Same Subject, Iraq....bit different information from CNN:
Iraq experts warn senators: Saddam pushing ahead with weapons program
WASHINGTON (CNN) -- President Bush is justified in being concerned about Iraqi President Saddam Hussein's relentless pursuit of weapons of mass destruction, the Democratic chairman of a Senate committee said at the start of two days of hearings.
"One thing is clear: These weapons must be must be dislodged from Saddam, or Saddam must be dislodged from power," said Sen. Joseph Biden, D-Delaware.
The hearings, during which the senators will hear from experts on Iraq from outside the administration, are "not designed to prejudge any particular course of action," Biden said.
They also are not intended to short-circuit the administration's debate on what course to take against that nation, which Bush includes in what has called an "axis of evil."
One option being considered is a military strike against Iraq.
Biden said the committee would seek the answers to several questions: What is the threat from Iraq? What is the appropriate response? How do other countries view the Iraqi problem, and what duties will the United States have toward Iraq afterward, if it were to attack the nation successfully?
"In Afghanistan, the war was prosecuted exceptionally well, but the follow-through commitment to Afghanistan's security and reconstruction has, in my judgment, fallen short," Biden said.
"It would be a tragedy if we removed a tyrant in Iraq, only to leave chaos in his wake," the senator added.
"We still face threats caused by Saddam Hussein," agreed Richard Lugar, R-Indiana, who said he had urged then-President George Bush to send forces to Baghdad to end Hussein's regime in 1991, at the end of the Gulf War. The president did not order such action.
"We must estimate soberly the human and economic cost of war plans and post-war plans," if that's the next course followed, Lugar said, and he urged Bush to seek congressional approval for any military action.
Iraq's weapons capabilities formidable, witnesses say
The first three witnesses focused on Iraq's weapons capabilities and the wisdom of a U.S.-Iraq conflict.
Richard Butler refuted statements by Iraq that it has no weapons of mass destruction or the means to make such chemical, biological and nuclear weaponry.
"Everyone, Mr. Chairman, is being lied to," said the former chief weapons inspector for the United Nations. Iraq forced his team of inspectors -- charged with certifying that Iraq had no such weapons -- to leave the country in late 1998.
The certification is required before the United Nations will lift economic sanctions it placed on Iraq after it invaded Kuwait in 1990.
Butler said he supports arms control and disarmament before the United States considers military action against Iraq.
"It is essential that Iraq is brought into conformity with the law," Butler said. Its weapons must be removed and a long-term monitoring process must be resumed to ensure the nation doesn't rebuild its cache.
Butler said it's crucial to receive the support of Russia to accomplish the two objectives.
Khidar Hamza, a former Iraqi nuclear engineer, said Iraq is well into the production of chemical weapons and has enough uranium to generate several nuclear weapons by 2005.
But while agreeing that destroying the weapons and setting up a monitoring system is a worthwhile goal, Hamza noted that past inspection and monitoring efforts have not been overly successful.
Anthony Cordesman, a senior fellow at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, said Iraq's military capabilities and its inventory of chemical and biological weapons "is not a force that can be dismissed."
"To be careless about this [potential] war would be a disaster," he said.
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