Secretary
of State Colin Powell Makes Case on Iraq
Following
is the full text of Secretary of State Colin Powell's address on
Iraq to the United Nations on February 5, 2003
POWELL:
Thank you, Mr. President.
Mr.
President, 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 important day for us all as we review the situation with respect
to Iraq and its disarmament obligations under U.N. 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.
POWELL:
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 in voting
on that day had any allusions 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.
POWELL:
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. Blix and Dr. ElBaradei. As Dr.
Blix reported to this council on January 27th, quote, "Iraq appears
not to have come to a genuine acceptance, not even today, of the
disarmament which was demanded of it,'' unquote.
And
as Dr. ElBaradei reported, Iraq's declaration of December 7, quote,
"did not provide any new information relevant to certain questions
that have been outstanding since 1998.''
POWELL:
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
of 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.
POWELL:
What you will see is an accumulation of facts and disturbing patterns
of behavior. The facts on Iraqis' behavior Iraq's behavior
demonstrate that Saddam Hussein and his regime have made no effor
- 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.
(BEGIN
AUDIO TAPE)
1/8Speaking
in Arabic. 3/8
(END
AUDIO TAPE)
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, Mohamed ElBaradei, 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 is incredulous: "You didn't get a modified. You don't
have one of those, do you?''
"I
have one.''
"Which,
from where?''
"From
the workshop, from the Al Kendi (ph) Company?''
"What?''
"From
Al Kendi (ph).''
"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 Kendi (ph) Company: This is a company that is well known to have
been involved in prohibited weapons systems activity.
POWELL:
Let me play another tape for you. As you will recall, the inspectors
found 12 empty chemical warheads on January 16. On January 20, four
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.
(BEGIN
AUDIO TAPE)
1/8Speaking
in Arabic. 3/8
(END
AUDIO TAPE)
POWELL:
Let me pause again and review the elements of this message.
"They're
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 of the areas, the
scrap areas, the abandoned areas. Make sure there is nothing there.''
POWELL:
Remember the first message, evacuated.
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.
If
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.''
"OK,
OK.''
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 quote, "a higher committee
for monitoring the inspections teams,'' unquote. Think about that.
Iraq has a high-level committee to monitor the inspectors who were
sent in to monitor Iraq's disarmament.
POWELL:
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 Yassin Ramadan. Its members include Saddam
Hussein's son Qusay.
This
committee also includes Lieutenant General Amir al-Saadi, an adviser
to Saddam. In case that name isn't immediately familiar to you,
General Saadi has been the Iraqi regime's primary point of contact
for Dr. Blix and Dr. ElBaradei. It was General Saadi who last fall
publicly pledged that Iraq was prepared to cooperate unconditionally
with inspectors. Quite the contrary, Saadi'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, quote, "the
old game of cat and mouse,'' unquote.
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.
POWELL:
Instead, Iraq planned to use the declaration, 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
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're 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.
POWELL:
This is the organization that oversees Iraq's weapons of mass destruction
activities. Make sure there are no documents left which could 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 Baath 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 home
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 U.N. 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 Baath 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's being hidden? Why? There's 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.
POWELL:
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 disbursing rocket launchers and warheads containing
biological warfare agents to various locations, distributing them
to various locations in western Iraq. Most of the launchers and
warheads have 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 (ph). 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 weapon 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
the 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.
POWELL:
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 it 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 U.N. 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 (ph). 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.
POWELL:
I would call my colleagues attention to the fine paper that 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 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 two 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, two days before inspections
began, five large cargo trucks appeared along with the truck-mounted
crane to move missiles. We saw this kind of house cleaning 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.
POWELL:
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're
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, announced publicly and
announced ominously that, quote, "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 U.N. 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 counterintelligence 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.
POWELL:
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 elicit weapons projects
were to replace the workers who'd 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 U.N. 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.
POWELL:
We wrote it this way to give Iraq an early test to give 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 U.N. 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.
The
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 noncompliance 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 and 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 shutdown
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.
POWELL:
Iraq declared 8,500 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 teaspoon-full 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.
POWELL:
Let me take you inside that intelligence file and share with you
what we know from eye witness accounts. We have firsthand 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, U.N. inspectors
at the time only had vague hints of such programs. Confirmation
came later, in the year 2000.
The
source was an eye witness, 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
eye-witness 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.
POWELL:
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 are 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 how 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 warehouse or somewhere in Iraq's extensive system of underground
tunnels and bunkers.
We
know that Iraq has at lest 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 four 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?
POWELL:
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. And dry agent of this type is the most
lethal form for human beings.
By
1998, U.N. 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 (ph), tetanus, cholera, camelpox and hemorrhagic
fever, and he also has the wherewithal to develop smallpox.
The
Iraqi regime has also developed ways to disburse lethal biological
agents, widely and discriminately 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 Sali Abdul Latif (ph),
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 a UAV. UAVs outfitted with spray tanks constitute an ideal method
for launching a terrorist attack using biological weapons.
POWELL:
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 6,500 bombs from the Iran-Iraq
war UNMOVIC says the amount of chemical agent in them would
be in the order of 1,000 tons. These quantities of chemical weapons
are now unaccounted for.
Dr.
Blix has quipped that, quote, "Mustard gas is not (inaudible) 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 Kamal, Saddam Hussein's
late son-in-law. UNSCOM also gained forensic evidence that Iraq
had produced VX and put it into weapons for delivery.
POWELL:
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 of such facilities
would be unlikely to turn up anything prohibited, especially if
there is any warning that the inspections are coming. Call it ingenuous
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 (ph) state establishment.
Tariq (ph) 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-Moussaid
(ph), a site that Iraq has used for at least three 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.
POWELL:
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 two 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
micro-organisms 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 amounts of vinyl 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.
POWELL:
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.
(BEGIN
AUDIO TAPE)
1/8Speaking
in Foreign Language. 3/8
(END
AUDIO TAPE)
POWELL:
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.''
Well,
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.
POWELL:
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 5 times the size of Manhattan.
Let
me remind you that, of the 122 millimeter chemical warheads, that
the U.N. inspectors found recently, this discovery could very well
be, as has been noted, the tip of the 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 1,600 death row prisoners were transferred in 1995
to a special unit for such experiments. An eye witness saw prisoners
tied down to beds, experiments conducted on them, blood oozing around
the victim's 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 elicit
program cost the Iraqis several billion dollars.
POWELL:
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 worse-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 U.N. 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 he 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 just as an old Army trooper,
I can tell you a couple of 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.
POWELL:
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, 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 show 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 elicit 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 Iraqi's top nuclear scientists,
a group that the governmental-controlled press calls openly, his
nuclear mujahedeen. 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.
POWELL:
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 (ph) and the al-Fatah
(ph), violate the 150-kilometer limit established by this council
in Resolution 687. These are prohibited systems.
UNMOVIC
has also reported that Iraq has illegally important 380 SA-2 (ph)
rocket engines. These are likely for use in the al-Samud II (ph).
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 missiles. 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 of 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 on the right test stand is five times longer than
the one on the left. The one on the left was used for short-range
missile. 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 (ph)
and with greater success an aircraft called the L-29 (ph). 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.
POWELL:
There is ample evidence that Iraq has dedicated much effort to developing
and testing spray devices that could be adapted for UAVs. And of
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 27, last year.
According
to Iraq's December 7 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 race
track 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
7th declaration. The UAV was flown around and around and around
in a 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 10 years between Iraq's UAV program and biological
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 elicit weapons. It's the way that
these elicit 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 Intifada. 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 Musab Al-Zarqawi, an associated in collaborator
of Osama bin Laden and his Al Qaida lieutenants.
Zarqawi,
a 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 specialities and one of the specialties
of this camp is poisons. When our coalition ousted the Taliban,
the Zarqaqi network helped establish another poison and explosive
training center camp. And this camp is located in northeastern Iraq.
POWELL:
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
image 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 Zarqawi 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 its members accepted this safe
haven. They remain their today.
Zarqawi's
activities are not confined to this small corner of north east Iraq.
He traveled to Baghdad in May 2002 for medical treatment, staying
in the capital of Iraq for two months while he recuperated to fight
another day.
During
this 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've 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, quote, "good,'' that Baghdad could
be transited quickly.
We
know these affiliates are connected to Zarqawi because they remain
even today in regular contact with his direct subordinates, including
the poison cell plotters, and they are involved in moving more than
money and materiale.
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, Zarqawi can direct
his network in the Middle East and beyond.
We,
in the United States, all of us at 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 Zarqawi for that murder.
POWELL:
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 Zarqawi or of any of his associates. Again, these protests are
not credible. We know of Zarqawi's activities in Baghdad. I described
them earlier.
And
now let me add one other fact. We asked a friendly security service
to approach Baghdad about extraditing Zarqawi 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 Zarqawi. The network remains in Baghdad. Zarqawi still
remains at large to come and go.
As
my colleagues around this table and as the citizens they represent
in Europe know, Zarqawi's terrorism is not confined to the Middle
East. Zarqawi and his network have plotted terrorist actions against
countries, including France, Britain, Spain, Italy, Germany and
Russia.
According
to detainee Abuwatia (ph), who graduated from Zarqawi's terrorist
camp in Afghanistan, tasks at least nine North African extremists
from 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 Zarqawi, because
the detainee 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 a cell there just last month, one British police officer
was murdered during the disruption of the cell.
We
also know that Zarqawi'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 Zarqawi's network say
their goal was to kill Russians with toxins.
We
are not surprised that Iraq is harboring Zarqawi and his subordinates.
This understanding builds on decades long experience with respect
to ties between Iraq and Al Qaida.
POWELL:
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 member 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
continued 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 Zarqawi 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.
POWELL:
His information comes first-hand from his personal involvement at
senior levels of Al Qaida. He says bin Laden and his top deputy
in Afghanistan, deceased Al Qaida leader Muhammad Atif (ph), 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 (inaudible) 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 Abu Abdula Al-Iraqi
(ph) had been sent to Iraq several times between 1997 and 2000 for
help in acquiring poisons and gases. Abdula Al-Iraqi (ph) 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 the
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.
My
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 as 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; 5,000 men, women and
children died.
POWELL:
His campaign against the Kurds from 1987 to '89 included mass summary
executions, disappearances, arbitrary jailing, ethnic cleansing
and the destruction of some 2,000 villages. He has also conducted
ethnic cleansing against the Shi'a 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 most hold to fulfill his ambition.
We
know that Saddam Hussein is determined to keep his weapons of mass
destruction; he's 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 some day use these weapons at a time and the place
and in the 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 to 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 11th 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.
POWELL:
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 continued 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.
END
[Posted
February 6, 2003]
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