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presentation to the U.N. Security Council the U.S. case against Iraq Colin PowellU.S.
Secretary of State
February 5, 2003
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TO JOIN
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Thank
you, Mr. President. Mr. President,
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
important day for us all as we review the situation with respect to Iraq
and its disarmament obligations under U.N. 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 in 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 27th, "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 of 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 on 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. Hiding
prohibited equipment Let me begin
by playing a tape for you. What you're about to hear is a conversation
that my government monitored. It takes place on November 26 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. [Following is a U.S. translation of that taped
conversation.]
GEN: Yeah. COL: About
this committee that is coming... GEN: Yeah,
yeah. COL: ...with
Mohamed ElBaradei [Director, International Atomic Energy Agency] GEN: Yeah,
yeah. COL: Yeah. GEN: Yeah? COL: We have
this modified vehicle. GEN: Yeah. COL: What do
we say if one of them sees it? GEN: You
didn't get a modified... You don't have a modified... COL: By God, I
have one. GEN: Which?
From the workshop...? COL: From the
al-Kindi Company GEN: What? COL: From al-Kindi.
GEN: Yeah,
yeah. I'll come to you in the morning. I have some comments. I'm worried
you all have something left. COL: We
evacuated everything. We don't have anything left. GEN: I will
come to you tomorrow. COL: Okay. GEN: I have a
conference at Headquarters, before I attend the conference I will come to
you. 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, Mohamed 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 that should not be seen. The general is
incredulous: "You didn't get a 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 16. On January 20, 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. Let me pause
again and review the elements of this message. "They're
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 of the areas, the scrap
areas, the abandoned areas. Make sure there is nothing there." Remember the
first message, evacuated. 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. If 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." "OK,
OK." 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. Attempt to
thwart inspection We know that
Saddam Hussein has what is called "a higher committee for monitoring
the inspections 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 Yassin Ramadan. Its members include Saddam Hussein's son Qusay. This committee
also includes Lt. Gen. Amir al-Saadi, an adviser to Saddam. In case that
name isn't immediately familiar to you, Gen. Saadi has been the Iraqi
regime's primary point of contact for Dr. Blix and Dr. ElBaradei. It was
Gen. Saadi who last fall publicly pledged that Iraq was prepared to
cooperate unconditionally with inspectors. Quite the contrary, Saadi'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 on December 7. Iraq never had any intention of complying with this
council's mandate. Instead, Iraq
planned to use the declaration, 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're 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 could 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 Baath
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 home 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 U.N. 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 Baath 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's being hidden? Why? There's 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 disbursing
rocket launchers and warheads containing biological warfare agents to
various locations, distributing them to various locations in western Iraq.
Most of the launchers
and warheads have 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,
pouring 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 (ph). 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 weapon 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 the 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 it
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 U.N.
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 (ph). 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 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 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 10, we saw a cargo truck preparing to
move ballistic missile components. At this biological weapons related
facility, on November 25, 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 the truck-mounted crane to move
missiles. We saw this kind of house cleaning 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
inspectors. 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're 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. Access to
scientists
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, announced publicly and announced
ominously that, quote, "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 U.N. 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 counterintelligence 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 elicit weapons projects were to replace the workers who'd 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 four of U.N. 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 U.N.
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. The 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 noncompliance 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. Biological
weapons program 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 teaspoon full of dry anthrax
in an envelope shutdown 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
8,500 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
teaspoon-full 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 there are 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 eye
witness accounts. We have firsthand 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, U.N. inspectors
at the time only had vague hints of such programs. Confirmation came
later, in the year 2000. The source was
an eye witness, 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. Twelve
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 eye-witness 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
are highly detailed and extremely accurate. As these drawings based on
their description show, we know what the fermenters 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 warehouse or somewhere
in Iraq's extensive system of underground tunnels and bunkers. We know that Iraq has at lest 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 botulism toxin. In fact, they can produce enough dry
biological agent in a single month to kill thousands upon thousands of
people. And dry agent of this type is the most lethal form for human
beings. By 1998, U.N.
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 botulism 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 disburse lethal biological agents,
widely and discriminately 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 Sali Abdul Latif (ph), 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 a 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. Chemical
weapons
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 -- 6,500 bombs from the Iran-Iraq war -- UNMOVIC says the
amount of chemical agent in them would be in the order of 1,000 tons.
These quantities of chemical weapons are now unaccounted for. Dr. Blix has
quipped that, quote, "Mustard gas is not (inaudible) 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 Kamal, 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 of
such facilities would be unlikely to turn up anything prohibited,
especially if there is any warning that the inspections are coming. Call
it ingenuous or evil genius, but the Iraqis deliberately designed their
chemical weapons programs to be inspected. It is infrastructure with a
built-in ally.
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 Tariq state establishment. Tariq
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-Moussaid (ph), 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
micro-organisms 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 botulism toxin, sterilization equipment for
laboratories, glass-lined reactors and specialty pumps that can handle
corrosive chemical weapons agents and recursors, large amounts of vinyl
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. (BEGIN AUDIO
TAPE) (Speaking in Foreign Language.)
(END AUDIO
TAPE) 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: "Remove.
Remove." 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." Well, 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 millimeter chemical warheads, that the U.N.
inspectors found recently, this discovery could very well be, as has been
noted, the tip of the 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 eye witness saw prisoners tied down to beds,
experiments conducted on them, blood oozing around the victim's mouths and
autopsies performed to confirm the effects on the prisoners. Saddam
Hussein's humanity -- inhumanity has no limits. Nuclear
weapons
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 elicit 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 worse-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 U.N. 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 he 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 just as an old Army trooper, I can tell you a
couple of 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, 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 show 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 elicit 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 Iraqi's top nuclear scientists, a group
that the governmental-controlled press calls openly, his nuclear
mujahedeen. 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. Prohibited
arms systems
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-Samud 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 important 380 SA-2 rocket engines.
These are likely for use in the al-Samud 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 the150-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 on the right test
stand is five times longer than the one on the left. The one on the left
was used for short-range missile. 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 of 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 27, last year. According to
Iraq's December 7 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 race track 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 Iraq's December 7th declaration. The UAV
was flown around and around and around in a 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 10 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. Ties to al
Qaeda Our concern is
not just about these elicit weapons. It's the way that these elicit
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 intifada. 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 Qaeda 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 Zarqawi, an associate and collaborator of Osama bin
Laden and his al Qaeda lieutenants. Zarqawi, a
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 specialities 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 -- image 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
Qaeda safe haven in the region. After we swept al Qaeda from Afghanistan,
some of its 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 2002 for medical treatment, staying in the
capital of Iraq for two months while he recuperated to fight another day. During this
stay, nearly two dozen extremists converged on Baghdad and established a
base of operations there. These al Qaeda affiliates, based in Baghdad, now
coordinate the movement of people, money and supplies into and throughout
Iraq for his network, and they've now been operating freely in the capital
for more than eight months. Iraqi
officials deny accusations of ties with al Qaeda. These denials are simply
not credible. Last year an al Qaeda associate bragged that the situation
in Iraq was, quote, "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, including the poison cell
plotters, and they are involved in moving more than money and materiel. Last year, two
suspected al Qaeda 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 at the State Department, and the Agency for
International Development -- we all lost a dear friend with the
cold-blooded murder of Mr. Lawrence 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. And 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
detainee Abuwatia (ph), who graduated from Zarqawi's terrorist camp in
Afghanistan, [unintelligible] at least nine North African extremists from
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 detainee 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 a cell there
just last month, one British police officer was murdered during the
disruption 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 Qaeda. Going back to
the early and mid-1990s, when bin Laden was based in Sudan, an al Qaeda
source tells us that Saddam and bin Laden reached an understanding that al
Qaeda would no longer support activities against Baghdad. Early al Qaeda
ties were forged by secret, high-level intelligence service contacts with
al Qaeda, secret Iraqi intelligence high-level contacts with al Qaeda. We know
members of both organizations met repeatedly and have met at least eight
times at very senior levels since the early 1990s. In1996, 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 Qaeda's
appalling attacks. A detained al Qaeda member tells us that Saddam was
more willing to assist al Qaeda after the 1998 bombings of our embassies
in Kenya and Tanzania. Saddam was also impressed by al Qaeda's attacks on
the USS Cole in Yemen in October 2000. Iraqis continued 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 Qaeda members on document forgery. From the late
1990s until 2001, the Iraqi embassy in Pakistan played the role of liaison
to the al Qaeda organization. Some believe,
some claim these contacts do not amount to much. They say
Saddam Hussein's secular tyranny and al Qaeda's religious tyranny do not
mix. I am not comforted by this thought. Ambition and hatred are enough to
bring Iraq and al Qaeda together, enough so al Qaeda could learn how to
build more sophisticated bombs and learn how to forge documents, and
enough so that al Qaeda 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 Qaeda
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 Qaeda. 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
Qaeda terrorist was responsible for one of al Qaeda's training camps in
Afghanistan. His
information comes firsthand from his personal involvement at senior levels
of al Qaeda. He says bin Laden and his top deputy in Afghanistan, deceased
al Qaeda leader Mohammed Atef, did not believe that al Qaeda 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 (inaudible) describes included Iraq offering chemical or biological
weapons training for two al Qaeda associates beginning in December 2000.
He says that a militant known as Abu Abdula Al-Iraqi (ph) had been sent to
Iraq several times between 1997and 2000 for help in acquiring poisons and
gases. Abdula Al-Iraqi (ph) characterized the relationship he forged with
Iraqi officials as successful. Conclusion
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 the 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. My 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 as 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; 5,000 men, women and children died. His campaign
against the Kurds from 1987 to '89 included mass summary executions,
disappearances, arbitrary jailing, ethnic cleansing and the destruction of
some 2,000 villages. He has also conducted ethnic cleansing against the
Shiite 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 most hold to fulfill his ambition. We know that Saddam Hussein is determined to keep his
weapons of mass destruction; he's 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 some day use these weapons at a time and
the place and in the 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 to 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 continued 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.
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