Bush has come to a serious hurdle in his presidential mandate, and in this his election year. Under questioning by Democrats, David A. Kay, ex-chief weapons inspector in Iraq has admitted to finding no evidence that Iraq had chemical or biological weapons stockpiles.

And he is now suggesting that an independent inquiry be convened in order to investigate embellished intelligence estimates of Saddam Hussein’s combat capability.

Phew.

After an administration that, in retrospect, seemed to centre their pro-war position on mounting evidence of Saddam’s chemical and biological potentialities, this would seem damning indeed.

As well, despite his recent exoneration, across the pond pro-war ally Tony Blair has suffered damage to his reputation by being embroiled in a scandal in which ‘sexed up’ documents supporting the case for war played a major role.

So will Kay’s report hurt Bush? One can only speculate. Perhaps the more important question to ask is should Kay’s report hurt Bush? In other words, does his report damage the original case for war?

In order to investigate this claim, the original cause for war must be stated.

Was the original cause for war the suggestion that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction?

Certainly that was part of it and perhaps here intelligence was tepid.

But that was certainly not the only argument.

A massive portion of Bush’s pro-war case relied on the fact that Saddam’s designs regarding WMD’s were unclear and consequently he was a danger to international peace.

Saddam had broken UN resolution after UN resolution, he had lied repeatedly to the international community, and had kicked weapons inspectors out in 1998.

In other words, Saddam was being completely dishonest about his WMD program; he was cheating the world.

And when you are a dictator who has attacked your own people, your neighbours, and have made a mockery of international law, lying about something as serious as WMD’s is enough.

Now back to Dr. Kay.

Despite Dr. Kay’s acknowledged inability to find chemical or biological weapons, he agreed with Republican senators that there is no doubt that Saddam had aspirations to use such weapons-and that he had used such weapons in the past.

He then said that Saddam had secret weapons development programs that violated U.N. resolutions, and admitted that the world is a much safer place without him.

Based on Dr. Kay’s first admission alone, the Security Council was justified in going into Iraq.

According to a number of UN resolutions throughout the nineties, Iraq was required to comply fully with all UN measures, including the full disclosure of any ambitions regarding weapons of mass destruction, or risk invasion wholly granted to the Security Council under Charter VII of the UN.

As well, in November of 2002, the Security Council gave Iraq a final chance at full disclosure, which Saddam squandered away via a recondite multi-thousand-page “report” of his program.

So regardless of Dr. Kay’s seemingly damning information, the case for war was justified.

Saddam lied and repeatedly violated UN resolutions.

If the UN is to have any meaning at all, the Security Council had to act.

And in the event that perverted Russian and French interests prevented it from acting, then America, with allies, was certainly allowed to act in its place.