Online NewsHour: Ambassador Hamdoon -- June 24, 1998

IRAQ'S RESPONSE

June 24, 1998

The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer Transcript

U.N. weapons inspectors found evidence that Iraq armed some of its missile warheads with the deadly nerve agent VX. Following a discussion with the chief U.N. weapons inspector, Ambassador Richard Butler, Iraqi U.N. Ambassador Nizar Hamdoon responds to the United Nation's Special Commission's findings.

A RealAudio version of this segment is available.
A RealAudio interview with Amb. Butler.
NEWSHOUR LINKS:
June 24, 1998
A Newsmaker interview with Ambassador Butler.

April 28, 1998
A Newsmaker interview with Ambassador Butler.

June 28, 1998
Iraqi exiles search for an alternative to Saddam Hussein.

April 27, 1998
Iraqi exiles search for an alternative to Saddam Hussein.

March 13, 1998
A panel of experts debate whether it is time to lift sanctions on Iraq.

Online Forum
Noam Chomsky and James Woolsey debate U.S. foreign policy.

March 4, 1998
An interview with U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan.

March 2, 1998
An interview with Iraq's Ambassador to the U.N. Nizar Hamdoon.

February 27, 1998
Congressional views of the U.N. deal with Iraq.

February 24, 1998
James Baker and William Perry discuss the deal's impact on U.S. foreign policy.

February 20, 1998
A panel of experts examine the crisis from the Iraqi perspective.

Browse the NewsHour's coverage of the Middle East and the United Nations.
OUTSIDE LINKS
United Nations

MARGARET WARNER: Joining us now is Iraq's ambassador to the United Nations, Nizar Hamdoon. Welcome, Ambassador. Did Iraq load VX nerve gas into missile warheads before the Gulf War?
AMBASSADOR HAMDOON, U.N. Ambassador, Iraq: No, not at all. We have not been successful in manufacturing that type of weapon. There have been efforts at time before 1990, but they were successful.
MARGARET WARNER: So how do you explain the findings that UNSCOM says it has made?
The "so-called" findings.

AMBASSADOR HAMDOON: We don't trust the findings of a lab that has been cooperating with the Iraqi opposition that's based in Washington that has left to the release of the-of the so-called findings to the press in the United States.
MARGARET WARNER: You're talking about the fact that this leaked, this report leaked.
AMBASSADOR HAMDOON: The Washington report clearly states that there has been some kind of a connection between the Iraqi opposition based in Washington between officials in that laboratory.
MARGARET WARNER: Now, Ambassador Butler, you heard him and he also said that elsewhere today that they are going to send these same missile remnants on to other labs in Switzerland and France. Would you accept those findings?
AMBASSADOR HAMDOON: Yes, of course. We have asked earlier that the other four permanent members will have to be involved in the testing, as we have had before the long range missiles engines, which the results came to the satisfaction of all parties.
MARGARET WARNER: But you're saying, in your view, it's absolutely impossible that what was detected in these remnants is VX?
AMBASSADOR HAMDOON: Yes.
MARGARET WARNER: All right. Tell us a little bit more about the nature of Iraq's VX program. You said he'd been working on it and so on. How much VX did Iraq succeed in producing?
AMBASSADOR HAMDOON: I think what Mr. Butler said about a few hundreds of kilograms is what our technicians have stated. I have no specific figure in my mind but there were-produced in a very unstable form that cannot be weaponized.
MARGARET WARNER: And so Iraq never made that next step, being able to weaponize and make it stable enough that it could be moved or stored?
AMBASSADOR HAMDOON: The VX weapon has never been weaponized.
MARGARET WARNER: And what happened to the VX that Iraq possessed at the end of the war?
Iraq's VX supply.

AMBASSADOR HAMDOON: I think the bulk of it was destroyed unilaterally when Iraq decided to give up all its material that has to be-would be prohibited items under the council's resolution.
MARGARET WARNER: And when you say the bulk of it, what happened to the rest of it?
AMBASSADOR HAMDOON: Whatever that was delivered to the UNSCOM.
MARGARET WARNER: I see. And has Iraq been able-I may use the wrong word here, but has Iraq been able to prove to the satisfaction of the inspectors that it did destroy all of the-all of the store, however big it was?
AMBASSADOR HAMDOON: We've been trying hard with UNSCOM based on the material balance of the incomes and the outcomes of the process, and we also have shown them some authentic documents back in 1991, early in 1991, showing all the Iraqi weapons of mass destruction, and that did not include the VX. And that document was considered authentic by the UNSCOM.
MARGARET WARNER: Now, you heard Amb. Butler say that Iraq has-I think a phrased he used was never told the truth about the VX program and that your country continually revised its declarations as additional evidence came out. What is your response to that?
AMBASSADOR HAMDOON: Well, we revised our declaration not only on this weapon but also on the other stuff many times because the UNSCOM has always come back to us requesting some new form, some additional stuff here and there. So it wasn't that Iraq was trying to recover from something that was not stating the fact. This is really the real story. I mean, obviously Mr. Butler, for whatever things in his mind, he doesn't like to trust or to believe the Iraqis. At the same time probably Iraq also does not trust the work of some of the inspectors and some of the laboratory tests that have been done.
MARGARET WARNER: Let me go back for a minute to this lab. This is the lab at the Aberdeen base here. It's been, I gather, certified under the chemical weapons treaty that's qualified to do this kind of testing. What are you-what do you believe exactly happened there? Why did the lab falsify results?
The problem with the lab's findings.

AMBASSADOR HAMDOON: Well, we are dealing with a lab that's based in a country that has brought Iraq to the front as the enemy number one of it, including the whole sanctions regime, including lots of other operations which have been reported publicly to destabilize the government and to overthrow the government. So this is why we think that such activity is under the auspices of the United States Government will have to be politically motivated in order to damage the case of Iraq.
MARGARET WARNER: Now, you heard Amb. Butler say, when I asked him what he wanted from Iraq now, he said he wants more details and verifiable details on the nature and extent of the VX program. Do you foresee a problem confined with that? What is your position on that?
AMBASSADOR HAMDOON: We have promised that whatever we had, whatever we could get, because we told him that everything that was in our capacity we provided to them. But if there anything else that we could do in the next few weeks under the program of action that has been agreed upon in Baghdad, we simply would be doing that. And he has just admitted that Baghdad is continuing its cooperation in a satisfactory way.
MARGARET WARNER: But he did also say that he thought that this finding, which he seems to believe in himself, that this was VX, sets back the timetable and the potential for resolving this whole inspections regime and getting to the point that UNSCOM could certify to the Security Council that Iraq had complied and sanctions could be lifted.
AMBASSADOR HAMDOON: Well, he wasn't clear-cut on that, what he considers setback, but I think we'd better wait for the test to be done in France and Switzerland, and probably it will participation from the Russian scientists. The more you get involved, the more credibility to the tests that will be conducted. We'd better wait for that.
MARGARET WARNER: And now your government issued this statement from Baghdad, saying it would reconsider its relationship with the inspectors if sanctions weren't lifted immediately. Can you explain that? What do you mean by that?
AMBASSADOR HAMDOON: Well, Iraq was trying hard, I mean, to clear all the files by this year, by the end of this year. And if it doesn't look at any point that the sanctions will be lifted, Iraq will be reconsidering its policy.
MARGARET WARNER: How soon?
AMBASSADOR HAMDOON: I have no idea. That remains to be discussed in Baghdad.
MARGARET WARNER: But are you saying this is something that could happen in the very short term, in a matter of weeks, or are you saying if by October, when the next review takes place?
AMBASSADOR HAMDOON: I cannot get into any time frame but I'm saying that if it looks that the sanctions are not going to be lifted this year, then Iraq may well consider a different policy.
MARGARET WARNER: So are you saying that you see the potential for another showdown between the U.N. and Iraq?
AMBASSADOR HAMDOON: Well, I do see that, in case things go wrong way.
MARGARET WARNER: All right. Now, Mr. Ambassador, just so I'm absolutely clear here, are you saying that Iraq now possesses absolutely no VX?
Amb. Hamdoon: "We possess absolutely no VX, nor any other prohibited weapon."

AMBASSADOR HAMDOON: We possess absolutely no VX, nor any other prohibited weapon.
MARGARET WARNER: All right. Well, thank you, Mr. Ambassador, for being with us.
AMBASSADOR HAMDOON: Thank you.

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