf of the American people, to take on that challenge.

  David Kay

  Topics in Challenge

  Tags in Maturity

•  

  I had innumerable analysts who came to me in apology that the world that we were finding was not the world that they had thought existed and that they had estimated. Reality on the ground differed in advance.

   

  David Kay

  Topics in Uncategorized

  Tags in Apology

• I do believe we have to understand why reality turned out to be different than expectations and estimates. But you have more public service – certainly many of you – than I have ever had, and you recognize that this is not unusual.

  David Kay

  Topics in Uncategorized

  Tags in Believe

• I came not from within the administration, and it was clear and clear in our discussions and no one asked otherwise that I would lead this the way I thought best and I would speak the truth as we found it.

  David Kay

  Topics in Truth

  Tags in Best

• I also believe that it is time to begin the fundamental analysis of how we got here, what led us here and what we need to do in order to ensure that we are equipped with the best possible intelligence as we face these issues in the future.

  David Kay

  Topics in Future

  Tags in Time, Best

• Fortunately, President Kennedy and Robert Kennedy disagreed with the estimate and chose a course of action less ambitious and aggressive than recommended by their advisers.

  David Kay

  Topics in Uncategorized

  Tags in President

•  

  But the most important thing about that story, which is not often told, is that as a result after the Cuban missile crisis, immediate steps were taken to correct our inability to collect on the movement of nuclear material out of the Soviet Union to other places.

   

  David Kay

  Topics in Uncategorized

  Tags in Crisis

David Kay (28)

Birth:	1940
Nationality:	American
Profession:	Weapon Inspector

About

David A. Kay is an American weapons expert, political commentator, and senior fellow at the Potomac Institute for Policy Studies. He is best known for his time as United Nations Chief Weapons Inspector following the first Gulf War and for leading of the Iraq Survey Group's search for weapons of mass destruction following the 2003 invasion of Iraq. He received a Bachelor of Arts degree from the University of Texas at Austin, and also a master's in International Affairs and a Ph.D. from Columbia University's School of International and Public Affairs. On 23 January 2004, the head of the ISG, David Kay, resigned his position, stating that he believed WMD stockpiles would not be found in Iraq.

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