UN Inspectors Quotes

We believe, from everything we have been told by the intelligence community, by 12 years of history with Iraq, by the experience of the U.N. inspectors and by other intelligence agencies in other countries that Saddam Hussein had the intention to develop weapons of mass destruction and to have such weapons, and that was a sound judgment which I still believe to this day because he had had them in the past, he'd used them in the past.

Iraq has WMDs. It is not something we think, it is something we know. Iraq has itself admitted that it has had mustard gas, nerve gas, anthrax, but Saddam won't disclose. He won't tell us where and how these weapons have been destroyed. We know this from the UN inspectors, so there is no doubt in my mind.

What the UN inspectors can do is demonstrate to the world, help the Iraqi government demonstrate to the world that the Iraqis are cooperatively disarming if that is in fact what the Iraqi government decides to do.

Military intervention for disarmament is the worst possible way to do it. There are times when perhaps that is the only alternative we have… in the case of the first Gulf war -- Desert Storm -- that it was the UN inspectors -- in the years after the war -- that destroyed far more weapons and far more effectively dismantled the programs for weapons of mass destruction, than that vast armada of military forces that was utilized in Desert Storm. And of course, when the UN inspectors did it -- when under UN supervision, the Iraqis destroyed these weapons themselves -- or the UN destroyed them with Iraqi cooperation -- you do not have the same kind of side effects and toxic release and other things that happened in some cases during the war. Trying to get rid of programs of concern and weapons of concern by violence is a very bad and dangerous way to do it.

In fact, five years ago, after Saddam ejected the UN inspectors, John McCain and I gave up on containment and introduced the Iraqi Liberation Act, which, when it became law, made a change of regime in Baghdad official US policy. You might therefore say that, when it comes to Iraq, President Bush is just enforcing the McCain-Lieberman policy.

The last UN weapons inspectors left Iraq in October of 1998. We are confident that Saddam Hussein retains some stockpiles of chemical and biological weapons, and that he has since embarked on a crash course to build up his chemical and biological warfare capabilities. Intelligence reports indicate that he is seeking nuclear weapons.

There are literally thousands of sites. As I was told in Iraq, information is coming in the entire time, but it is only now that the Iraq survey group has been put together that a dedicated team of people, which includes former UN inspectors, scientists and experts, will be able to go in and do the job properly.

No military timetable should compel war when a successful outcome, namely a disarmed Iraq may be feasible without war, for example by allowing more time to the UN inspectors.

It appears to be a re-run of a bad movie. [Iraqi President Saddam Hussein] is delaying. He's deceiving. He's asking for time. He's playing hide-and-seek with inspectors. One thing is for certain - he's not disarming.