Bush: Bad president? Or WORST president EVER?

[Rusty Trichome]

However you seemed to forgotten UN weapons inspections was going on at the time.
Rather than doing the smart thing and try to account for all the weapons possible, we move in and destroy any traces of evidence linking Iraq to WMD.

Re-writing history, are we? Any supporting links for these 'facts'?
I've got a link:
Security Council Resolutions Concerning Iraq

There were other resolutions prior to UNSCR 687, but this is where the UN Security Council gave a hint there was a problem with supporting terrorists and nukes. (remember Saddam giving $10,000.00 to every family of every homicide bomber in the Israel?) A full 10 years before we were forced to confront the issue. If someone is threatening to shove a nuke up our ass, I would expect my president to effectively deal with the situation. The time for more mandates was long-gone.

The IAEA was mandated, on 4-3-1991, to "verify elimination of Iraq's nuclear weapons program"
This wasn't the day before the invasion...it was 10 friggin' years before.


UNSCR 687 - April 3, 1991:
Iraq must "unconditionally accept" the destruction, removal or rendering harmless "under international supervision" of all "chemical and biological weapons and all stocks of agents and all related subsystems and components and all research, development, support and manufacturing facilities."

Iraq must "unconditionally agree not to acquire or develop nuclear weapons or nuclear-weapons-usable material" or any research, 0development or manufacturing facilities.

Iraq must "unconditionally accept" the destruction, removal or rendering harmless "under international supervision" of all "ballistic missiles with a range greater than 150 KM and related major parts and repair and production facilities."

Iraq must not "use, develop, construct or acquire" any weapons of mass destruction.

Iraq must reaffirm its obligations under the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty.

Creates the United Nations Special Commission (UNSCOM) to verify the elimination of Iraq's chemical and biological weapons programs and mandated that the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) verify elimination of Iraq's nuclear weapons program.

Iraq must declare fully its weapons of mass destruction programs.

Iraq must not commit or support terrorism, or allow terrorist organizations to operate in Iraq.

Iraq must cooperate in accounting for the missing and dead Kuwaitis and others.

Iraq must return Kuwaiti property seized during the Gulf War.

[fiddyonefiddy]

bush is a war criminal #1
we hung people(japanese) for war crimes for waterboarding our troops in ww2.
we do this today,we meaning the usa.okayed by bush of course.

operation
iraqi
liberation

once we caught on to this little name they changed it,no u.s. firms are pumping oil,we are in charge of who gets to pump oil,were not the prostitutes were the pimps.

from reagan down the republicans have gone sour with iran contra.
it dirtied their reputations as they all broke the constitution of the usa. why didnt anyone hollar then? now see what you got.

also just so you know
bush is not from texas. he's from maine.we have never claimed the ignorant basterd.

there was no reason to go to war with iraq,none period.except bush had to show daddy how its done. hes a fool.
hes ruined everything he has ever run. baseball team,oil company,usa. he sux hes a goof off with connections,hes the dude you flushed his head in the toilet,back in high school.
and hes a sorry excuse for a president.
presidents are supposed to be above it all,he ain't he's in the middle of it.
i love the name darth chaney thats good
aristotle once said there is no true democracy where there is greed, look at our country and you will see that he is right.
heres an even better quote from hitler, it is good for the government that the people do not think.
ahh so true so true
speedy

[Mr. Clandestine]

there was no reason to go to war with iraq,none period.

You think Saddam was doing a good job governing Iraq? And if we're in charge of this huge surplus of oil we supposedly have in Iraq, why then is the average price per gallon of gasoline $3.50 and climbing? You're essentially saying that our soldiers are fighting and dying for nothing, but what about the countless number of Iraqis who are no longer being ruled with an iron fist by a ruthless and corrupt dictator? Are they nothing? Are Iraqis who can now vote also nothing? What about the huge number of terrorists that we'll never have to worry about attacking our homeland, or our interests abroad, because we prematurely sent them packing to visit their 437 virgins earlier than they were expecting? All for nothing?

In the world we live in, there's no such thing as getting something for nothing. We're having to make sacrifices, but regardless how you may feel about the war... we're still winning.

[fiddyonefiddy]

hey rusty
they told em he didnt have it, the chief u.n. inspector.
the guy said it on 60 minutes he knew they didnt have them,
go look that up. we(u.s. government) knew and didnt want to hear that part of it.we needed a reason to invade,scare tatics work the best. hes gonna blow us up,oh shit invade!
perfect scenario, remeber the terror alerts during the last vote,
ahh were at yellow we cant tell you what the threat is just that there is a threat, i mean come on. how much more bogus does it get? you dont think bush can afford a psychologist to figure out the best way to be elected,scare em and let em know youll protect em just like you said rusty i expect my president to
do something about it, but there was never a threat,so well make one up.you can write the question to get the answer you want and thats what bush did,he asked the questions to get the answer he wanted.the information was there, he didnt want to see it. so when you quote the u.n. reports please quote all of them. just like all republicans only tell the story they want to hear.
speedy

people of the world dont hate us the people, they hate our foriegn policy,and until we clean up our act,it will always be that way.

[fiddyonefiddy]

mr clandestine,
the reason gas is 350 is the unrest in the middle east,caused by invasion into a country that is against the constitution of our country, by our country.
sadam had no insurgents, because he killed them all.
its all about culture,the same goes on in saudi arabia but we didnt invade them,the same goes on in china, we invading them next?

their culture is tribal,they have one ruler for 30-40 years and then the same family takes over. has been that way for 4000 years over there. remember the pharo's.

was saddam a good guy probably not. if you listen to SO DAM INSANES side he had every right to go into kuwait. thats how they do shit over there.you've heard the saying when in rome?
also the kuwaitis after we left lined up the collaborators in the middle of kuwait city and chopped off there heads in a public execution.thats the way they do things over there.they catch you stealing they chop off your hand.now everyone knows to watch out for you cause your a thief.your missing a hand.
heres the perfect scenario,china says to us destroy all your weapons of mass destruction, or we are gonna invade, they dont have the world behind them or the u.n.sanctions, we tell em to fuck off, they invade our country, would you start defending yourself and blowing them up or killing them when you could to fight for your country? most people would as they are doing in iraq. and thats whats happening in iraq,and the only reason we are there still is to make sure that the government will be favorable to us.thats the only reason. period.
so we can control oil production bush said it himself.
speedy

what exactly are we getting for our sacrifices? mr clandestine?
could you tell me cause i dont see it.

[Mr. Clandestine]

Fiddy-

There are differing opinions all across the board about the war, what led to the invasion, what's been accomplished/what hasn't, and so on. Best you and I can do is agree not to agree with each other.

As for China invading, that's a completely different scenario. The world knows the U.S. has massive nuclear weapons capabilities, but unlike many countries in the Middle East, we don't run around flaunting our capabilities and threatening genocide on other countries, races, religions, etc. Even China, being the superpower that they are, would still be stupid to ever threaten us with any kind of force... especially with the atrocities that are happening in their country every day that we conveniently ignore. We're the #1 superpower for a reason, we have the ability to obliterate any country within a matter of seconds... luckily, we have no desire to convert the world into 'one big America'. We're not going to run our mouths like a lot of countries in the ME would, because we don't need to. The world knows what we're capable of, and most of the world is grateful that we're not governed by a cruel dictator who desires to see certain countries wiped from the face of the earth.

[Rusty Trichome]

Yeah, I'm a real fan of that failure of a man, Hans Blix.

Saddam had been working on getting the materials and technologies for nuclear weapons, and nuke delivery systems since the 1960's. Israel didn't think that was such a hot idea, and broke Iraq's new toy.

Osiraq - Iraq Special Weapons Facilities
"Iraq established its nuclear program in the late 1960s when it acquired its first nuclear facilites. Later, in the 1970s, Iraq was unsuccessful in negotiations with France to purchase a plutonium production reactor similar to the one used in France's nuclear weapons program. In addition to the reactor, Iraq also wanted to purchase the reporcessing plant needed to recover the plutonium produced in the reactor. Even through these requests were denied, France agreed to build a research reactor along with associated laboratories. Iraq built the Osiraq 40 megawatt light-water nuclear reactor at the Al Tuwaitha Nuclear Center near Baghdad with French assistance. Approximately 27.5 pounds of 93% U-235 was supplied to Iraq by France for use in the Osiraq research reactor."

Just because we didn't find the nukes does not mean he didn't want 'em.
PBS - frontline: gunning for saddam: saddam hussein's weapons of mass destruction
Quote from above article in regards to Iraq's nuke ambitions and capabilities:

"Between 1991 and 1998 the IAEA conducted more than 1500 inspections. IAEA released a report in 1997, with updates in 1998 and 1999, which it believes offers a technically coherent picture of Iraq's nuclear program.

In summary, the IAEA report says that following the August 1990 invasion of Kuwait, Iraq launched a "crash program" to develop a nuclear weapon quickly by extracting weapons grade material from safe-guarded research reactor fuel. This project, if it had continued uninterrupted by the war, might have succeeded in producing a deliverable weapon by the end of 1992.

The IAEA inspections revealed seven nuclear-related sites in Iraq. The IAEA reports that all sensitive nuclear materials were removed, and that facilities and equipment were dismantled or destroyed. Activities uncovered and destroyed included:

an industrial scale complex for Electromagnetic Isotope Separation (EMIS), a process for producing enriched uranium. The complex was designed for the installation of 90 separators; before the Gulf War, eight were functional. If all separators had been installed, the plant could have produced 15 kg of highly enriched uranium per year, possibly enough for one nuclear weapon.

a large scale manufacturing and testing facility--the Al Furat Project--designed for the production of centrifuges, used in another method of uranium enrichment.

facilities and equipment for the production of weapons components.

computer simulations of nuclear weapons detonations

storage of large quantities of HMX high explosive used in nuclear weapons.

According to former U.N. inspector David Kay, Iraq spent over $10 billion during the 1980s in an attempt to enrich uranium and build a nuclear weapon. However, the Agency concludes that as of December, 1998, "There were no indications to suggest that Iraq was successful in its attempt to produce nuclear weapons," or "that there remains in Iraq any physical capability for the production of amounts of weapons-usable nuclear material of any practical significance." However, the IAEA did find that "Iraq was at, or close to, the threshold of success in such areas as the production of [highly enriched uranium] ... and the fabrication of the explosive package for a nuclear weapon." Despite the fact that the facilities and nuclear material had been destroyed or removed, as early as 1996 the IAEA concluded that "the know-how and expertise acquired by Iraqi scientists and engineers could provide an adequate base for reconstituting a nuclear-weapons-oriented program."

Nuclear physicist and Iraqi defector Khidhir Hamza agrees. He told FRONTLINE that Iraq did not relinquish certain critical components of the nuclear program to the inspectors, and that it retains the expertise necessary to build a nuclear weapon. He believes that Iraq may have one completed within the next couple of years.

Note: IAEA was allowed back into Iraq in January 2000 and again in January 2001. But its inspectors were blocked from full access inspections."

Mr. C: No offense, but I'm a little put-off having to share the credit for a quote I wrote, but I do appreciate that someone reads my stuff, lol.

[Mr. Clandestine]

Rusty - My apologies, I was a little toasted when I added that to my siggy and didn't quite put two and two together. :jointsmile:

Awkwardness averted, it's all you now!

[fiddyonefiddy]

mr clandestine dont take my words the wrong way,please
everyone has their opinion ,thats what makes the usa great is we can discuss things not favorable to our government openly and not be persicuted for it.
now back to china why is that a different scenario?
we actually do have weapons of mass destruction? and so do they?

we don't run around flaunting our capabilities and threatening genocide on other countries, races, religions, etc.yes we do
we do it with foriegn policy.we dont have to take you out militarily
we can do it by sanctions, we do this all the time.if that doesnt work we take you out militarily,ask noreaga.

Even China, being the superpower that they are, would still be stupid to ever threaten us with any kind of force... especially with the atrocities that are happening in their country every day that we conveniently ignore.they have already done it through another country north vietnam, who has nukes told us to fuck off,you think sodaminsane is whacky check out the dude in north vietnam.that dude is out there. notice we aint messin with his ass.

luckily, we have no desire to convert the world into 'one big America'.yes we do, japan, germany,east berlin.they are now democracy because of us no other reason. we do this all the time ,how about hawaii? we wont go into what they did to the native americans.soviet union now has a president,guess we didnt have anything to do with that either.
we do run our mouths look at bush's speeches ,ole darth chaney
what he says its everywhere.and thats just here, ever heard the broadcast of voice of america? not in america, because it isnt broadcast here, only in other countries this i would say would be running our mouths.

like i say the dude wasnt cool but there are alot of other much worse that we dont want to get into it with cause we would lose. plain and simple the guys in iraq i send em my heart they are trying to get money for college and paying the ultimate price for what? tell me what they are dieng for cause all i see is oil.id like to see bush and all his cronies go do one tour with them boys and we'd be out of there so fast it would make your head spin.

According to former U.N. inspector David Kay, Iraq spent over $10 billion during the 1980s in an attempt to enrich uranium and build a nuclear weapon. However, the Agency concludes that as of December, 1998, "There were no indications to suggest that Iraq was successful in its attempt to produce nuclear weapons," or "that there remains in Iraq any physical capability for the production of amounts of weapons-usable nuclear material of any practical significance." However, the IAEA did find that "Iraq was at, or close to, the threshold of success in such areas as the production of [highly enriched uranium] ... and the fabrication of the explosive package for a nuclear weapon." Despite the fact that the facilities and nuclear material had been destroyed or removed, as early as 1996 the IAEA concluded that "the know-how and expertise acquired by Iraqi scientists and engineers could provide an adequate base for reconstituting a nuclear-weapons-oriented program."
and to rusty david kay got on 60 minutes and told them no way he had capabilities or any wmd's.capabilities and having them are two different things,alot of people have capabilities. the only person that told them was sodaminsane himself,after sodaminsane was in jail he told them he didnt think we would attack,that they got them all in 91.
like i said he wasnt a good dude but there are way others worse like mr clandestine said we convienently look the other way,of course we do. thats why we have these problems in iraq,our foriegn policy makes us out to be hypocrites. and really we are,
sorry to say.
ill tell you something else we do... we leave you to hang out and dry, curds in pakistan, sodaminsane was our buddy when he was fighting afghanistan and iraq.thats where he got any kind of weapons or weapons technology was from us during that war.
they came to america to study even the defector studied here in america.
the guys are using cell phones and stuff left over from all the wars over there,nothing else,they have been doing that shit for over 4000 years,we arent going to stop it.
im just saying my piece not trying to preturb you guys so dont take what i say the wrong way.
the simple fact is to this day we have not found anywmd's and the government has admitted to not necessarily lying to congress just giving them the information they wanted them to have they being bush and his cronies.

[thcbongman]

Rewriting? Did you ignore what was occuring at the time? Seems you forgotten how Colin Powell stated his facts to the UN council. But to this day we seems to have failed to prove the facts. Here are the excerpts from the transcript. There isn't any doubt that Iraq has violated UN resolutions countless times, failed to declare WMD in the past and failed to fully record their destruction. Of all the time it should've been enforced, it occurred at a time when Iraq started to comply with inspectors to research biological and chemical sites. Inspectors being kicked out in 1998 is different than leaving in March 2003 when Iraq went to War. Remember the war drum was starting to beat at the time.

The way Colin Powell presented the case, it was either poorly research or there is another agenda. I pick the latter. There is clearly a profitable agenda.



Biological Weapons - where the hell are the mobile-WMD factories?

Part 5: Biological weapons program

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.

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.

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.

<b>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.

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.

<b>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?

Ladies and gentlemen, these are sophisticated facilities. For example, they can produce anthrax and botulism 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. </b>

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 botulism 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, 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.

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

Have we found any evidence of these trucks? Based upon 4 eye witnesses, estimates and past weapon declarations? No matter what, sole paranoia isn't justification of war. If you are basing going to war based on paranoia and outdated information then we should go to war with many countries.

Let's continue.

Chemical Weapons - Satellite Imagery, hard evidence? Where is it?

Part 6: Chemical weapons

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. 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 state establishment. Tariq 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.

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 botulism toxin, sterilization equipment for laboratories, glass-lined reactors and specialty pumps that can handle corrosive chemical weapons agents and recursors, 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.

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)

(Speaking in Foreign Language.)

(END AUDIO TAPE)

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.

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 five 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.

Here is the rest of the transcript for your free viewing:

CNN.com - Transcript of Powell's U.N. presentation - Feb. 6, 2003


Funny how this evidence is totally contradicted in a status report made to the UN security council by Hans Blix a few days before:

THE SECURITY COUNCIL, 27 JANUARY 2003:

AN UPDATE ON INSPECTION




Executive Chairman of UNMOVIC, Dr. Hans Blix







The governing Security Council resolutions



The resolution adopted by the Security Council on Iraq in November last year asks UNMOVIC and the IAEA to â??updateâ?� the Council 60 days after the resumption of inspections. This is today. The updating, it seems, forms part of an assessment by the Council and its Members of the results, so far, of the inspections and of their role as a means to achieve verifiable disarmament in Iraq.



As this is an open meeting of the Council, it may be appropriate briefly to provide some background for a better understanding of where we stand today.

With your permission, I shall do so.



I begin by recalling that inspections as a part of a disarmament process in Iraq started in 1991, immediately after the Gulf War. They went on for eight years until December 1998, when inspectors were withdrawn. Thereafter, for nearly four years there were no inspections. They were resumed only at the end of November last year.



While the fundamental aim of inspections in Iraq has always been to verify disarmament, the successive resolutions adopted by the Council over the years have varied somewhat in emphasis and approach.



In 1991, resolution 687 (1991), adopted unanimously as a part of the cease-fire after the Gulf War, had five major elements. The three first related to disarmament. They called for :





declarations by Iraq of its programmes of weapons of mass destruction and long range missiles;


verification of the declarations through UNSCOM and the IAEA;


supervision by these organizations of the destruction or the elimination of proscribed programmes and items.




After the completion of the disarmament :



· the Council would have authority to proceed to a lifting of the sanctions (economic restrictions); and



the inspecting organizations would move to long-term ongoing monitoring and verification.




Resolution 687 (1991), like the subsequent resolutions I shall refer to, required cooperation by Iraq but such was often withheld or given grudgingly. Unlike South Africa, which decided on its own to eliminate its nuclear weapons and welcomed inspection as a means of creating confidence in its disarmament, Iraq appears not to have come to a genuine acceptance â?? not even today â?? of the disarmament, which was demanded of it and which it needs to carry out to win the confidence of the world and to live in peace.



As we know, the twin operation â??declare and verifyâ??, which was prescribed in resolution 687 (1991), too often turned into a game of â??hide and seekâ??. Rather than just verifying declarations and supporting evidence, the two inspecting organizations found themselves engaged in efforts to map the weapons programmes and to search for evidence through inspections, interviews, seminars, inquiries with suppliers and intelligence organizations. As a result, the disarmament phase was not completed in the short time expected. Sanctions remained and took a severe toll until Iraq accepted the Oil for Food Programme and the gradual development of that programme mitigated the effects of the sanctions.



The implementation of resolution 687 (1991) nevertheless brought about considerable disarmament results. It has been recognized that more weapons of mass destruction were destroyed under this resolution than were destroyed during the Gulf War: large quantities of chemical weapons were destroyed under UNSCOM supervision before 1994. While Iraq claims â?? with little evidence â?? that it destroyed all biological weapons unilaterally in 1991, it is certain that UNSCOM destroyed large biological weapons production facilities in 1996. The large nuclear infrastructure was destroyed and the fissionable material was removed from Iraq by the IAEA.



One of three important questions before us today is how much might remain undeclared and intact from before 1991; and, possibly, thereafter; the second question is what, if anything, was illegally produced or procured after 1998, when the inspectors left; and the third question is how it can be prevented that any weapons of mass destruction be produced or procured in the future.



In December 1999 â?? after one year without inspections in Iraq â?? resolution 1284 (1999) was adopted by the Council with 4 abstentions. Supplementing the basic resolutions of 1991 and following years, it provided Iraq with a somewhat less ambitious approach: in return for â??cooperation in all respectsâ?� for a specified period of time, including progress in the resolution of â??key remaining disarmament tasksâ?�, it opened the possibility, not for the lifting, but the suspension of sanctions.



For nearly three years, Iraq refused to accept any inspections by UNMOVIC. It was only after appeals by the Secretary-General and Arab States and pressure by the United States and other Member States, that Iraq declared on 16 September last year that it would again accept inspections without conditions.



Resolution 1441 (2002) was adopted on 8 November last year and emphatically reaffirmed the demand on Iraq to cooperate. It required this cooperation to be immediate, unconditional and active. The resolution contained many provisions, which we welcome as enhancing and strengthening the inspection regime. The unanimity by which it was adopted sent a powerful signal that the Council was of one mind in creating a last opportunity for peaceful disarmament in Iraq through inspection.



UNMOVIC shares the sense of urgency felt by the Council to use inspection as a path to attain, within a reasonable time, verifiable disarmament of Iraq. Under the resolutions I have cited, it would be followed by monitoring for such time as the Council feels would be required. The resolutions also point to a zone free of weapons of mass destruction as the ultimate goal.



As a subsidiary body of the Council, UNMOVIC is fully aware of and appreciates the close attention, which the Council devotes to the inspections in Iraq. While todayâ??s â??updatingâ?� is foreseen in resolution 1441 (2002), the Council can and does call for additional briefings whenever it wishes. One was held on 19 January and a further such briefing is tentatively set for 14 February.





I turn now to the key requirement of cooperation and Iraqâ??s response to it. Cooperation might be said to relate to both substance and process. It would appear from our experience so far that Iraq has decided in principle to provide cooperation on process, notably access. A similar decision is indispensable to provide cooperation on substance in order to bring the disarmament task to completion through the peaceful process of inspection and to bring the monitoring task on a firm course. An initial minor step would be to adopt the long-overdue legislation required by the resolutions.



I shall deal first with cooperation on process.





Cooperation on process


It has regard to the procedures, mechanisms, infrastructure and practical arrangements to pursue inspections and seek verifiable disarmament. While inspection is not built on the premise of confidence but may lead to confidence if it is successful, there must nevertheless be a measure of mutual confidence from the very beginning in running the operation of inspection.



Iraq has on the whole cooperated rather well so far with UNMOVIC in this field. The most important point to make is that access has been provided to all sites we have wanted to inspect and with one exception it has been prompt. We have further had great help in building up the infrastructure of our office in Baghdad and the field office in Mosul. Arrangements and services for our plane and our helicopters have been good. The environment has been workable.



Our inspections have included universities, military bases, presidential sites and private residences. Inspections have also taken place on Fridays, the Muslim day of rest, on Christmas day and New Years day. These inspections have been conducted in the same manner as all other inspections. We seek to be both effective and correct.



In this updating I am bound, however, to register some problems. Firstly, relating to two kinds of air operations.



While we now have the technical capability to send a U-2 plane placed at our disposal for aerial imagery and for surveillance during inspections and have informed Iraq that we planned to do so, Iraq has refused to guarantee its safety, unless a number of conditions are fulfilled. As these conditions went beyond what is stipulated in resolution 1441 (2002) and what was practiced by UNSCOM and Iraq in the past, we note that Iraq is not so far complying with our request. I hope this attitude will change.



Another air operation problem â?? which was solved during our recent talks in Baghdad â?? concerned the use of helicopters flying into the no-fly zones. Iraq had insisted on sending helicopters of their own to accompany ours. This would have raised a safety problem. The matter was solved by an offer on our part to take the accompanying Iraq minders in our helicopters to the sites, an arrangement that had been practiced by UNSCOM in the past.



I am obliged to note some recent disturbing incidents and harassment. For instance, for some time farfetched allegations have been made publicly that questions posed by inspectors were of intelligence character. While I might not defend every question that inspectors might have asked, Iraq knows that they do not serve intelligence purposes and Iraq should not say so.



On a number of occasions, demonstrations have taken place in front of our offices and at inspection sites.



The other day, a sightseeing excursion by five inspectors to a mosque was followed by an unwarranted public outburst. The inspectors went without any UN insignia and were welcomed in the kind manner that is characteristic of the normal Iraqi attitude to foreigners. They took off their shoes and were taken around. They asked perfectly innocent questions and parted with the invitation to come again.



Shortly thereafter, we receive protests from the Iraqi authorities about an unannounced inspection and about questions not relevant to weapons of mass destruction. Indeed, they were not. Demonstrations and outbursts of this kind are unlikely to occur in Iraq without initiative or encouragement from the authorities. We must ask ourselves what the motives may be for these events. They do not facilitate an already difficult job, in which we try to be effective, professional and, at the same time, correct. Where our Iraqi counterparts have some complaint they can take it up in a calmer and less unpleasant manner.





Cooperation on substance


The substantive cooperation required relates above all to the obligation of Iraq to declare all programmes of weapons of mass destruction and either to present items and activities for elimination or else to provide evidence supporting the conclusion that nothing proscribed remains.



Paragraph 9 of resolution 1441 (2002) states that this cooperation shall be â??activeâ?�. It is not enough to open doors. Inspection is not a game of â??catch as catch canâ?�. Rather, as I noted, it is a process of verification for the purpose of creating confidence. It is not built upon the premise of trust. Rather, it is designed to lead to trust, if there is both openness to the inspectors and action to present them with items to destroy or credible evidence about the absence of any such items.





The declaration of 7 December



On 7 December 2002, Iraq submitted a declaration of some 12,000 pages in response to paragraph 3 of resolution 1441 (2002) and within the time stipulated by the Security Council. In the fields of missiles and biotechnology, the declaration contains a good deal of new material and information covering the period from 1998 and onward. This is welcome.



One might have expected that in preparing the Declaration, Iraq would have tried to respond to, clarify and submit supporting evidence regarding the many open disarmament issues, which the Iraqi side should be familiar with from the UNSCOM document S/1999/94 of January1999 and the so-called Amorim Report of March 1999 (S/1999/356). These are questions which UNMOVIC, governments and independent commentators have often cited.



While UNMOVIC has been preparing its own list of current â??unresolved disarmament issuesâ?� and â??key remaining disarmament tasksâ?� in response to requirements in resolution 1284 (1999), we find the issues listed in the two reports as unresolved, professionally justified. These reports do not contend that weapons of mass destruction remain in Iraq, but nor do they exclude that possibility. They point to lack of evidence and inconsistencies, which raise question marks, which must be straightened out, if weapons dossiers are to be closed and confidence is to arise.



They deserve to be taken seriously by Iraq rather than being brushed aside as evil machinations of UNSCOM. Regrettably, the 12,000 page declaration, most of which is a reprint of earlier documents, does not seem to contain any new evidence that would eliminate the questions or reduce their number. Even Iraqâ??s letter sent in response to our recent discussions in Baghdad to the President of the Security Council on 24 January does not lead us to the resolution of these issues.



I shall only give some examples of issues and questions that need to be answered and I turn first to the sector of chemical weapons.





Chemical weapons


The nerve agent VX is one of the most toxic ever developed.



Iraq has declared that it only produced VX on a pilot scale, just a few tonnes and that the quality was poor and the product unstable. Consequently, it was said, that the agent was never weaponised. Iraq said that the small quantity of agent remaining after the Gulf War was unilaterally destroyed in the summer of 1991.



UNMOVIC, however, has information that conflicts with this account. There are indications that Iraq had worked on the problem of purity and stabilization and that more had been achieved than has been declared. Indeed, even one of the documents provided by Iraq indicates that the purity of the agent, at least in laboratory production, was higher than declared.



There are also indications that the agent was weaponised. In addition, there are questions to be answered concerning the fate of the VX precursor chemicals, which Iraq states were lost during bombing in the Gulf War or were unilaterally destroyed by Iraq.



I would now like to turn to the so-called â??Air Force documentâ?� that I have discussed with the Council before. This document was originally found by an UNSCOM inspector in a safe in Iraqi Air Force Headquarters in 1998 and taken from her by Iraqi minders. It gives an account of the expenditure of bombs, including chemical bombs, by Iraq in the Iraq-Iran War. I am encouraged by the fact that Iraq has now provided this document to UNMOVIC.



The document indicates that 13,000 chemical bombs were dropped by the Iraqi Air Force between 1983 and 1988, while Iraq has declared that 19,500 bombs were consumed during this period. Thus, there is a discrepancy of 6,500 bombs. The amount of chemical agent in these bombs would be in the order of about 1,000 tonnes. In the absence of evidence to the contrary, we must assume that these quantities are now unaccounted for.



The discovery of a number of 122 mm chemical rocket warheads in a bunker at a storage depot 170 km southwest of Baghdad was much publicized. This was a relatively new bunker and therefore the rockets must have been moved there in the past few years, at a time when Iraq should not have had such munitions.



The investigation of these rockets is still proceeding. Iraq states that they were overlooked from 1991 from a batch of some 2,000 that were stored there during the Gulf War. This could be the case. They could also be the tip of a submerged iceberg. The discovery of a few rockets does not resolve but rather points to the issue of several thousands of chemical rockets that are unaccounted for.



The finding of the rockets shows that Iraq needs to make more effort to ensure that its declaration is currently accurate. During my recent discussions in Baghdad, Iraq declared that it would make new efforts in this regard and had set up a committee of investigation. Since then it has reported that it has found a further 4 chemical rockets at a storage depot in Al Taji.



I might further mention that inspectors have found at another site a laboratory quantity of thiodiglycol, a mustard gas precursor.



Whilst I am addressing chemical issues, I should mention a matter, which I reported on 19 December 2002, concerning equipment at a civilian chemical plant at Al Fallujah. Iraq has declared that it had repaired chemical processing equipment previously destroyed under UNSCOM supervision, and had installed it at Fallujah for the production of chlorine and phenols. We have inspected this equipment and are conducting a detailed technical evaluation of it. On completion, we will decide whether this and other equipment that has been recovered by Iraq should be destroyed.





Biological weapons


I have mentioned the issue of anthrax to the Council on previous occasions and I come back to it as it is an important one.



Iraq has declared that it produced about 8,500 litres of this biological warfare agent, which it states it unilaterally destroyed in the summer of 1991. Iraq has provided little evidence for this production and no convincing evidence for its destruction.



There are strong indications that Iraq produced more anthrax than it declared, and that at least some of this was retained after the declared destruction date. It might still exist. Either it should be found and be destroyed under UNMOVIC supervision or else convincing evidence should be produced to show that it was, indeed, destroyed in 1991.



As I reported to the Council on 19 December last year, Iraq did not declare a significant quantity, some 650 kg, of bacterial growth media, which was acknowledged as imported in Iraqâ??s submission to the Amorim panel in February 1999. As part of its 7 December 2002 declaration, Iraq resubmitted the Amorim panel document, but the table showing this particular import of media was not included. The absence of this table would appear to be deliberate as the pages of the resubmitted document were renumbered.



In the letter of 24 January to the President of the Council, Iraqâ??s Foreign Minister stated that â??all imported quantities of growth media were declaredâ?�. This is not evidence. I note that the quantity of media involved would suffice to produce, for example, about 5,000 litres of concentrated anthrax.





Missiles


I turn now to the missile sector. There remain significant questions as to whether Iraq retained SCUD-type missiles after the Gulf War. Iraq declared the consumption of a number of SCUD missiles as targets in the development of an anti-ballistic missile defence system during the 1980s. Yet no technical information has been produced about that programme or data on the consumption of the missiles.



There has been a range of developments in the missile field during the past four years presented by Iraq as non-proscribed activities. We are trying to gather a clear understanding of them through inspections and on-site discussions.



Two projects in particular stand out. They are the development of a liquid-fuelled missile named the Al Samoud 2, and a solid propellant missile, called the Al Fatah. Both missiles have been tested to a range in excess of the permitted range of 150 km, with the Al Samoud 2 being tested to a maximum of 183 km and the Al Fatah to 161 km. Some of both types of missiles have already been provided to the Iraqi Armed Forces even though it is stated that they are still undergoing development.



The Al Samoudâ??s diameter was increased from an earlier version to the present 760 mm. This modification was made despite a 1994 letter from the Executive Chairman of UNSCOM directing Iraq to limit its missile diameters to less than 600 mm. Furthermore, a November 1997 letter from the Executive Chairman of UNSCOM to Iraq prohibited the use of engines from certain surface-to-air missiles for the use in ballistic missiles.



During my recent meeting in Baghdad, we were briefed on these two programmes. We were told that the final range for both systems would be less than the permitted maximum range of 150 km.



These missiles might well represent prima facie cases of proscribed systems. The test ranges in excess of 150 km are significant, but some further technical considerations need to be made, before we reach a conclusion on this issue. In the mean time, we have asked Iraq to cease flight tests of both missiles.



In addition, Iraq has refurbished its missile production infrastructure. In particular, Iraq reconstituted a number of casting chambers, which had previously been destroyed under UNSCOM supervision. They had been used in the production of solid-fuel missiles. Whatever missile system these chambers are intended for, they could produce motors for missiles capable of ranges significantly greater than 150 km.



Also associated with these missiles and related developments is the import, which has been taking place during the last few years, of a number of items despite the sanctions, including as late as December 2002. Foremost amongst these is the import of 380 rocket engines which may be used for the Al Samoud 2.



Iraq also declared the recent import of chemicals used in propellants, test instrumentation and, guidance and control systems. These items may well be for proscribed purposes. That is yet to be determined. What is clear is that they were illegally brought into Iraq, that is, Iraq or some company in Iraq, circumvented the restrictions imposed by various resolutions.





Mr. President,



I have touched upon some of the disarmament issues that remain open and that need to be answered if dossiers are to be closed and confidence is to arise. Which are the means at the disposal of Iraq to answer these questions? I have pointed to some during my presentation of the issues. Let me be a little more systematic. Our Iraqi counterparts are fond of saying that there are no proscribed items and if no evidence is presented to the contrary they should have the benefit of the doubt, be presumed innocent. UNMOVIC, for its part, is not presuming that there are proscribed items and activities in Iraq, but nor is it â?? or I think anyone else after the inspections between 1991 and 1998 â?? presuming the opposite, that no such items and activities exist in Iraq. Presumptions do not solve the problem. Evidence and full transparency may help. Let me be specific.





Find the items and activities


Information provided by Member States tells us about the movement and concealment of missiles and chemical weapons and mobile units for biological weapons production. We shall certainly follow up any credible leads given to us and report what we might find as well as any denial of access.



So far we have reported on the recent find of a small number of empty 122 mm warheads for chemical weapons. Iraq declared that it appointed a commission of inquiry to look for more. Fine. Why not extend the search to other items? Declare what may be found and destroy it under our supervision?





Find documents


When we have urged our Iraqi counterparts to present more evidence, we have all too often met the response that there are no more documents. All existing relevant documents have been presented, we are told. All documents relating to the biological weapons programme were destroyed together with the weapons.



However, Iraq has all the archives of the Government and its various departments, institutions and mechanisms. It should have budgetary documents, requests for funds and reports on how they have been used. It should also have letters of credit and bills of lading, reports on production and losses of material.



In response to a recent UNMOVIC request for a number of specific documents, the only new documents Iraq provided was a ledger of 193 pages which Iraq stated included all imports from 1983 to 1990 by the Technical and Scientific Importation Division, the importing authority for the biological weapons programme. Potentially, it might help to clear some open issues.



The recent inspection find in the private home of a scientist of a box of some 3,000 pages of documents, much of it relating to the laser enrichment of uranium support a concern that has long existed that documents might be distributed to the homes of private individuals. This interpretation is refuted by the Iraqi side, which claims that research staff sometimes may bring home papers from their work places. On our side, we cannot help but think that the case might not be isolated and that such placements of documents is deliberate to make discovery difficult and to seek to shield documents by placing them in private homes.



Any further sign of the concealment of documents would be serious. The Iraqi side committed itself at our recent talks to encourage persons to accept access also to private sites. There can be no sanctuaries for proscribed items, activities or documents. A denial of prompt access to any site would be a very serious matter.





Find persons to give credible information: a list of personnel


When Iraq claims that tangible evidence in the form of documents is not available, it ought at least to find individuals, engineers, scientists and managers to testify about their experience. Large weapons programmes are moved and managed by people. Interviews with individuals who may have worked in

programmes in the past may fill blank spots in our knowledge and understanding. It could also be useful to learn that they are now employed in peaceful sectors. These were the reasons why UNMOVIC asked for a list of such persons, in accordance with resolution 1441.



Some 400 names for all biological and chemical weapons programmes as well as their missile programmes were provided by the Iraqi side. This can be compared to over 3,500 names of people associated with those past weapons programmes that UNSCOM either interviewed in the 1990s or knew from documents and other sources. At my recent meeting in Baghdad, the Iraqi side committed itself to supplementing the list and some 80 additional names have been provided.


Allow information through credible interviews


In the past, much valuable information came from interviews. There were also cases in which the interviewee was clearly intimidated by the presence of and interruption by Iraqi officials. This was the background of resolution 1441â??s provision for a right for UNMOVIC and the IAEA to hold private interviews â??in the mode or locationâ?� of our choice, in Baghdad or even abroad.



To date, 11 individuals were asked for interviews in Baghdad by us. The replies have invariably been that the individual will only speak at Iraqâ??s monitoring directorate or, at any rate, in the presence of an Iraqi official. This could be due to a wish on the part of the invited to have evidence that they have not said anything that the authorities did not wish them to say. At our recent talks in Baghdad, the Iraqi side committed itself to encourage persons to accept interviews â??in privateâ?�, that is to say alone with us. Despite this, the pattern has not changed. However, we hope that with further encouragement from the authorities, knowledgeable individuals will accept private interviews, in Baghdad or abroad.





UNMOVICâ??s capability



Mr President, I must not conclude this â??updateâ?� without some notes on the growing capability of UNMOVIC.



In the past two months, UNMOVIC has built-up its capabilities in Iraq from nothing to 260 staff members from 60 countries. This includes approximately 100 UNMOVIC inspectors, 60 air operations staff, as well as security personnel, communications, translation and interpretation staff, medical support, and other services at our Baghdad office and Mosul field office. All serve the United Nations and report to no one else. Furthermore, our roster of inspectors will continue to grow as our training programme continues â?? even at this moment we have a training course in session in Vienna. At the end of that course, we shall have a roster of about 350 qualified experts from which to draw inspectors.



A team supplied by the Swiss Government is refurbishing our offices in Baghdad, which had been empty for four years. The Government of New Zealand has contributed both a medical team and a communications team. The German Government will contribute unmanned aerial vehicles for surveillance and a group of specialists to operate them for us within Iraq. The Government of Cyprus has kindly allowed us to set up a Field Office in Larnaca. All these contributions have been of assistance in quickly starting up our inspections and enhancing our capabilities. So has help from the UN in New York and from sister organizations in Baghdad.



In the past two months during which we have built-up our presence in Iraq, we have conducted about 300 inspections to more than 230 different sites. Of these, more than 20 were sites that had not been inspected before. By the end of December, UNMOVIC began using helicopters both for the transport of inspectors and for actual inspection work. We now have eight helicopters. They have already proved invaluable in helping to â??freezeâ?� large sites by observing the movement of traffic in and around the area.



Setting up a field office in Mosul has facilitated rapid inspections of sites in northern Iraq. We plan to establish soon a second field office in the Basra area, where we have already inspected a number of sites.





Mr. President,



We have now an inspection apparatus that permits us to send multiple inspection teams every day all over Iraq, by road or by air. Let me end by simply noting that that capability which has been built-up in a short time and which is now operating, is at the disposal of the Security Council.

Update 27 January 2003

Here is the rest of the transcript for your free viewing:

CNN.com - Transcript of Powell's U.N. presentation - Feb. 6, 2003

Although I must quote this part of the presentation, Nuclear Weapons:

Part 7: Nuclear weapons

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 illicit program cost the Iraqis several billion dollars.

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.

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 illicit 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.

Contradicts this statement made by Mohamed ElBaradei to the UN security council a few days earlier:

THE STATUS OF NUCLEAR INSPECTIONS IN IRAQ
For the past 60 days, the inspectors of the International Atomic Energy Agency have been engaged in the process of verifying the existence or absence of a nuclear weapons programme in Iraq. Today, pursuant to paragraph 5 of resolution 1441, I have submitted to the President of the Security Council an update report on our progress since we resumed our nuclear verification activities in Iraq â?? in terms of the approach we have adopted, the tools we have used, the specific results achieved, the degree of co-operation we have received, and finally our view on how we should proceed. Let me in this statement outline the key aspects of this report.

BACKGROUND: UNDERSTANDING THE STARTING POINT
To understand the approach of the IAEAâ??s inspection over the past two months, it is important first to recall what was accomplished during our inspections from 1991 to 1998, in fulfilment of our Security Council mandate to eliminate Iraqâ??s nuclear weapons programme. In September 1991, the IAEA seized documents in Iraq that demonstrated the extent of its nuclear weapons programme. By the end of 1992, we had largely destroyed, removed or rendered harmless all Iraqi facilities and equipment relevant to nuclear weapons production. We confiscated Iraqâ??s nuclear-weapons-usable material â?? high enriched uranium and plutonium â?? and by early 1994 we had removed it from the country. By December 1998 â?? when the inspections were brought to a halt with a military strike imminent â?? we were confident that we had not missed any significant component of Iraqâ??s nuclear programme.

While we did not claim absolute certainty, our conclusion at that time was that we had neutralized Iraqâ??s nuclear weapons programme and that there were no indications that Iraq retained any physical capability to produce weapon usable nuclear material.

During the intervening four years of our absence from Iraq, we continued our analytical work to the best of our ability, using satellite imagery and other information. But no remote analysis can replace on-site inspection â?? and we were therefore not able to reach any conclusions about Iraqâ??s compliance with its Security Council obligations in the nuclear field after December 1998.

Conclusion.

CONCLUSION
To conclude: we have to date found no evidence that Iraq has revived its nuclear weapons programme since the elimination of the programme in the 1990s. However, our work is steadily progressing and should be allowed to run its natural course. With our verification system now in place, barring exceptional circumstances, and provided there is sustained proactive cooperation by Iraq, we should be able within the next few months to provide credible assurance that Iraq has no nuclear weapons programme. These few months would be a valuable investment in peace because they could help us avoid a war. We trust that we will continue to have your support as we make every effort to verify Iraqâ??s nuclear disarmament through peaceful means, and to demonstrate that the inspection process can and does work, as a central feature of the international nuclear arms control regime.

Mohamed ElBaradei statement to the Security Council 27 January 2003