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Politics : Foreign Affairs Discussion Group

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To: E who wrote (119699)	11/16/2003 4:46:10 PM
From: Hawkmoon	Read Replies (2) of 281500

And what makes Scott Ritter believe that UNMOVIC would have succeeded where UNSCOM had failed in 1998?: SEN. WARNER: Had this cessation of inspections not happened, can you provide the committee -- committees with any estimate of how much longer your teams and others would have to do their work and the likelihood of what they might find? MR. RITTER: Sir, that's a question that Iraq keeps posing to the Special Commission: how much longer will this go on? The fact of the matter is that since April 1991 under the direct orders and direction of the President of Iraq the government of Iraq has lied to the Special Commission about the totality of its holdings. We cannot conduct verification of Iraq's compliance with Security Council resolutions without an understanding of what there was to begin with. Iraq not only lied to us in April 1991. In the summer of 1991 they conducted what they call unilateral destruction: that is, they disposed of certain materials without the presence of weapons inspectors and then destroyed the records of this alleged destruction. They also diverted certain materials to the presidential security forces. This has confused an already confusing situation. We do not know the totality of what Iraq has. What we do know is that the declarations they have made to the Special Commission to date are false. And the explanations that they give to us about how they disposed of weapons are wrong. And therefore we know we have a job to do. How much longer will it take? I can say this, and I'll echo the words of the executive chairman. If Iraq gave us today a full and final accounting of all of its weapons of mass destruction -- programs and retained weapons capabilities -- our job would be over very quickly. But because we don't have such an accounting, our job has become a mission of discovery. We must go forth and find these weapons that Iraq is hiding. And that could go on a very long time, especially given the level of Iraqi obstruction today. One more post from Mr. Ritter, I think.. A nice coup de grace... Hawk

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