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Politics : Stockman Scott's Political Debate Porch -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Mannie who wrote (3590)	7/31/2002 3:25:27 PM
From: stockman_scott	Respond to of 89467

Initial testimony on Iraq from the Senate Foreign Relations Committee msnbc.com WASHINGTON, July 31 — A panel of Iraq experts told the Senate Foreign Relations Committee Wednesday that Saddam Hussein will have nuclear weapons by 2005, if he does not already possess them. His regime may already possess anthrax and smallpox in forms that can be delivered as weapons, giving him arms as powerful lethally as nuclear ones. The experts said there are grave risks both in the current policy of trying to contain Iraq and in a pre-emptive assault on Saddam. KHIDIR HAMZA, a former Iraqi nuclear engineer who worked in Saddam’s weapons program before defecting in 1994, told the committee that the German intelligence agency and other experts had concluded that Iraq will have at least three nuclear warheads by 2005. GROWING RISK Anthony Cordesman, the former director of intelligence assessment in the Defense Department who is now an analyst at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, a Washington think tank, told the committee that as the months pass, the danger from Iraq’s arsenal grows. And, he indicated, U.S. spying is unlikely to detect Iraq’s nuclear weapons until they are tested or used in combat. “With areas like (nuclear weapons) centrifuge technology, you never really will know. They are relatively easy to conceal,” Cordesman said. Democrats split on Iraq attack As for biological weapons, he said, “they may have anthrax weapons today with nuclear lethality. If they have smallpox, and they were among the last countries to have a smallpox outbreak, that is a weapon which has nuclear lethality. The more time goes on, the more the timeline gives Saddam the ability to get there.” Richard Butler, the former head of the U.N. weapons inspection team, told the senators that Iraq “has always been utterly committed” to amassing an arsenal of weapons of mass destruction. He said he was pessimistic that Iraqi regime would allow full-scale inspections and voluntary destruction of its arsenal. Butler said the United States and its allies should make one last effort to persuade the Baghdad government to agree to inspections. “Are they likely to do it? No, they are not. Does it mean we should therefore stop trying to get that (inspections program) restored? No, I think we’ve got to go a little further ... to make clear to the world that we went the full distance to get the law obeyed and arms control restored before taking other measures.” Butler said pressure from Russia was one key to getting the Iraqis to agree to inspections. On Tuesday, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld expressed great skepticism about whether inspections would be effective or even possible. “It would take such a thoroughly intrusive inspection regime agreed to and then lived up to by Iraq that it’s difficult to comprehend — even begin to think — that they might accept such a regime,” Rumsfeld said. “It would have to be without notice. It would have to be anywhere, anytime.” CERTAINTY IS IMPOSSIBLE Sen. Richard Lugar, R-Ind., asked Cordesman whether Iraq might be building its arsenal mostly to deter an attack and not to initiate one, and whether it might be more prudent for the United States to not launch a first strike. Cordesman replied, “it is far from clear that anyone will ever be able to answer your questions or know when or where or how these kinds of (Iraqi) weapons will be used.” He added, “we have to be prepared for the fact that if we do this, it will in many way be our first pre-emptive war. We will not have a clear smoking gun.” Cordesman sounded a somber warning about the need for a full-fledged U.S. ground force to invade Iraq and destroy its arsenal, if President Bush decides to strike. The United States would also need the Persian Gulf countries of Qatar, Bahrain, Kuwait and Oman to agree to allow bases on their territory to be used by U.S. forces. Most of the aircraft carriers in the U.S. Navy would also need to be deployed in the attack, he said — unless Saudi Arabia agreed to allow its bases to be used. “I do not believe that any amount of airstrikes suddenly executed will help,” Cordesman told Lugar. He said the airstrikes during the 1991 war against Iraq were largely ineffective. “We flew 2,400 sorties trying to disperse the Scuds (missiles) in the Gulf War.... we hit nothing,” he said.