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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 teaspoonful of dry anthrax in an envelope shut down 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 teaspoonful of this deadly
material.
And that is my third point, and it is key. The Iraqis have neveraccounted
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 eyewitness
accounts.
We have first-hand 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 eyewitness,
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 eyewitness 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 ee 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 descriptions 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 a warehouse
or somewhere in Iraq's extensive system of underground tunnels and bunkers.
We know that Iraq has at least 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 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 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 gangrine, plague, typhus, tetnis, cholera, camel pox, and hemorrhagic
fever. And he also has the wherewithal to develop smallpox.
The Iraqi regime has also developed ways to disperse lethal biological
agents widely, indiscriminately, 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, Mujaheed Salai Abdul Latif (sp),
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.
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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 a thousand
tons.
These quantities of chemical weapons are now unaccounted for. Dr. Blix
has quipped that, quote, "Mustard gas is not marmalade; 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 (sp) Kamel, 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 27th, 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 ingenious 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-Musayyib, 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 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
microorganisms 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 thionyl 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 did 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 2nd 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 -- 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.
(Audiotape is played.)
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, 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." But 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 a 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 victims' mouths, and autopsies performed to confirm
the effects of the prisoners -- on the prisoners. Saddam Hussein's inhumanity
has no limits.
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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 worst-
case assessments that have 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 the 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 outer and inner 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 Iraq's top nuclear scientists, a group
that the government-controlled press calls openly, his "nuclear
mujaheddin." He regularly exhorts them and praises their progress.
Progress towards what end? Long ago, the Security Council, this council,
required Iraq to halt all nuclear activities of any kind.
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-Samoud 2 and the Al- Fatah, violate
the 150-kilometer limit established by this council in Resolution 687.
These are prohibited systems. UNMOVIC has also reported that Iraq has
illegally imported 380 SA-2 rocket engines.
These are likely for use in the Al-Samoud 2.
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.
Part III: Secretary Powell urges the
United Nations to enforce Resolution 1441.
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