Yesterday, as the Iraq war claimed at least its 512th American victim, the public accounting for this unending conflict finally began.

David Kay, the former chief weapons inspector in Iraq, announced to Congress "we were all wrong" about Iraq's so-called weapons of mass destruction. While in Britain, Lord Hutton, heading the investigation into the suicide of arms expert David Kelly, exonerated Blair of "sexing up" intelligence on Iraq, but suggested the Blair government "may have subconsciously" influenced intelligence to exaggerate the case for war.

Even with Saddam Hussein in jail and Iraq occupied, this testimony is important. Public opinion was only swayed when President Bush and Prime Minister Blair warned of the imminent threat of Iraq's WMD.

Such WMD, Kay made clear, simply did not exist. Whatever Saddam once had, had been destroyed. "There's a long record of being wrong," he told the Senate Armed Services Committee.

Blair had claimed Iraqi WMD could be deployed to strike at Britain "within 45 minutes."

The Bush administration went still further, and repeatedly:

Bush said Iraq had "stockpiles" of WMD, continued to "possess and produce" them and had "dispersed rockets" with them. Vice President Dick Cheney claimed Iraq was "amassing WMD to use against us." Secretary of State Colin Powell said "we know Iraq has at least 7 mobile facilities to make biological weapons." Secretary of State Donald Rumsfeld said, "we know where the WMD are."

All of this was wrong, which is why Kay's statements have caused such upheaval. Even last week, Cheney claimed "the jury is still out" on WMD, and Powell said finding WMD was still an "open question."

Kay, a frank, non-political scientist who left his job last week because the weapons search was downgraded, blamed his employer, the CIA, for mistaken information. He has called for an overhaul of the agency.

At the same time, Kay made the same charge that was the focus of Britain's inquiry: that intelligence was exaggerated by the politicians. Warnings from agents about the reliability of information were dropped in order to exaggerate the threat.

Caveats, said Kay, "tended to drop off as the reports would go up the food chain" inside government. "Alarm bells should have gone off when everyone believes the same thing. No one stood up and said, 'let's examine the footings for these conclusions.' "

We know of the caveats dropped in one case: the CIA had warned the White House that information about an alleged Iraqi purchase of uranium from Africa was unreliable. Despite the warning, Bush used the information in last year's State of the Union message.

That case bears a resemblance to the Kelly case. The name of CIA agent Valerie Plame was allegedly leaked by the Bush administration to punish her husband, Joseph Wilson, the former diplomat who revealed that the African uranium story was bogus. Like Kelly, Plame was "outed" in retaliation.

So far, Bush has blocked an investigation comparable to Hutton. The Senate's inquiry has been perfunctory. In the narrower FBI investigation into the Plame affair, Attorney General John Ashcroft has recused himself because of his personal ties to White House aide Karl Rove, named as a possible source of the leak of Plame's name. Doubting whether the FBI can investigate a case involving the administration, a group of former CIA agents has asked Congress to take charge of the Plame investigation.

The charges against Blair could have brought him down, and he claimed vindication Wednesday. Technically, he's right, for Hutton exonerated him of the charge of "sexing up" the Iraq danger and for Kelly's death. Kelly killed himself when caught in the middle of a power struggle between Blair and the BBC. Most of Hutton's blame falls on the BBC for its "sexing up" broadcast, and the network's chairman promptly resigned.

But though Blair was acquitted by Hutton of a "dishonorable, duplicitous, underhand strategy" for war and survives another day, he is hurt. He was caught in a lie over the "outing" of Kelly. Exposing Kelly, a man authorized to speak on background to the media, was heartless and unethical.

Hutton concluded that Kelly "did not realize the gravity of the situation he would create by discussing intelligence matters with Andrew Gilligan," the BBC's defense reporter.

Hutton skated delicately around the issue of Blair's "subconscious" pressure on intelligence chiefs to tell him what he wanted to hear about Iraq's alleged WMD, but one of Hutton's witnesses was not so delicate.

The most damning charge made by Blair – that Iraq could deploy WMD within 45 minutes – was strongly doubted by British intelligence (MI6) agents. In unprecedented testimony, MI6 head Sir Richard Dearlove – officially known only as "C" and whose face is unknown – told Hutton telephonically from a secret location that Blair "misinterpreted" the 45-minute allegation.

Asked by Hutton for clarification, Dearlove said the intelligence was meant only to refer to "battlefield" weapons, not to strategic weapons that might pose a threat to Britain.

Like the British, Americans at some point will demand a complete investigation into the origins of the Iraq war. We have had investigations into wars far less contentious than this one, and owe it both to ourselves and to history.

Political failures, not military or intelligence ones, are at the root of the Iraq war. The consequences of the manipulation of intelligence will not be easily corrected: America, and to a lesser extent, Britain, is bogged down in a debilitating military occupation with no end in sight.

The importance of truth on Iraq is so the public can understand the consequences of Bush's pre-emptive war policy. War, which can kill millions and create burdens that last for generations, is the most serious of human endeavors. It must always be a last resort against real threats, not imagined or exaggerated ones.

In Iraq, war was Bush's first resort. As Kay testified, inspections and disarmament were working. Americans have the right to know the truth and make political judgments on the basis of it. We are only at the beginning.

© Copyright 2004 Union-Tribune Publishing Co.

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