2/5/2003 Colin Powell United Nations Security
Council http://www.state.gov/secretary/former/powell/remarks/2003/17300.htm SECRETARY
POWELL: Thank you, Mr. President. Mr. President
and Mr. Secretary General, distinguished colleagues, I would like to begin by
expressing my thanks for the special effort that each of you made to be here
today. This is an important day for us all as we review the situation with
respect to Iraq and its disarmament obligations under UN Security Council
Resolution 1441. Last November
8, this Council passed Resolution 1441 by a unanimous vote. The purpose of that
resolution was to disarm Iraq of its weapons of mass destruction. Iraq had
already been found guilty of material breach of its obligations stretching back
over 16 previous resolutions and 12 years. Resolution
1441 was not dealing with an innocent party, but a regime this Council has
repeatedly convicted over the years. Resolution
1441 gave Iraq one last chance, one last chance to come into compliance or to
face serious consequences. No Council member present and voting on that day had
any illusions about the nature and intent of the resolution or what serious
consequences meant if Iraq did not comply. And to assist
in its disarmament, we called on Iraq to cooperate with returning inspectors
from UNMOVIC and IAEA. We laid down tough standards for Iraq to meet to allow
the inspectors to do their job. This Council
placed the burden on Iraq to comply and disarm, and not on the inspectors to
find that which Iraq has gone out of its way to conceal for so long. Inspectors
are inspectors; they are not detectives. I asked for
this session today for two purposes. First, to support the core assessments
made by Dr. Blix and Dr. ElBaradei. As Dr. Blix reported to this Council on
January 27, "Iraq appears not to have come to a genuine acceptance, not
even today, of the disarmament which was demanded of it." And as Dr.
ElBaradei reported, Iraq's declaration of December 7 "did not provide any
new information relevant to certain questions that have been outstanding since
1998." My second
purpose today is to provide you with additional information, to share with you
what the United States knows about Iraq's weapons of mass destruction, as well
as Iraq's involvement in terrorism, which is also the subject of Resolution
1441 and other earlier resolutions. I might add at
this point that we are providing all relevant information we can to the
inspection teams for them to do their work. The material I
will present to you comes from a variety of sources. Some are U.S. sources and
some are those of other countries. Some are the sources are technical, such as
intercepted telephone conversations and photos taken by satellites. Other
sources are people who have risked their lives to let the world know what
Saddam Hussein is really up to. I cannot tell
you everything that we know, but what I can share with you, when combined with
what all of us have learned over the years, is deeply troubling. What you will
see is an accumulation of facts and disturbing patterns of behavior. The facts
and Iraqis' behavior, Iraq's behavior, demonstrate that Saddam Hussein and his
regime have made no effort, no effort, to disarm, as required by the
international community. Indeed, the
facts and Iraq's behavior show that Saddam Hussein and his regime are
concealing their efforts to produce more weapons of mass destruction. Let me begin
by playing a tape for you. What youÕre about to hear is a conversation that my
government monitored. It takes place on November 26th of last year, on the day
before United Nations teams resumed inspections in Iraq. The conversation
involves two senior officers, a colonel and a brigadier general from Iraq's
elite military unit, the Republican Guard. [The tape is
played.] SECRETARY
POWELL: Let me pause and review some of the key elements of this conversation
that you just heard between these two officers. First, they
acknowledge that our colleague, Mohammed ElBaradei is coming, and they know
what he's coming for and they know he's coming the next day. He's coming to
look for things that are prohibited. He is expecting these gentlemen to
cooperate with him and not hide things. But they're
worried. We have this modified vehicle. What do we say if one of them sees it?
What is their concern? Their concern is that it's something they should not
have, something thatslide 04 should not be seen. The general
was incredulous: "You didn't get it modified. You don't have one of those,
do you?" "I have
one." "Which?
From where?" "From the
workshop. From the Al-Kindi Company." "What?" "From
Al-Kindi." "I'll
come to see you in the morning. I'm worried you all have something left." "We
evacuated everything. We don't have anything left." Note what he
says: "We evacuated everything." We didn't destroy it. We didn't line
it up for inspection. We didn't turn it into the inspectors. We evacuated it to
make sure it was not around when the inspectors showed up. "I will come to
you tomorrow." The Al-Kindi
Company. This is a company that is well known to have been involved in
prohibited weapons systems activity. Let me play
another tape for you. As you will recall, the inspectors found 12 empty
chemical warheads on January 16th. On January 20th, four days later, Iraq
promised the inspectors it would search for more. You will now hear an officer
from Republican Guard headquarters issuing an instruction to an officer in the
field. Their conversation took place just last week, on January 30. [The tape was
played.] SECRETARY
POWELL: Let me pause again and review the elements of this message. "They are
inspecting the ammunition you have, yes?" "Yes. For
the possibility there are forbidden ammo." "For the
possibility there is, by chance, forbidden ammo?" "Yes. "And we
sent you a message yesterday to clean out all the areas, the scrap areas, the
abandoned areas. Make sure there is nothing there. Remember the first message:
evacuate it." This is all
part of a system of hiding things and moving things out of the way and making
sure they have left nothing behind. You go a
little further into this message and you see the specific instructions from
headquarters: "After you have carried out what is contained in this
message, destroy the message because I don't want anyone to see this
message." "Okay." "Okay." Why? Why? This
message would have verified to the inspectors that they have been trying to
turn over things. They were looking for things, but they don't want that message
seen because they were trying to clean up the area, to leave no evidence behind
of the presence of weapons of mass destruction. And they can claim that nothing
was there and the inspectors can look all they want and they will find nothing. This effort to
hide things from the inspectors is not one or two isolated events. Quite the
contrary, this is part and parcel of a policy of evasion and deception that
goes back 12 years, a policy set at the highest levels of the Iraqi regime. We know that
Saddam Hussein has what is called "a Higher Committee for Monitoring the
Inspection Teams." Think about that. Iraq has a high-level committee to
monitor the inspectors who were sent in to monitor Iraq's disarmament -- not to
cooperate with them, not to assist them, but to spy on them and keep them from
doing their jobs. The committee
reports directly to Saddam Hussein. It is headed by Iraq's Vice President, Taha
Yasin Ramadan. Its members include Saddam Hussein's son, Qusay. This committee
also includes Lieutenant General Amir al-Sa'di, an advisor to Saddam. In case
that name isn't immediately familiar to you, General Sa'di has been the Iraqi
regime's primary point of contact for Dr. Blix and Dr. ElBaradei. It was
General Sa'di who last fall publicly pledged that Iraq was prepared to
cooperate unconditionally with inspectors. Quite the contrary, Sa'di's job is
not to cooperate; it is to deceive, not to disarm, but to undermine the
inspectors; not to support them, but to frustrate them and to make sure they
learn nothing. We have
learned a lot about the work of this special committee. We learned that just
prior to the return of inspectors last November, the regime had decided to
resume what we heard called "the old game of cat-and-mouse." For example,
let me focus on the now famous declaration that Iraq submitted to this Council
onslide 10 photo of iraqi documents laid out on a table December 7th. Iraq
never had any intention of complying with this Council's mandate. Instead, Iraq
planned to use the declaration to overwhelm us and to overwhelm the inspectors
with useless information about Iraq's permitted weapons so that we would not
have time to pursue Iraq's prohibited weapons. Iraq's goal was to give us in
this room, to give those of us on this Council, the false impression that the
inspection process was working. You saw the
result. Dr. Blix pronounced the 12,200-page declaration "rich in
volume" but "poor in information and practically devoid of new
evidence." Could any member of this Council honestly rise in defense of
this false declaration? Everything we
have seen and heard indicates that instead of cooperating actively with the
inspectors to ensure the success of their mission, Saddam Hussein and his
regime are busy doing all they possibly can to ensure that inspectors succeed
in finding absolutely nothing. My colleagues,
every statement I make today is backed up by sources, solid sources. These are
not assertions. What we are giving you are facts and conclusions based on solid
intelligence. I will cite some examples, and these are from human sources. Orders were
issued to Iraq's security organizations, as well as to Saddam Hussein's own
office, to hide all correspondence with the Organization of Military
Industrialization. This is the organization that oversees Iraq's weapons of
mass destruction activities. Make sure there are no documents left which would
connect you to the OMI. We know that
Saddam's son, Qusay, ordered the removal of all prohibited weapons from
Saddam's numerous palace complexes. We know that Iraqi government officials,
members of the ruling Ba'ath Party and scientists have hidden prohibited items
in their homes. Other key files from military and scientific establishments
have been placed in cars that are being driven around the countryside by Iraqi
intelligence agents to avoid detection. Thanks to
intelligence they were provided, the inspectors recently found dramatic
confirmation of these reports. When they searched the homes of an Iraqi nuclear
scientist, they uncovered roughly 2,000 pages of documents. You see them here
being brought out of the home and placed in UN hands. Some of the material is
classified and related to Iraq's nuclear program. Tell me,
answer me: Are the inspectors to search the house of every government official,
every Ba'ath Party member and every scientist in the country to find the truth,
to get the information they need to satisfy the demands of our Council? Our sources
tell us that in some cases the hard drives of computers at Iraqi weapons
facilities were replaced. Who took the hard drives? Where did they go? What is
being hidden? Why? There is only
one answer to the why: to deceive, to hide, to keep from the inspectors. Numerous human
sources tell us that the Iraqis are moving not just documents and hard drives,
but weapons of mass destruction, to keep them from being found by inspectors.
While we were here in this Council chamber debating Resolution 1441 last fall,
we know, we know from sources that a missile brigade outside Baghdad was
dispersing rocket launchers and warheads containing biological warfare agent to
various locations, distributing them to various locations in western Iraq. Most of the
launchers and warheads had been hidden in large groves of palm trees and were
to be moved every one to four weeks to escape detection. We also have
satellite photos that indicate that banned materials have recently been moved
from a number of Iraqi weapons of mass destruction facilities. Let me say a
word about satellite images before I show a couple. The photos that I am about
to show you are sometimes hard for the average person to interpret, hard for
me. The painstaking work of photo analysis takes experts with years and years
of experience, poring for hours and hours over light tables. But as I show you
these images, I will try to capture and explain what they mean, what they
indicate, to our imagery specialists. Let's look at
one. This one is about a weapons munition facility, a facility that holds
ammunition at a place called Taji. This is one of about 65 such facilities in
Iraq. We know that this one has housed chemical munitions. In fact, this is
where the Iraqis recently came up with the additional four chemical weapons
shells. Here you see
15 munitions bunkers in yellow and red outlines. The four that are in red
squares represent active chemical munitions bunkers. How do I know
that? How can I say that? Let me give you a closer look. Look at the image on
the left. On the left is a close-up of one of the four chemical bunkers. The
two arrows indicate the presence of sure signs that the bunkers are storing
chemical munitions. The arrow at the top that says "security" points
to a facility that is a signature item for this kind of bunker. Inside that
facility are special guards and special equipment to monitor any leakage that
might come out of the bunker. The truck you also see is a signature item. It's
a decontamination vehicle in case something goes wrong. This is characteristic
of those four bunkers. The special security facility and the decontamination vehicle
will be in the area, if not at any one of them or one of the other, it is
moving around those four and it moves as needed to move as people are working
in the different bunkers. Now look at
the picture on the right. You are now looking at two of those sanitized
bunkers. The signature vehicles are gone, the tents are gone. It's been cleaned
up. And it was done on the 22nd of December as the UN inspection team is
arriving, and you can see the inspection vehicles arriving in the lower portion
of the picture on the right. The bunkers
are clean when the inspectors get there. They found nothing. This sequence
of events raises the worrisome suspicion that Iraq had been tipped off to the
forthcoming inspections at Taji. As it did throughout the 1990s, we know that
Iraq today is actively using its considerable intelligence capabilities to hide
its illicit activities. From our sources, we know that inspectors are under
constant surveillance by an army of Iraqi intelligence operatives. Iraq is
relentlessly attempting to tap all of their communications, both voice and
electronics. I would call my colleagues' attention to the fine paper that the
United Kingdom distributed yesterday which describes in exquisite detail Iraqi
deception activities. In this next
example, you will see the type of concealment activity Iraq has undertaken in
response to the resumption of inspections. Indeed, in November of 2002, just
when the inspections were about to resume, this type of activity spiked. Here
are three examples. At this
ballistic missile site on November 10th, we saw a cargo truck preparing to move
ballistic missile components. At this
biological weapons-related facility on November 25th, just two days before
inspections resumed, this truck caravan appeared -- something we almost never
see at this facility and we monitor it carefully and regularly. At this
ballistic missile facility, again, two days before inspections began, five
large cargo trucks appeared, along with a truck-mounted crane, to move
missiles. We saw this
kind of housecleaning at close to 30 sites. Days after this activity, the
vehicles and the equipment that I've just highlighted disappear and the site
returns to patterns of normalcy. We don't know precisely what Iraq was moving,
but the inspectors already knew about these sites so Iraq knew that they would
be coming. We must ask
ourselves: Why would Iraq suddenly move equipment of this nature before
inspections if they were anxious to demonstrate what they had or did not have? Remember the
first intercept in which two Iraqis talked about the need to hide a modified
vehicle from the inspectors. Where did Iraq take all of this equipment? Why
wasn't it presented to the inspectors? Iraq also has
refused to permit any U-2 reconnaissance flights that would give the inspectors
a better sense of what's being moved before, during and after inspections. This
refusal to allow this kind of reconnaissance is in direct, specific violation
of operative paragraph seven of our Resolution 1441. Saddam Hussein
and his regime are not just trying to conceal weapons; they are also trying to
hide people. You know the basic facts. Iraq has not complied with its
obligation to allow immediate, unimpeded, unrestricted and private access to
all officials and other persons, as required by Resolution 1441. The regime
only allows interviews with inspectors in the presence of an Iraqi official, a
minder. The official Iraqi organization charged with facilitating inspections
announced publicly and announced ominously, that, "Nobody is ready"
to leave Iraq to be interviewed. Iraqi Vice
President Ramadan accused the inspectors of conducting espionage, a veiled
threat that anyone cooperating with UN inspectors was committing treason. Iraq did not
meet its obligations under 1441 to provide a comprehensive list of scientists
associated with its weapons of mass destruction programs. Iraq's list was out
of date and contained only about 500 names despite the fact that UNSCOM had
earlier put together a list of about 3,500 names. Let me just
tell you what a number of human sources have told us. Saddam Hussein has
directly participated in the effort to prevent interviews. In early December,
Saddam Hussein had all Iraqi scientists warned of the serious consequences that
they and their families would face if they revealed any sensitive information
to the inspectors. They were forced to sign documents acknowledging that
divulging information is punishable by death. Saddam Hussein
also said that scientists should be told not to agree to leave Iraq; anyone who
agreed to be interviewed outside Iraq would be treated as a spy. This violates
1441. In
mid-November, just before the inspectors returned, Iraqi experts were ordered
to report to the headquarters of the Special Security Organization to receive
counter-intelligence training. The training focused on evasion methods,
interrogation resistance techniques, and how to mislead inspectors. Ladies and
gentlemen, these are not assertions. These are facts corroborated by many
sources, some of them sources of the intelligence services of other countries. For example,
in mid-December, weapons experts at one facility were replaced by Iraqi
intelligence agents who were to deceive inspectors about the work that was
being done there. On orders from Saddam Hussein, Iraqi officials issued a false
death certificate for one scientist and he was sent into hiding. In the middle
of January, experts at one facility that was related to weapons of mass
destruction, those experts had been ordered to stay home from work to avoid the
inspectors. Workers from other Iraqi military facilities not engaged in illicit
weapons projects were to replace the workers who had been sent home. A dozen
experts have been placed under house arrest -- not in their own houses, but as
a group at one of Saddam Hussein's guest houses. It goes on
and on and on. As the
examples I have just presented show, the information and intelligence we have
gathered point to an active and systematic effort on the part of the Iraqi
regime to keep key materials and people from the inspectors, in direct
violation of Resolution 1441. The pattern is
not just one of reluctant cooperation, nor is it merely a lack of cooperation.
What we see is a deliberate campaign to prevent any meaningful inspection work. My colleagues,
Operative Paragraph 4 of UN Resolution 1441, which we lingered over so long
last fall, clearly states that false statements and omissions in the
declaration and a failure by Iraq at any time to comply with and cooperate
fully in the implementation of this resolution shall constitute -- the facts
speak for themselves -- shall constitute a further material breach of its
obligation. We wrote it
this way to give Iraq an early test, to give Iraq an early test. Would they
give an honest declaration and would they, early on, indicate a willingness to
cooperate with the inspectors? It was designed to be an early test. They failed
that test. By this
standard, the standard of this Operative Paragraph, I believe that Iraq is now
in further material breach of its obligations. I believe this conclusion is
irrefutable and undeniable. Iraq has now
placed itself in danger of the serious consequences called for in UN Resolution
1441. And this body places itself in danger of irrelevance if it allows Iraq to
continue to defy its will without responding effectively and immediately. This issue
before us is not how much time we are willing to give the inspectors to be
frustrated by Iraqi obstruction. But how much longer are we willing to put up
with Iraq's non-compliance before we, as a Council, we as the United Nations
say, "Enough. Enough." The gravity of
this moment is matched by the gravity of the threat that Iraq's weapons of mass
destruction pose to the world. Let me now turn to those deadly weapons programs
and describe why they are real and present dangers to the region and to the
world. First,
biological weapons. We have talked frequently here about biological weapons. By
way of introduction and history, I think there are just three quick points I
need to make. First, you will recall that it took UNSCOM four long and
frustrating years to pry, to pry an admission out of Iraq that it had
biological weapons. Second, when Iraq finally admitted having these weapons in
1995, the quantities were vast. Less than a teaspoon of dry anthrax, a little
bit -- about this amount. This is just about the amount of a teaspoon. Less
than a teaspoonful of dry anthrax in an envelope shut down the United States
Senate in the fall of 2001. This forced
several hundred people to undergo emergency medical treatment and killed two
postal workers just from an amount, just about this quantity that was inside of
an envelope. Iraq declared
8500 liters of anthrax. But UNSCOM estimates that Saddam Hussein could have
produced 25,000 liters. If concentrated into this dry form, this amount would
be enough to fill tens upon tens upon tens of thousands of teaspoons. And
Saddam Hussein has not verifiably accounted for even one teaspoonful of this
deadly material. And that is my third point. And it is key. The Iraqis have
never accounted for all of the biological weapons they admitted they had and we
know they had. They have
never accounted for all the organic material used to make them. And they have
not accounted for many of the weapons filled with these agents such as their
R-400 bombs. This is evidence, not conjecture. This is true. This is all well
documented. Dr. Blix told
this Council that Iraq has provided little evidence to verify anthrax
production and no convincing evidence of its destruction. It should come as no
shock then that since Saddam Hussein forced out the last inspectors in 1998, we
have amassed much intelligence indicating that Iraq is continuing to make these
weapons. One of the
most worrisome things that emerges from the thick intelligence file we have on
Iraq's biological weapons is the existence of mobile production facilities used
to make biological agents. Let me take
you inside that intelligence file and share with you what we know from
eyewitness accounts. We have first-hand descriptions of biological weapons
factories on wheels and on rails. The trucks and
train cars are easily moved and are designed to evade detection by inspectors.
In a matter of months, they can produce a quantity of biological poison equal
to the entire amount that Iraq claimed to have produced in the years prior to
the Gulf War. Although
Iraq's mobile production program began in the mid-1990s, UN inspectors at the
time only had vague hints of such programs. Confirmation came later, in the
year 2000. The source was an eyewitness, an Iraqi chemical engineer who
supervised one of these facilities. He actually was present during biological
agent production runs. He was also at the site when an accident occurred in
1998. 12 technicians died from exposure to biological agents. He reported
that when UNSCOM was in country and inspecting, the biological weapons agent
production always began on Thursdays at midnight, because Iraq thought UNSCOM
would not inspect on the Muslim holy day, Thursday night through Friday. He added that
this was important because the units could not be broken down in the middle of
a production run, which had to be completed by Friday evening before the
inspectors might arrive again. This defector
is currently hiding in another country with the certain knowledge that Saddam
Hussein will kill him if he finds him. His eyewitness account of these mobile
production facilities has been corroborated by other sources. A second
source. An Iraqi civil engineer in a position to know the details of the
program confirmed the existence of transportable facilities moving on trailers. A third
source, also in a position to know, reported in summer, 2002, that Iraq had
manufactured mobile production systems mounted on road-trailer units and on
rail cars. Finally, a
fourth source. An Iraqi major who defected confirmed that Iraq has mobile
biological research laboratories in addition to the production facilities I
mentioned earlier. We have
diagrammed what our sources reported about these mobile facilities. Here you
see both truck and rail-car mounted mobile factories. The description our sources gave us of
the technical features required by such facilities is highly detailed and
extremely accurate. As these
drawings, based on their description show, we know what the fermentors look
like. We know what the tanks, pumps, compressors and other parts look like. We
know how they fit together, we know how they work, and we know a great deal
about the platforms on which they are mounted. As shown in
this diagram, these factories can be concealed easily -- either by moving
ordinary looking trucks and rail-cars along Iraq's thousands of miles of
highway or track or by parking them in a garage or a warehouse or somewhere in
Iraq's extensive system of underground tunnels and bunkers. We know that
Iraq has at least seven of these mobile, biological agent factories. The
truck-mounted ones have at least two or three trucks each. That means that the
mobile production facilities are very few -- perhaps 18 trucks that we know of.
There may be more. But perhaps 18 that we know of. Just imagine trying to find
18 trucks among the thousands and thousands of trucks that travel the roads of
Iraq every single day. It took the
inspectors four years to find out that Iraq was making biological agents. How
long do you think it will take the inspectors to find even one of these 18
trucks without Iraq coming forward as they are supposed to with the information
about these kinds of capabilities. Ladies and
gentlemen, these are sophisticated facilities. For example, they can produce
anthrax and botulinum toxin. In fact, they can produce enough dry, biological
agent in a single month to kill thousands upon thousands of people. A dry agent
of this type is the most lethal form for human beings. By 1998, UN
experts agreed that the Iraqis had perfected drying techniques for their
biological weapons programs. Now Iraq has incorporated this drying expertise
into these mobile production facilities. We know from
Iraq's past admissions that it has successfully weaponized not only anthrax,
but also other biological agents including botulinum toxin, aflatoxin and
ricin. But Iraq's research
efforts did not stop there. Saddam
Hussein has investigated dozens of biological agents causing diseases such as
gas gangrene, plague, typhus, tetanus, cholera, camelpox, and hemorrhagic
fever. And he also has the wherewithal to develop smallpox. The Iraqi
regime has also developed ways to disperse lethal biological agents widely,
indiscriminately into the water supply, into the air. For example, Iraq had a
program to modify aerial fuel tanks for Mirage jets. This video of an Iraqi
test flight obtained by UNSCOM some years ago shows an Iraqi F-1 Mirage jet
aircraft. Note the spray coming from beneath the Mirage. That is 2,000 liters
of simulated anthrax that a jet is spraying. In 1995, an
Iraqi military officer, Mujahid Saleh Abdul Latif told inspectors that Iraq
intended the spray tanks to be mounted onto a MiG-21 that had been converted
into an unmanned aerial vehicle, or UAV. UAVs outfitted with spray tanks
constitute an ideal method for launching a terrorist attack using biological
weapons. Iraq admitted
to producing four spray tanks, but to this day, it has provided no credible
evidence that they were destroyed, evidence that was required by the
international community. There can be
no doubt that Saddam Hussein has biological weapons and the capability to
rapidly produce more, many more. And he has the ability to dispense these
lethal poisons and diseases in ways that can cause massive death and
destruction. If biological
weapons seem too terrible to contemplate, chemical weapons are equally
chilling. UNMOVIC already laid out much of this and it is documented for all of
us to read in UNSCOM's 1999 report on the subject. Let me set the stage with
three key points that all of us need to keep in mind. First, Saddam Hussein has
used these horrific weapons on another country and on his own people. In fact,
in the history of chemical warfare, no country has had more battlefield
experience with chemical weapons since World War I than Saddam Hussein's Iraq. Second, as
with biological weapons, Saddam Hussein has never accounted for vast amounts of
chemical weaponry: 550 artillery shells with mustard, 30,000 empty munitions
and enough precursors to increase his stockpile to as much as 500 tons of
chemical agents. If we consider
just one category of missing weaponry, 6500 bombs from the Iran-Iraq War,
UNMOVIC says the amount of chemical agent in them would be on the order of a
thousand tons. These
quantities of chemical weapons are now unaccounted for. Dr. Blix has quipped
that, "Mustard gas is not marmalade. You are supposed to know what you did
with it." We believe Saddam Hussein knows what he did with it and he has
not come clean with the international community. We have
evidence these weapons existed. What we don't have is evidence from Iraq that
they have been destroyed or where they are. That is what we are still waiting
for. Third point,
Iraq's record on chemical weapons is replete with lies. It took years for Iraq
to finally admit that it had produced four tons of the deadly nerve agent VX. A
single drop of VX on the skin will kill in minutes. Four tons. The admission
only came out after inspectors collected documentation as a result of the
defection of Hussein Kamel, Saddam Hussein's late son-in-law. UNSCOM also
gained forensic evidence that Iraq had produced VX and put it into weapons for
delivery, yet to this day Iraq denies it had ever weaponized VX. And on January
27, UNMOVIC told this Council that it has information that conflicts with the
Iraqi account of its VX program. We know that
Iraq has embedded key portions of its illicit chemical weapons infrastructure
within its legitimate civilian industry. To all outward appearances, even to
experts, the infrastructure looks like an ordinary civilian operation. Illicit
and legitimate production can go on simultaneously or on a dime. This dual-use
infrastructure can turn from clandestine to commercial and then back again. These
inspections would be unlikely, any inspections at such facilities, would be
unlikely to turn up anything prohibited, especially if there is any warning
that the inspections are coming. Call it ingenious or evil genius, but the
Iraqis deliberately designed their chemical weapons programs to be inspected.
It is infrastructure with a built in alibi. Under the
guise of dual-use infrastructure, Iraq has undertaken an effort to reconstitute
facilities that were closely associated with its past program to develop and
produce chemical weapons. For example, Iraq has rebuilt key portions of the
Tareq State Establishment. Tareq includes facilities designed specifically for
Iraq's chemical weapons program and employs key figures from past programs. That's the
production end of Saddam's chemical weapons business. What about the delivery
end? I'm going to show you a small part of a chemical complex called "Al
Musayyib", a site that Iraq has used for at least three years to transship
chemical weapons from production facilities out to the field. In May 2002, our satellites
photographed the unusual activity in this picture. Here we see
cargo vehicles are again at this transshipment point, and we can see that they
are accompanied by a decontamination vehicle associated with biological or
chemical weapons activity.
What makes this picture significant is that we have a human source who has
corroborated that movement of chemical weapons occurred at this site at that
time. So it's not just the photo and it's not an individual seeing the photo.
It's the photo and then the knowledge of an individual being brought together
to make the case. This
photograph of the site taken two months later, in July, shows not only the previous site which is the figure in the
middle at the top with the bulldozer sign near it, it shows that this previous site, as well as
all of the other sites around the site have been fully bulldozed and graded.
The topsoil has been removed. The Iraqis literally removed the crust of the
earth from large portions of this site in order to conceal chemical weapons
evidence that would be there from years of chemical weapons activity. To support its
deadly biological and chemical weapons programs, Iraq procures needed items
from around the world using an extensive clandestine network. What we know
comes largely from intercepted communications and human sources who are in a
position to know the facts. Iraq's
procurement efforts include: equipment that can filter and separate
microorganisms and toxins involved in biological weapons; equipment that can be
used to concentrate the agent; growth media that can be used to continue
producing anthrax and botulinum toxin; sterilization equipment for
laboratories; glass-lined reactors and specialty pumps that can handle
corrosive chemical weapons agents and precursors; large amounts of thionyl
chloride, a precursor for nerve and blister agents; and other chemicals such as
sodium sulfide, an important mustard agent precursor. Now, of
course, Iraq will argue that these items can also be used for legitimate
purposes. But if that is true, why do we have to learn about them by
intercepting communications and risking the lives of human agents? With Iraq's
well-documented history on biological and chemical weapons, why should any of
us give Iraq the benefit of the doubt? I don't. And I don't think you will
either after you hear this next intercept. Just a few
weeks ago we intercepted communications between two commanders in Iraq's Second
Republican Guard Corps. One commander is going to be giving an instruction to
the other. You will hear as this unfolds that what he wants to communicate to
the other guy, he wants to make sure the other guy hears clearly to the point
of repeating it so that it gets written down and completely understood. Listen. Let's review a
few selected items of this conversation. Two officers talking to each other on
the radio want to make sure that nothing is misunderstood. slide
28"Remove." "Remove." "The expression." "The
expression." "The expression. I got it." "Nerve
agents." "Nerve agents." "Wherever it comes up."
"Got it, wherever it comes up." "In the wireless
instructions." "In the instructions." "Correction, no, in
the wireless instructions." "Wireless, I got it." Why does he
repeat it that way? Why is he so forceful in making sure this is understood?
And why did he focus on wireless instructions? Because the senior officer is
concerned that somebody might be listening. Well, somebody was. "Nerve
agents." "Stop talking about it." "They are listening to
us" "Don't give any evidence that we have these horrible
agents." But we know that they do and this kind of conversation confirms
it. Our
conservative estimate is that Iraq today has a stockpile of between 100 and 500
tons of chemical weapons agent. That is enough agent to fill 16,000 battlefield
rockets. Even the low end of 100 tons of agent would enable Saddam Hussein to
cause mass casualties across more than 100 square miles of territory, an area
nearly five times the size of Manhattan. Let me remind
you that -- of the 122 mm chemical warheads that the UN inspectors found
recently. This discovery could very well be, as has been noted, the tip of a
submerged iceberg. The question
before us all, my friends, is when will we see the rest of the submerged
iceberg? Saddam Hussein
has chemical weapons. Saddam Hussein has used such weapons. And Saddam Hussein
has no compunction about using them again -- against his neighbors and against
his own people. And we have sources who tell us that he recently has authorized
his field commanders to use them. He wouldn't be passing out the orders if he
didn't have the weapons or the intent to use them. We also have
sources who tell us that since the 1980s, Saddam's regime has been
experimenting on human beings to perfect its biological or chemical weapons. A source said
that 1,600 death-row prisoners were transferred in 1995 to a special unit for
such experiments. An eyewitness saw prisoners tied down to beds, experiments
conducted on them, blood oozing around the victims' mouths, and autopsies
performed to confirm the effects on the prisoners. Saddam
Hussein's humanity -- inhumanity has no limits. Let me turn
now to nuclear weapons. We have no indication that Saddam Hussein has ever
abandoned his nuclear weapons program. On the contrary, we have more than a
decade of proof that he remains determined to acquire nuclear weapons. To fully
appreciate the challenge that we face today, remember that in 1991 the
inspectors searched Iraq's primary nuclear weapons facilities for the first
time, and they found nothing to conclude that Iraq had a nuclear weapons
program. But, based on defector information, in May of 1991, Saddam Hussein's
lie was exposed. In truth, Saddam Hussein had a massive clandestine nuclear
weapons program that covered several different techniques to enrich uranium,
including electromagnetic isotope separation, gas centrifuge and gas diffusion. We estimate
that this illicit program cost the Iraqis several billion dollars. Nonetheless,
Iraq continued to tell the IAEA that it had no nuclear weapons program. If
Saddam had not been stopped, Iraq could have produced a nuclear bomb by 1993,
years earlier than most worst case assessments that had been made before the
war. In 1995, as a
result of another defector, we find out that, after his invasion of Kuwait,
Saddam Hussein had initiated a crash program to build a crude nuclear weapon,
in violation of Iraq's UN obligations. Saddam Hussein already possesses two out
of the three key components needed to build a nuclear bomb. He has a cadre of
nuclear scientists with the expertise and he has a bomb design. Since 1998,
his efforts to reconstitute his nuclear program have been focused on acquiring
the third and last component: sufficient fissile material to produce a nuclear
explosion. To make the fissile material, he needs to develop an ability to
enrich uranium. Saddam
Hussein is determined to get his hands on a nuclear bomb. He is so
determined that has made repeated covert attempts to acquire high-specification
aluminum tubes from 11 different countries, even after inspections resumed. These tubes are controlled by the Nuclear Suppliers Group
precisely because they can be used as centrifuges for enriching uranium. By now, just
about everyone has heard of these tubes and we all know that there are
differences of opinion. There is controversy about what these tubes are for.
Most U.S. experts think they are intended to serve as rotors in centrifuges
used to enrich uranium. Other experts, and the Iraqis themselves, argue that
they are really to produce the rocket bodies for a conventional weapon, a
multiple rocket launcher. Let me tell
you what is not controversial about these tubes. First, all the experts who
have analyzed the tubes in our possession agree that they can be adapted for
centrifuge use. Second, Iraq
had no business buying them for any purpose. They are banned for Iraq. I am no expert
on centrifuge tubes, but this is an old army trooper. I can tell you a couple
things. First, it
strikes me as quite odd that these tubes are manufactured to a tolerance that
far exceeds U.S. requirements for comparable rockets. Maybe Iraqis just
manufacture their conventional weapons to a higher standard than we do, but I
don't think so. Second, we
actually have examined tubes from several different batches that were seized
clandestinely before they reached Baghdad. What we notice in these different
batches is a progression to higher and higher levels of specification,
including in the latest batch an anodized coating on extremely smooth inner and
outer surfaces. Why would they
continue refining the specifications? Why would they continuing refining the
specification, go to all that trouble for something that, if it was a rocket,
would soon be blown into shrapnel when it went off? The
high-tolerance aluminum tubes are only part of the story. We also have
intelligence from multiple sources that Iraq is attempting to acquire magnets
and high-speed balancing machines. Both items can be used in a gas centrifuge
program to enrich uranium. In 1999 and
2000, Iraqi officials negotiated with firms in Romania, India, Russia and
Slovenia for the purchase of a magnet production plant. Iraq wanted the plant
to produce magnets weighing 20 to 30 grams. That's the same weight as the magnets
used in Iraq's gas centrifuge program before the Gulf War. This incident,
linked with the tubes, is another indicator of Iraq's attempt to reconstitute
its nuclear weapons program. Intercepted
communications from mid-2000 through last summer showed that Iraq front
companies sought to buy machines that can be used to balance gas centrifuge
rotors. One of these companies also had been involved in a failed effort in
2001 to smuggle aluminum tubes into Iraq. People will
continue to debate this issue, but there is no doubt in my mind. These illicit
procurement efforts show that Saddam Hussein is very much focused on putting in
place the key missing piece from his nuclear weapons program, the ability to
produce fissile material. He also has
been busy trying to maintain the other key parts of his nuclear program,
particularly his cadre of key nuclear scientists. It is noteworthy that over
the last 18 months Saddam Hussein has paid increasing personal attention to
Iraq's top nuclear scientists, a group that the government-controlled press
calls openly his "nuclear mujaheddin." He regularly exhorts them and
praises their progress. Progress toward what end? Long ago, the
Security Council, this Council, required Iraq to halt all nuclear activities of
any kind. Let me talk
now about the systems Iraq is developing to deliver weapons of mass
destruction, in particular Iraq's ballistic missiles and unmanned aerial
vehicles, UAVs. First,
missiles. We all remember that before the Gulf War Saddam Hussein's goal was missiles
that flew not just hundreds, but thousands, of kilometers. He wanted to strike
not only his neighbors, but also nations far beyond his borders. While
inspectors destroyed most of the prohibited ballistic missiles, numerous
intelligence reports over the past decade from sources inside Iraq indicate
that Saddam Hussein retains a covert force of up to a few dozen Scud-variant
ballistic missiles. These are missiles with a range of 650 to 900 kilometers. We know from
intelligence and Iraq's own admissions that Iraq's alleged permitted ballistic
missiles, the al-Samoud II and the Al-Fatah, violate the 150-kilometer limit
established by this Council in Resolution 687. These are prohibited systems. UNMOVIC has
also reported that Iraq has illegally imported 380 SA-2 rocket engines. These
are likely for use in the al-Samoud II. Their import was illegal on three
counts: Resolution 687 prohibited all military shipments into Iraq; UNSCOM
specifically prohibited use of these engines in surface-to-surface missiles;
and finally, as we have just noted, they are for a system that exceeds the
150-kilometer range limit. Worst of all, some of these engines were acquired as
late as December, after this Council passed Resolution 1441. What I want
you to know today is that Iraq has programs that are intended to produce
ballistic missiles that fly over 1,000 kilometers. One program is pursuing a
liquid fuel missile that would be able to fly more than 1,200 kilometers. And
you can see from this map, as well as I can, who will be in danger of these
missiles. As part of
this effort, another little piece of evidence, Iraq has built an engine test
stand that is larger than anything it has ever had. Notice the dramatic
difference in size between the test stand on the left, the old one, and the new
one on the right. Note the large exhaust vent. This is where the flame from the
engine comes out. The exhaust vent on the right test stand is five times longer
than the one on the left. The one of the left is used for short-range missiles.
The one on the right is clearly intended for long-range missiles that can fly
1,200 kilometers. This
photograph was taken in April of 2002. Since then, the test stand has been
finished and a roof has been put over it so it will be harder for satellites to
see what's going on underneath the test stand. Saddam
Hussein's intentions have never changed. He is not developing the missiles for
self-defense. These are missiles that Iraq wants in order to project power, to
threaten and to deliver chemical, biological -- and if we let him -- nuclear
warheads. Now, unmanned
aerial vehicles, UAVs. Iraq has been working on a variety of UAVs for more than
a decade. This is just illustrative of what a UAV would look like. This effort
has included attempts to modify for unmanned flight the MiG-21 and, with
greater success, an aircraft called the L-29. However, Iraq
is now concentrating not on these airplanes but on developing and testing
smaller UAVs such as this. UAVs are well suited for dispensing chemical and
biological weapons. There is ample evidence that Iraq has dedicated much effort
to developing and testing spray devices that could be adapted for UAVs. And in the
little that Saddam Hussein told us about UAVs, he has not told the truth. One
of these lies is graphically and indisputably demonstrated by intelligence we
collected on June 27th last year. According to
Iraq's December 7th declaration, its UAVs have a range of only 80 kilometers.
But we detected one of Iraq's newest UAVs in a test flight that went 500
kilometers nonstop on autopilot in the racetrack pattern depicted here. Not only is
this test well in excess of the 150 kilometers that the United Nations permits,
the test was left out of IraqÕs December 7th declaration. The UAV was flown
around and around and around in this circle and so that its 80-kilometer limit
really was 500 kilometers, unrefueled and on autopilot -- violative of all of
its obligations under 1441. The linkages
over the past ten years between Iraq's UAV program and biological and chemical
warfare agents are of deep concern to us. Iraq could use these small UAVs which
have a wingspan of only a few meters to deliver biological agents to its
neighbors or, if transported, to other countries, including the United States. My friends, the
information I have presented to you about these terrible weapons and about
Iraq's continued flaunting of its obligations under Security Council Resolution
1441 links to a subject I now want to spend a little bit of time on, and that
has to do with terrorism. Our concern is
not just about these illicit weapons; it's the way that these illicit weapons
can be connected to terrorists and terrorist organizations that have no
compunction about using such devices against innocent people around the world. Iraq and
terrorism go back decades. Baghdad trains Palestine Liberation Front members in
small arms and explosives. Saddam uses the Arab Liberation Front to funnel
money to the families of Palestinian suicide bombers in order to prolong the
Intifadah. And it's no secret that Saddam's own intelligence service was
involved in dozens of attacks or attempted assassinations in the 1990s. But what I
want to bring to your attention today is the potentially much more sinister
nexus between Iraq and the al-Qaida terrorist network, a nexus that combines
classic terrorist organizations and modern methods of murder. Iraq today
harbors a deadly terrorist network headed by Abu Musab al-Zarqawi an associate
and collaborator of Usama bin Laden and his al-Qaida lieutenants. Zarqawi,
Palestinian born in Jordan, fought in the Afghan war more than a decade ago.
Returning to Afghanistan in 2000, he oversaw a terrorist training camp. One of
his specialties, and one of the specialties of this camp, is poisons. When our
coalition ousted the Taliban, the Zarqawi network helped establish another
poison and explosive training center camp, and this camp is located in
northeastern Iraq. You see a picture of this camp. The network is
teaching its operatives how to produce ricin and other poisons. Let me remind
you how ricin works. Less than a pinch -- imagine a pinch of salt -- less than
a pinch of ricin, eating just this amount in your food, would cause shock,
followed by circulatory failure. Death comes within 72 hours and there is no antidote.
There is no cure. It is fatal. Those helping
to run this camp are Zarqawi lieutenants operating in northern Kurdish areas
outside Saddam Hussein's controlled Iraq. But Baghdad has an agent in the most
senior levels of the radical organization Ansar al-Islam that controls this
corner of Iraq. In 2000, this agent offered al-Qaida safe haven in the region. After we swept
al-Qaida from Afghanistan, some of those members accepted this safe haven. They
remain there today. Zarqawi's
activities are not confined to this small corner of northeast Iraq. He traveled
to Baghdad in May of 2002 for medical treatment, staying in the capital of Iraq
for two months while he recuperated to fight another day. During his
stay, nearly two dozen extremists converged on Baghdad and established a base
of operations there. These al-Qaida affiliates based in Baghdad now coordinate
the movement of people, money and supplies into and throughout Iraq for his
network, and they have now been operating freely in the capital for more than
eight months. Iraqi
officials deny accusations of ties with al-Qaida. These denials are simply not
credible. Last year, an al-Qaida associate bragged that the situation in Iraq
was "good," that Baghdad could be transited quickly. We know these
affiliates are connected to Zarqawi because they remain, even today, in regular
contact with his direct subordinates, include the poison cell plotters. And
they are involved in moving more than money and materiel. Last year, two
suspected al-Qaida operatives were arrested crossing from Iraq into Saudi
Arabia. They were linked to associates of the Baghdad cell and one of them
received training in Afghanistan on how to use cyanide. From his
terrorist network in Iraq, Zarqawi can direct his network in the Middle East
and beyond. We in the United States, all of us, the State Department and the
Agency for International Development, we all lost a dear friend with the
cold-blooded murder of Mr. Laurence Foley in Amman, Jordan, last October. A
despicable act was committed that day, the assassination of an individual whose
sole mission was to assist the people of Jordan. The captured assassin says his
cell received money and weapons from Zarqawi for that murder. After the attack,
an associate of the assassin left Jordan to go to Iraq to obtain weapons and
explosives for further operations. Iraqi officials protest that they are not
aware of the whereabouts of Zarqawi or of any of his associates. Again, these
protests are not credible. We know of Zarqawi's activities in Baghdad. I
described them earlier. Now let me add
one other fact. We asked a friendly security service to approach Baghdad about
extraditing Zarqawi and providing information about him and his close
associates. This service contacted Iraqi officials twice and we passed details
that should have made it easy to find Zarqawi. The network remains in Baghdad.
Zarqawi still remains at large, to come and go. As my
colleagues around this table and as the citizens they represent in Europe know,
Zarqawi's terrorism is not confined to the Middle East. Zarqawi and his network
have plotted terrorist actions against countries including France, Britain,
Spain, Italy, Germany and Russia. According to detainees Abu Atiya, who
graduated from Zarqawi's terrorist camp in Afghanistan, tasked at least nine
North African extremists in 2001 to travel to Europe to conduct poison and
explosive attacks. Since last
year, members of this network have been apprehended in France, Britain, Spain
and Italy. By our last count, 116 operatives connected to this global web have
been arrested. The chart you are seeing shows the network in Europe. We know about
this European network and we know about its links to Zarqawi because the
detainees who provided the information about the targets also provided the
names of members of the network. Three of those he identified by name were
arrested in France last December. In the apartments of the terrorists,
authorities found circuits for explosive devices and a list of ingredients to
make toxins. The detainee
who helped piece this together says the plot also targeted Britain. Later
evidence again proved him right. When the British unearthed the cell there just
last month, one British police officer was murdered during the destruction of
the cell. We also know
that Zarqawi's colleagues have been active in the Pankisi Gorge, Georgia, and
in Chechnya, Russia. The plotting to which they are linked is not mere chatter.
Members of Zarqawi's network say their goal was to kill Russians with toxins. We are not surprised
that Iraq is harboring Zarqawi and his subordinates. This understanding builds
on decades-long experience with respect to ties between Iraq and al-Qaida.
Going back to the early and mid-1990s when bin Laden was based in Sudan, an
al-Qaida source tells us that Saddam and bin Laden reached an understanding
that al-Qaida would no longer support activities against Baghdad. Early
al-Qaida ties were forged by secret high-level intelligence service contacts
with al-Qaida, secret Iraqi intelligence high-level contacts with al-Qaida. We know
members of both organizations met repeatedly and have met at least eight times
at very senior levels since the early 1990s. In 1996, a foreign security
service tells us that bin Laden met with a senior Iraqi intelligence official
in Khartoum and later met the director of the Iraqi intelligence service. Saddam became
more interested as he saw al-Qaida's appalling attacks. A detained al-Qaida
member tells us that Saddam was more willing to assist al-Qaida after the 1998
bombings of our embassies in Kenya and Tanzania. Saddam was also impressed by
al-Qaida's attacks on the USS Cole in Yemen in October 2000. Iraqis
continue to visit bin Laden in his new home in Afghanistan. A senior defector,
one of Saddam's former intelligence chiefs in Europe, says Saddam sent his
agents to Afghanistan sometime in the mid-1990s to provide training to al-Qaida
members on document forgery. From the late
1990s until 2001, the Iraqi Embassy in Pakistan played the role of liaison to
the al-Qaida organization. Some believe,
some claim, these contacts do not amount to much. They say Saddam Hussein's
secular tyranny and al-Qaida's religious tyranny do not mix. I am not comforted
by this thought. Ambition and hatred are enough to bring Iraq and al-Qaida
together, enough so al-Qaida could learn how to build more sophisticated bombs
and learn how to forge documents, and enough so that al-Qaida could turn to
Iraq for help in acquiring expertise on weapons of mass destruction. And the record
of Saddam Hussein's cooperation with other Islamist terrorist organizations is
clear. Hamas, for example, opened an office in Baghdad in 1999 and Iraq has
hosted conferences attended by Palestine Islamic Jihad. These groups are at the
forefront of sponsoring suicide attacks against Israel. Al-Qaida
continues to have a deep interest in acquiring weapons of mass destruction. As
with the story of Zarqawi and his network, I can trace the story of a senior
terrorist operative telling how Iraq provided training in these weapons to
al-Qaida. Fortunately, this operative is now detained and he has told his
story. I will relate it to you now as he, himself, described it. This senior
al-Qaida terrorist was responsible for one of al-Qaida's training camps in
Afghanistan. His information comes firsthand from his personal involvement at
senior levels of al-Qaida. He says bin Laden and his top deputy in Afghanistan,
deceased al-Qaida leader Muhammad Atif, did not believe that al-Qaida labs in
Afghanistan were capable enough to manufacture these chemical or biological
agents. They needed to go somewhere else. They had to look outside of
Afghanistan for help. Where did they
go? Where did they look? They went to Iraq. The support that this detainee
describes included Iraq offering chemical or biological weapons training for
two al-Qaida associates beginning in December 2000. He says that a militant
known as Abdallah al-Iraqi had been sent to Iraq several times between 1997 and
2000 for help in acquiring poisons and gasses. Abdallah al-Iraqi characterized
the relationship he forged with Iraqi officials as successful. As I said at
the outset, none of this should come as a surprise to any of us. Terrorism has
been a tool used by Saddam for decades. Saddam was a supporter of terrorism
long before these terrorist networks had a name, and this support continues.
The nexus of poisons and terror is new. The nexus of Iraq and terror is old.
The combination is lethal. With this
track record, Iraqi denials of supporting terrorism take their place alongside
the other Iraqi denials of weapons of mass destruction. It is all a web of
lies. When we
confront a regime that harbors ambitions for regional domination, hides weapons
of mass destruction, and provides haven and active support for terrorists, we
are not confronting the past; we are confronting the present. And unless we
act, we are confronting an even more frightening future. And, friends,
this has been a long and a detailed presentation and I thank you for your
patience, but there is one more subject that I would like to touch on briefly,
and it should be a subject of deep and continuing concern to this Council:
Saddam Hussein's violations of human rights. Underlying all
that I have said, underlying all the facts and the patterns of behavior that I
have identified, is Saddam Hussein's contempt for the will of this Council, his
contempt for the truth, and, most damning of all, his utter contempt for human
life. Saddam Hussein's use of mustard and nerve gas against the Kurds in 1988
was one of the 20th century's most horrible atrocities. Five thousand men,
women and children died. His campaign against the Kurds from 1987 to '89
included mass summary executions, disappearances, arbitrary jailing and ethnic
cleansing, and the destruction of some 2,000 villages. He has also
conducted ethnic cleansing against the Shia Iraqis and the Marsh Arabs whose
culture has flourished for more than a millennium. Saddam Hussein's police
state ruthlessly eliminates anyone who dares to dissent. Iraq has more forced
disappearance cases than any other country -- tens of thousands of people
reported missing in the past decade. Nothing points
more clearly to Saddam Hussein's dangerous intentions and the threat he poses
to all of us than his calculated cruelty to his own citizens and to his
neighbors. Clearly,
Saddam Hussein and his regime will stop at nothing until something stops him. For more than
20 years, by word and by deed, Saddam Hussein has pursued his ambition to
dominate Iraq and the broader Middle East using the only means he knows:
intimidation, coercion and annihilation of all those who might stand in his
way. For Saddam Hussein, possession of the world's most deadly weapons is the
ultimate trump card, the one he must hold to fulfill his ambition. We know that
Saddam Hussein is determined to keep his weapons of mass destruction, is
determined to make more. Given Saddam Hussein's history of aggression, given
what we know of his grandiose plans, given what we know of his terrorist
associations, and given his determination to exact revenge on those who oppose
him, should we take the risk that he will not someday use these weapons at a
time and a place and in a manner of his choosing, at a time when the world is
in a much weaker position to respond? The United States
will not and cannot run that risk for the American people. Leaving Saddam
Hussein in possession of weapons of mass destruction for a few more months or
years is not an option, not in a post-September 11th world. My colleagues,
over three months ago, this Council recognized that Iraq continued to pose a
threat to international peace and security, and that Iraq had been and remained
in material breach of its disarmament obligations. Today, Iraq
still poses a threat and Iraq still remains in material breach. Indeed, by its
failure to seize on its one last opportunity to come clean and disarm, Iraq has
put itself in deeper material breach and closer to the day when it will face
serious consequences for its continue defiance of this Council. My colleagues,
we have an obligation to our citizens. We have an obligation to this body to
see that our resolutions are complied with. We wrote 1441 not in order to go to
war. We wrote 1441 to try to preserve the peace. We wrote 1441 to give Iraq one
last chance. Iraq is not,
so far, taking that one last chance. We must not
shrink from whatever is ahead of us. We must not fail in our duty and our
responsibility to the citizens of the countries that are represented by this
body. Thank you, Mr.
President. |