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 [Hans] Blix
and Dr El-Baradei. 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 El-Baradei 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 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.
[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 El-Baradei 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 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 20, 4 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-Sadi, an advisor to Saddam. In case that name isn't
immediately familiar to you, General Sadi has been the Iraqi regime's primary
point of contact for Dr Blix and Dr El-Baradei. It was General Sadi who last
fall publicly pledged that Iraq was prepared to cooperate unconditionally with
inspectors. Quite the contrary, Sadi'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 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, 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. 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 10, we saw a cargo truck preparing to move ballistic missile
components.
At this biological weapons-related
facility on November 25, just 2 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, 2 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 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 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
four 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 an 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 in
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 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 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 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. 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 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 fermenters look like. We know what the
tanks, pumps, compressors and other parts look like. We know 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 4 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 Salleh 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 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 Musayyib", a site that Iraq has
used for at least 3 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 2
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 amts 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.
(Transmission.)
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." 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 1600 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
costs 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 Iraqis' top nuclear
scientists, a group that the government-controlled press calls openly his
"nuclear mujahedin". 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-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 imported 350 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 missile; 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 7 [2002]
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 Iraq’s December 7 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 biologic 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 Massad Al-Zakawi an associate and collaborator
of Osama bin Laden and his al-Qaida lieutenants.
Zakawi, 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 Zakawi 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
Zakawi 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.
Zakawi'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 Zakawi 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,
Zakawi 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
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 Zakawi 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 Zakawi or of any of his associates. Again, these protests are
not credible. We know of Zakawi'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 Zakawi
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 Zakawi. The network remains in Baghdad. Zakawi still remains at
large, to come and go.
As my colleagues around this table
and as the citizens they represent in Europe know, Zakawi's terrorism is not
confined to the Middle East. Zakawi and his network have plotted terrorist
actions against countries including France, Britain, Spain, Italy, Germany and
Russia. According to detainees Abu Atia, who graduated from Zakawi'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 Zakawi 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 Zakawi'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 Zakawi's
network say their goal was to kill Russians with toxins.
We are not surprised that Iraq is
harboring Zakawi 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 members 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
Zakawi 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 Mohammed Atef, 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 the 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 Abdullah al-Araqi had been
sent to Iraq several times between 1997 and 2000 for help in acquiring poisons
and gasses. Abdullah al-Araqi 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 jail 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 11 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.