Final Word from Tuesday, September 16, 2025

In early 2003, when the president was Václav Klaus, PM was Vladimír Špidla, foreign minister was Cyril Svoboda and interior minister was Stanislav Gross, the CR helped prepare for the overthrow of the Iraqi government of Saddam Hussein. As MFD reported today (we wrote about it on July 25), the Czech government agreed to send CIA agent Tom Rakusan, the son of Czech emigrants, to Baghdad under Czech embassy cover to conduct reconnaissance. A survey at the time showed that 72% of Czechs were against the U.S.-led invasion. Klaus had a spat about it with the U.S. ambassador, Craig Stapleton, reportedly telling him that if any weapons of mass destruction were found, they might have been planted there. Not even those were of course found. Colin Powell wrote in his memoir that if the U.S. had known there were no WMDs, there would have been no war. Rakusan, the CIA agent, can't be held accountable. He was just following orders from Langley. Like the Czech government, presumably. [ Czech Republic United States secretary of state MF Dnes chemical ministry ]