To: Sam who wrote (124544 ) 2/9/2004 7:02:45 PM From: Hawkmoon Respond to Q. In 1998, you said Saddam had "not nearly disarmed." Now you say he doesn't have weapons of mass destruction (WMD). Why did you change your mind? I have never given Iraq a clean bill of health! Never! Never! I've said that no one has backed up any allegations that Iraq has reconstituted WMD capability with anything that remotely resembles substantive fact. To say that Saddam's doing it is in total disregard to the fact that if he gets caught he's a dead man and he knows it. NOT giving Saddam a "clean bill of health" is equivalent to asserting that Saddam is in violation of his obligation to disarm.britainusa.com Iraq, today, is not disarmed, and remains an ugly threat to its neighbors and to world peace. Those Americans who think that this is important and that something should be done about it have to be deeply disappointed in our leadership.” (Testimony to US Senate Committee, 3 September 1998) “The truth is, Iraq is not a threat to its neighbors and it is not acting in a manner which threatens anyone outside its borders. Military action against Iraq cannot be justified.” (Address to Iraqi MPs in Baghdad, 8 September 2002) They said that they would accept the provisions of the Security Council Resolution, yet at the same time they accepted it, in April, 1991, there were high-level meetings in which Iraq made strategic plans for concealing the existence of their entire biological weapons program, their entire nuclear weapons program, the bulk of their modern chemical weapons production program, and their entire indigenous missile production capability. (PBS interview, 1999)" "The inspectors were able to do their task of disarming Iraq without any obstruction by Iraq… .Let's keep in mind that from 1994 to 1998, the weapons inspectors carried out ongoing monitoring inspections of the totality of Iraq's industrial infrastructure. And at no time did Iraq obstruct this work. “ (CNN interview, 8 September 2002) fas.org ceip.org Iraq today is not disarmed, and remains an ugly threat to its neighbors and to world peace. Those American who think that this is important and that something should be done about it have to be deeply disappointed in our leadership.MR. RITTER: Mr. Chairman, with all due respect, I cannot speak on behalf of the International Atomic Energy Agency. Nuclear disarmament issues in Iraq are their purview. But what I can say is that we have clear evidence that Iraq is retaining prohibited weapons capabilities in the fields of chemical, biological and ballistic- missile delivery systems of a range of greater than 150 kilometers. And if Iraq has undertaken a concerted effort run at the highest levels inside Iraq to retain these capabilities, then I see no reason why they would not exercise the same sort of concealment efforts for their nuclear programs.
