The half-truth.

Apparently your editorial staff has anointed David Kay the "Oracle of Truth" on Iraq's weapons of mass destruction ("Un-intelligence," February 13) by artfully and selectively editing his comments to denigrate President George W. Bush, Vice President Dick Cheney and their administration, painting them as liars and deceivers. While Kay told Congress that he believes there are no large caches of WMD, he stated that he does believe that there may have been small caches. Of course, small caches of biological and chemical weapons are sufficient to kill tens of thousands of people, a point that went unreported in your editorial.

Kay also testified that the Iraqis were working on research and development for the biological weapon ricin "right up until" the U.S.-led coalition invaded Iraq in March. He also said that Iraq had begun retooling its nuclear weapons program in 2000 and 2001, and that officers in the Republican Guard told interrogators that they had believed that other units possessed biological or chemical weapons.

The media should present Kay's statements honestly and completely. Was Kay misleading or lying from 1998 until today about WMD? Was the UN misleading or lying when it passed resolution after resolution since 1991 calling on Iraq to give up its WMDs? If anyone is misleading the American public, it is you for presenting a series of half-truths as the whole truth.

E. PATRICK MOSMAN

Pleasantville, N.Y.

The editors reply:

It was David Kay's outspoken support for the invasion of Iraq that made newsworthy his subsequent conclusion that no weapons of mass destruction exist. Like the Bush administration, E. Patrick Mosman seems to be grasping at straws in his vague assertions about ricin and "small caches" of WMD. If the United States were justified in going to war with every nation that may intend us harm, there would be no end to war. Preemptive action is only justified when an attack is truly imminent.

Obviously, the point of dispute in the UN deliberations was whether the likelihood that Iraq possessed WMD justified war. Most nations on the Security Council concluded it did not, and that the threat posed by Saddam Hussein, while serious, was being effectively contained. The burden of justification rests on those who rushed to war, not on those who cautioned against doing so.

The editorial argued that President George W. Bush owes the American people an explanation for why the principal reason he gave for going to war turned out to be wrong. Even Kay, after initially putting the blame on U.S. intelligence agencies, now thinks that Bush should provide a better explanation to the American people.