YouSaid · the spoken record

Powell

lines on the record: 153
first: 2001-11-12
most recent: 2003-03-07
sittings or episodes: 6
sources: un-security-council

Every line below is reproduced as it was said and linked to the record it came from. Nothing here is summarised or generated. Directory · Search · Corrections

“We believe that the draft resolution that has been put forward for action by the Council is appropriate and that in the very near future we should bring it before the Council for a vote. The clock continues to tick, and the consequences of Saddam Hussain's continued refusal to disarm will be very, very real.”
2003-03-07 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.4714 (2003) · source
“Nobody wants war, but it is clear that the limited progress we have seen, the process changes we have seen, and the slight substantive changes we have seen come from the presence of a large military force - nations that are willing to put their young men and women in harm's way in order to rid the world of these dangerous weapons. It does not come simply from resolutions, it does not come simply from inspectors: it comes from the will of the Council - the unified political will of the Council - and from the willingness to use force, if it comes to that, to make sure that we achieve the disarmament of Iraq. Now is the time for the Council to tell Saddam that the clock has not been stopped by his stratagems and machinations.”
2003-03-07 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.4714 (2003) · source
“We must not walk away; we must not find ourselves here this coming November with the pressure removed and with Iraq once again marching down the merry path to weapons of mass destruction, threatening the region, threatening the world. If we fail to meet our responsibilities, the credibility of the Council and its ability to deal with all the critical challenges we face will suffer. As we sit here, let us not forget the horrors still going on in Iraq. Let us spare a moment to remember the suffering Iraqi people, whose treasure is spent on these kinds of programmes and not for their own benefit - people who are being beaten, brutalized and robbed by Saddam and his regime. Colleagues, now is the time for the Council to send a clear message to Saddam that we have not been taken in by his transparent tactics.”
2003-03-07 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.4714 (2003) · source
“We know that, when confronted with facts, the Iraqis are still changing their story to explain those facts, but not enough to give us the truth. So, has the strategic decision been made to disarm Iraq of its weapons of mass destruction by the leadership in Baghdad? My judgement - I think, our judgement - has to be, clearly not. And this is now the reality that we, the Council, must deal with. Security Council membership carries heavy responsibility: a responsibility to the community of nations to take hard decisions on tough issues such as the one we are facing today. Last November, the Council stepped up to its responsibilities.”
2003-03-07 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.4714 (2003) · source
“We know what happened to that hope: there was no progress on disarmament, and nine months later the inspectors found it necessary to withdraw. I regret that not much has changed. Iraq's current behaviour - like the behaviour chronicled in Mr. Blix's document - reveals a strategic decision to continue to delay, to deceive, to try to throw us off the trail, to make it more difficult, to hope that the will of the international community will be fractured, that we will go off in different directions, that we will get bored with the task, that we will remove the pressure, that we will remove the force. And we know what has happened when that has been done in the past. We know that the Iraqis still are not volunteering information and that, when they do, what they are giving is often partial and misleading.”
2003-03-07 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.4714 (2003) · source
“Blix's document would not be 167 pages of issues and questions; it would be thousands upon thousands of pages of answers about anthrax, about VX, about sarin, about unmanned aerial vehicles; it would set out in detail all of Iraq's prohibited programmes. Then, and only then, could the inspectors really do the credible job they need to do of verification, destruction and monitoring. We have been down this road before. In March 1998, Saddam Hussain was also faced with the threat of military action. He responded with promises - promises to provide inspectors at that time with immediate, unconditional and unrestricted access. The then chief inspector reported to the Council a new spirit of cooperation, along with his hope that the inspectors could move very quickly to verify Iraq's disarmament.”
2003-03-07 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.4714 (2003) · source
“These are not new questions being presented for our consideration; these are old questions that have not been resolved and that could have been resolved in December with the declaration, or that could have been fully resolved over the past four months if Iraq had come forward and done what resolution 1441 (2002) wanted it to do. In his report this morning, Mr. Blix remarked on the paucity of information on Iraq's programmes since 1998. We have all been working hard to fill that gap, but Iraq is the one that could fill that gap if it were truly complying with resolution 1441 (2002). It would be inundating the inspectors with new information, not holding it back and providing it begrudgingly. The draft document that we reviewed today in preparation for this meeting was 167 pages long. If Iraq were genuinely committed to disarmament, Mr.”
2003-03-07 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.4714 (2003) · source
“We are not talking about "immediately"; we are talking about why it has not been done over the past 12 years, and about how can we now rely on assurances in the presence of this solid record of lying and deceit over the years. These questions could easily have been cleared up in Iraq's 7 December declaration; there should not be these kinds of outstanding issues to work on. But there are, and we will all examine them carefully. The point is that this document conclusively shows that Iraq had and still has the capability to manufacture these kinds of weapons; that Iraq had and still has the capability to manufacture not only chemical but also biological weapons; and that Iraq had and still has literally tens of thousands of delivery systems, including increasingly capable and dangerous unmanned aerial vehicles.”
2003-03-07 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.4714 (2003) · source
“In this document, UNMOVIC refers to actions that Iraq could take to help to resolve this question: present any remaining R-400 bombs and all relevant moulds, provide more supporting documentation on production and inventory relating to the R-400 and R- 400A bombs it manufactured, provide further documentation explaining the coding system that it used with the R-400-type bombs, including the coding assigned to specific chemical and biological weapons agents, and provide credible evidence that the R-400 bomb production line stopped after September 1990. This is just one example of the kind of documentation that the Council will be seeing. What leaps out is that these actions that Iraq is being asked to take, they could have taken many times over the preceding 12 years.”
2003-03-07 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.4714 (2003) · source
“This number was subsequently changed to a total of 1,550 such bombs. Given the lack of specific information from Iraq, the United Nations Special Commission (UNSCOM) could not calculate the total number of R-4OO bombs that Iraq had produced for its programmes. Thus, the report says, it has proved impossible to verify the production and destruction details of R-400 bombs. UNMOVIC cannot discount the possibility that some R-400 bombs filled with chemical weapons and biological weapons remain in Iraq.”
2003-03-07 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.4714 (2003) · source
“We have counted 17 examples of the previous inspectors actually uncovering evidence contradicting Iraqi claims. We see instance after instance of Iraq lying to the previous inspectors and planting false evidence - activities which we believe are still ongoing. As members read the document, they will be able to see, page after page, how Iraq has obstructed the inspectors at nearly every turn over the years. By way of example, we have talked about the R-400 bombs. The report says that, during the period around 1992, Iraq several times changed its declaration about the quantity of bombs it had produced. In 1992 it declared that it had produced a total of 1,200 of those bombs, with the admission, finally, in 1995, after it was pulled out of them, of an offensive biological warfare programme.”
2003-03-07 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.4714 (2003) · source
“I am very pleased that we will keep this issue open. I also welcome the compilation of outstanding issues that Mr. Blix and his staff have provided to some of us and will make available to all of us. The United Nations Monitoring, Verification and Inspection Commission (UNMOVIC) put together a solid piece of research that, when one reads the entire 167 pages, adds up fact by chilling fact to a damning record of 12 years of lies, deception and failure to come clean on the part of Iraq. That document is, in fact, a catalogue of 12 years of abject failure - not by the inspectors, but by Iraq. We looked carefully at the draft given to the UNMOVIC commissioners, which will be available more widely after this meeting, and we found nearly 30 instances of Iraq's refusal to provide credible evidence substantiating its claims.”
2003-03-07 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.4714 (2003) · source
“But we have to be very cautious. We have to make sure that we keep the books open, as Mr. ElBaradei said he would. There is dispute about some of these issues and some of the specific items. Mr. ElBaradei talked about the aluminium tubes that Iraq has tried to acquire over the years. We also know that, notwithstanding the report today, new information is available to us and, I believe, to the IAEA, about a European country where Iraq was found shopping for these kinds of tubes. That country has provided information to us and to the IAEA that the material properties and manufacturing tolerances required by Iraq are more exact by a factor of 50 per cent or more than those usually specified for rocket motor casings. Its experts concluded that the tolerances and specifications that Iraq was seeking cannot be justified for unguided rockets.”
2003-03-07 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.4714 (2003) · source
“It seems to me that the intention of the Iraqi regime to keep from turning over all of its weapons of mass destruction has not changed. It is not cooperating with the international community in the manner intended by resolution 1441 (2002). If Iraq had made that strategic decision to disarm, cooperation would be voluntary - even enthusiastic. It would not be coerced and pressured. That is the lesson we learned from South Africa and Ukraine, where officials did everything possible to ensure complete cooperation with inspectors. I also listened to Mr. ElBaradei's report with great interest. As we all know, in 1991 the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) was just days away from determining that Iraq did not have a nuclear programme. We soon found out otherwise. The IAEA is now reaching a similar conclusion.”
2003-03-07 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.4714 (2003) · source
“I am very pleased that some Al Samoud 2 missiles are now being broken up, although perhaps the process of breaking them up has paused for a moment. And I know that they are not toothpicks, but real missiles. But the problem is that we do not know how many missiles there are and how many toothpicks there are. We do not know whether or not the infrastructure to make more has been identified and broken up. We have evidence that shows that the infrastructure to make more missiles continues to remain within Iraq and has not yet been identified and destroyed. There is still much more to do and, frankly, it will not be possible to do what we need to do unless we get the full and immediate cooperation that resolution 1441 (2002) and all previous resolutions demanded.”
2003-03-07 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.4714 (2003) · source
“We also heard this morning of an acceleration of Iraqi initiatives. I do not know whether we should call these things "initiatives". Whatever they are, Iraq's small steps are certainly not initiatives. They are not something that came forward willingly and freely from the Iraqis. They have been pulled out - or pressed out- by the possibility of military force, by the political will of the Security Council. These initiatives - if that is what some would choose to call them - have been taken only grudgingly; rarely unconditionally; and primarily under the threat of force. We are told that these actions do not constitute immediate cooperation. But that is exactly what is demanded by resolution 1441 (2002). And even then, progress is often more apparent than real.”
2003-03-07 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.4714 (2003) · source
“If Iraq genuinely wanted to disarm, we would not have to be worrying about setting up means of looking for mobile biological units or any units of that kind - they would be presented to us. We would not need an extensive programme to search for underground facilities that we know exist. The very fact that we must make these requests seems to me to show that Iraq is still not cooperating. The inspectors should not have to look under every rock, go to every crossroads and peer into every cave for evidence, for proof. We must not allow Iraq to shift the burden of proof onto the inspectors. Nor can we return to the failed bargain of resolution 1284 (1999), which offered partial relief for partial disclosure. Resolution 1441 (2002) requires full and immediate compliance, and we must hold Iraq to its terms.”
2003-03-07 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.4714 (2003) · source
“I listened to them very carefully to see if I would hear that, finally, Iraq had reached the point at which it understood that the will of the international community must now be obeyed. I was pleased to hear from both of those distinguished gentlemen that there has been some continuing progress on process and even some new activity with respect to substance. But I was sorry to learn that all of it is still coming in a grudging manner, that Iraq is still refusing to offer what was called for by resolution 1441 (2002): immediate, active and unconditional cooperation - not later, but immediate; not passive, but active; not conditional, but unconditional in every respect. Unfortunately, in my judgement, despite some of the progress that has been mentioned, I still consider what I heard this morning to be a catalogue of non- cooperation.”
2003-03-07 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.4714 (2003) · source
“The answer to that question does not come from how many inspectors are present or how much more time should be given or how much more effort should be put into the inspection process. It is not a question of how many clusters of unanswered questions there are or whether more benchmarks are needed or enough unresolved issues have been put forward to be examined and analysed and conclusions reached. The answer depends entirely on whether Iraq has made the choice to actively cooperate in every possible way, in every possible manner, in the immediate and complete disarmament of itself - of its prohibited weapons. That is what resolution 1441 (2002) calls for. I would like to thank Mr. Blix and Mr. ElBaradei for their reports this morning, which shed more light on this difficult question.”
2003-03-07 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.4714 (2003) · source
“Let me join my colleagues in congratulating you, Mr. President, on the assumption of the presidency. I know that you will lead us in these difficult days with great distinction. Let me also express to my German colleagues my thanks and admiration for the stewardship that they provided to the Council over the past month. It seems to me that we are meeting today with one very, very important question before us. Has the Iraqi regime made the fundamental strategic and political decision to comply with United Nations Security Council resolutions and to rid itself of all of its weapons of mass destruction and all of the infrastructure for the development of weapons of mass destruction? It is a question of intent on the part of the Iraqi leadership.”
2003-03-07 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.4714 (2003) · source
“Resolution 1441 (2002) is about disarmament and compliance and not merely a process of inspections that goes on forever without ever resolving the basic problem.”
2003-02-14 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.4707 (2003) · source
“So many of you would rather not have to face this issue, but it is an issue that must be faced. And that issue is whether or not it is time to consider serious consequences of the kind intended by resolution 1441 (2002). The reason we must not look away from it is because these are terrible weapons. We are talking about weapons that will kill not a few people, not 100 people, not 1,000 people, but could kill tens of thousands of people if these weapons got into the wrong hands. The security of the region, the hopes for the people of Iraq themselves, and our security rest upon us meeting our responsibilities and, if it comes to it, invoking the serious consequences called for in resolution 1441 (2002).”
2003-02-14 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.4707 (2003) · source
“But it must be a resort. We cannot allow this process to be endlessly strung out, as Iraq is trying to do right now: "String it out long enough and the world will start looking in other directions. The Security Council will move on. We will get away with it again." My friends, they cannot be allowed to get away with it again. We are now in a situation where Iraq's continued non-compliance and failure to cooperate, it seems to me in the clearest terms, require this Council to begin to think through the consequences of walking away from this problem or the reality that we have to face this problem and that in the very near future we will have to consider whether or not we have reached that point where this Council must face this issue - as distasteful as it may be and as reluctant as we may be.”
2003-02-14 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.4707 (2003) · source
“If they come into a new material breach with a false declaration or are not willing to cooperate and comply, as operative paragraph 4 says, then the matter has to be referred to the Council for serious consequences." I submit that notwithstanding the improvements in process that we have noted - and I welcome this, and thank the inspectors for their hard work - these improvements in process do not move us away from the central problem that we continue to have. And more inspections and a longer inspection period will not move us away from the central issue, the central problem we are facing. And that central problem is that Iraq has failed to comply with resolution 1441 (2002). The threat of force must remain. Force should always be a last resort. I have preached this for most of my professional life as a soldier and as a diplomat.”
2003-02-14 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.4707 (2003) · source
“Time? How much time does it take to say, "I understand the will of the international community, and I and my regime are laying it all out for you" and not playing "guess", not forming commissions, not issuing decrees, not getting laws that should have been passed years ago suddenly passed on the day when we are meeting. These are not responsible actions on the part of Iraq. These are continued efforts to deceive, to deny, to divert, to throw us off the trail, to throw us off the path. The resolution anticipated this kind of response from Iraq. That is why in all of our discussions about that resolution we said, "They are in material breach.”
2003-02-14 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.4707 (2003) · source
“We have not had a complete, accurate declaration. We have seen the reconstitution of casting chambers for missiles. Why? Because they are still trying to develop these weapons. We have not seen the kind of cooperation that was anticipated, expected and demanded by this body. And we must continue to demand it; we must continue to put pressure on Iraq and to put force upon Iraq to make sure that the threat of force is not removed, because resolution 1441 (2002) was all about compliance, not inspections. The inspections were put in as a way, of course, to assist Iraq in coming forward and complying: in order to verify; in order to monitor, as the chief inspector noted. But we still have an incomplete answer from Iraq. We are facing a difficult situation. More inspectors? Sorry, that is not the answer. What we need is immediate cooperation.”
2003-02-14 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.4707 (2003) · source
“If Iraq were serious in this matter, interviewees would be standing up outside the offices of the United Nations Monitoring, Verification and Inspection Commission (UNMOVIC) and the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), in Baghdad and elsewhere, waiting to be interviewed because they would be determined to prove to the world, to give the world all the evidence needed that these weapons of mass destruction are gone. Notwithstanding all of the lovely rhetoric, the questions remain. Some of my colleagues have talked about them. We have not accounted for the anthrax. We have not accounted for the botulinum, the VX, bulk biological agents, growth media, 30,000 chemical and biological munitions. These are not trivial matters one can just ignore and walk away from and say "Well, maybe the inspectors will find them, maybe they won't".”
2003-02-14 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.4707 (2003) · source
“I am pleased that Iraq is now discussing this matter with South Africa. But it is not brain surgery. South Africa knows how to do it. Anybody knows how to do it. If we were getting the kind of cooperation that we expected when resolution 1441 (2002) was passed and that we hoped for when resolution 1441 (2002) was passed, these documents would be flooding out of homes, flooding out of factories. There would be no question about access. There would be no question about interviews.”
2003-02-14 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.4707 (2003) · source
“No one worked harder than the United States. And I submit that no one worked harder - if I may humbly say so - than I did to try to put forward a resolution that would show the determination of the international community to the leadership in Iraq so that they would now meet their obligations and come clean and comply. And they did not. Notwithstanding all of the discussion that we have heard so far this morning about, "Give inspections more time; let's have more airplanes flying over; let's have more inspectors added to the inspection process" - Mr. Blix noted earlier this week that it is not more inspectors that are needed. What is needed is what both Mr. Blix and Mr. ElBaradei have said, what has been needed since 1991: immediate, active, unconditional compliance and cooperation.”
2003-02-14 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.4707 (2003) · source
“We will not tolerate Iraq continuing to have weapons of mass destruction to be used against its own people, to be used against its neighbours - or worse, if we find a post-11 September nexus between Iraq and terrorist organizations that are looking for just such weapons." And I would submit - and will provide more evidence - that such connections are now emerging. We can establish that they exist. We cannot wait for one of these terrible weapons to show up in one of our cities and wonder where it came from after it has been detonated by Al-Qaeda or somebody else. This is the time to go after this source of this kind of weaponry. And that is what resolution 1441 (2002) was all about. To this day we have not seen the level of cooperation that was expected, anticipated and hoped for - I hoped for it.”
2003-02-14 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.4707 (2003) · source
“We then had some level of acceptance of the fact that inspectors were going back in. Recall that Iraq tried to use that gambit right after the President's speech in September to try to keep resolution 1441 (2002) from ever coming down the pipe. Suddenly, on the Monday after the President's speech, they said, "Oh! We'll let inspectors back in". Why? Because when the President spoke, and when Iraq saw that the international community was now coming together with seriousness and with determination, it knew it had better do something. It did not do it out of the goodness of its heart, or because it suddenly discovered that it had been in violation for all those years. They did it because of pressure. They did it because this Council stood firm. They did it because the international community said, "Enough!”
2003-02-14 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.4707 (2003) · source
“Now it is several months after that declaration was submitted, and I have heard nothing to suggest that they have filled in the gaps that were in that declaration, or that they have added new evidence that should give us any comfort that we have a full, complete and accurate declaration. You will recall that we put that declaration requirement into the resolution as an early test of Iraq's seriousness. Are they serious? Are they going to disarm? Are they going to comply? Are they going to cooperate? The answer, with that declaration, was, "No - we are going to see what we can get away with. We will see how much we can slip under your nose. And everybody will clap, and say 'Isn't that wonderful; they provided a declaration'" - a declaration that was not of any particular use.”
2003-02-14 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.4707 (2003) · source
“All of you are familiar with that; you participated in those discussions. That was about disarmament. The resolution began with the clear statement that Iraq had been in material breach of its obligations for the previous 11 years, and remained to that day - the day the resolution was adopted - in material breach. The resolution said that Iraq must now come into compliance; it must disarm. The resolution went on to say that we wanted to see a declaration from Iraq, within 30 days, of all of its activities. "Put it all on the table; let us see what you have been doing. Give us a declaration that we can believe in that is full, complete and accurate" - that is what we said to Iraq on 8 November. And some 29 days later we got 12,000 pages. Nobody in this Council can say that that was a full, complete or accurate declaration.”
2003-02-14 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.4707 (2003) · source
“But at the same time I have to keep coming back to the point that the inspectors have repeatedly made. They have made it again here this morning; they have been making it for the past 11-plus years. What we need is not more inspections, not more immediate access; what we need is immediate, active, unconditional, full cooperation on the part of Iraq. What we need is for Iraq to disarm. Resolution 1441 (2002) was not about inspections. Let me say that again: resolution 1441 (2002) was not about inspections. Resolution 1441 (2002) was about the disarmament of Iraq. We worked on that resolution for seven weeks, from the time of President Bush's powerful speech here in the General Assembly on 12 September until the resolution was adopted on 8 November. We had intense discussions.”
2003-02-14 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.4707 (2003) · source
“I am pleased to hear that decrees have now been issued that should have been issued years and years ago. But does anyone really think that a decree from Saddam Hussain - directed to whom? - is going to fundamentally change the situation? And it comes out on a morning when we are moving forward down the path laid out by resolution 1441 (2002). These are all process issues. These are all tricks that are being played on us. They say that new commissions are being formed that will go and find materials that they claim are not there in the first place. Can anybody honestly believe that either one of those two new commissions will actively seek out information that they have been actively trying to deny to the world community, to the inspectors, for the past ll-plus years? I commend the inspectors. I thank them for what they are doing.”
2003-02-14 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.4707 (2003) · source
“I am pleased that there have been improvements with respect to not having five minders with each inspectors, but fewer than five minders with each inspector. But I think they are still being minded; they are still being watched; they are still being bugged. They still do not have the freedom of access around Iraq that they need in order to do their job well. I am pleased that a few people have come forward for interviews. But not all the people who should be coming forward for interviews are doing so, or have the freedom to interview in such a way that their safety and the safety of their families can be protected, as required by resolution 1441 (2002). I am glad that access has been relatively good. But that is all process - it is not substance.”
2003-02-14 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.4707 (2003) · source
“That is why we joined, and have been an active member of, institutions such as the United Nations and a number of others that have come together for the purpose of peace, the purpose of mutual security and the purpose of letting other nations that pursue a path of destruction, that pursue a path of developing weapons of mass destruction and that threaten their neighbours know that we will stand tall, that we will stand together to meet these kinds of challenges. I want to express my appreciation to Mr. Blix and Mr. ElBaradei for their statements this morning. They took up a difficult challenge when they went back into Iraq last fall in pursuit of disarmament, as required by resolution 1441 (2002). I listened very attentively to all they said this morning, and I am pleased that there have been improvements with respect to process.”
2003-02-14 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.4707 (2003) · source
“It is a great pleasure to be here again to consider this very important matter. I am very pleased to be here as the Secretary of State of a relatively new country on the face of the Earth. But I think I can take some credit sitting here as the representative of the oldest democracy represented here around this table. I am proud of that. It is a democracy that believes in peace, a nation that has tried in the course of its history to show how people can live in peace with one another. But it is a democracy that has not been afraid to meet its responsibilities on the world stage when it has been challenged and, more importantly, when others in the world have been challenged, when the international order has been challenged or when the international institutions of which we are a part have been challenged.”
2003-02-14 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.4707 (2003) · source
“Iraq is not so far taking that one last chance. We must not shrink from whatever is ahead of us. We must not fail in our duty and our responsibility to the citizens of the countries that are represented by this body.”
2003-02-05 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.4701 (2003) · source
“Over three months ago, the Council recognized that Iraq continued to pose a threat to international peace and security and that Iraq had been, and remained in material breach of its disarmament obligations. Today Iraq still poses a threat, and Iraq still remains in material breach. Indeed, by its failure to seize its one last opportunity to come clean and disarm, Iraq has put itself in deeper material breach and closer to the day when it will face serious consequences for its continued defiance of the Council. We have an obligation to our citizens - we have an obligation to this body - to see that our resolutions are complied with. We wrote resolution 1441 (2002) not in order to go to war. We wrote resolution 1441 (2002) to try to preserve the peace. We wrote resolution 1441 (2002) to give Iraq one last chance.”
2003-02-05 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.4701 (2003) · source
“We know that Saddam Hussain is determined to keep his weapons of mass destruction. He is determined to make more. Given Saddam Hussain's history of aggression, given what we know of his grandiose plans, given what we know of his terrorist associations and given his determination to exact revenge on those who oppose him, should we take the risk that he will not someday use these weapons at a time and a place and in a manner of his choosing - at a time when the world is in a much weaker position to respond? The United States will not, and cannot, run that risk to the American people. Leaving Saddam Hussain in possession of weapons of mass destruction for a few more months or years is not an option - not in a post- 11-September world.”
2003-02-05 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.4701 (2003) · source
“Iraq has more forced disappearance cases than any other country. Tens of thousands of people were reported missing in the past decade. Nothing points more clearly to Saddam Hussain's dangerous intentions and to the threat he poses to all of us than his calculated cruelty to his own citizens and to his neighbours. Clearly, Saddam Hussain and his regime will stop at nothing until something stops him. For more than 20 years, by word and by deed, Saddam Hussain has pursued his ambition to dominate Iraq and the broader Middle East, using the only means he knows: intimidation, coercion and annihilation of all those who might stand in his way. For Saddam Hussain, possession of the world's most deadly weapons is the ultimate trump card, the one he must hold to fulfil his ambition.”
2003-02-05 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.4701 (2003) · source
“Underlying all that I have said, underlying all the facts and the patterns of behaviour that I have identified, is Saddam Hussain's contempt for the will of the Council, his contempt for the truth and, most damning of all, his utter contempt for human life. Saddam Hussain's use of mustard and nerve gases against the Kurds in 1988 was one of the twentieth century's most horrible atrocities. Five thousand men, women and children died. His campaign against the Kurds from 1987 to 1989 included mass summary executions, disappearances, arbitrary jailing, ethnic cleansing and the destruction of some 2,000 villages. He has also conducted ethnic cleaning against the Shi'ah Iraqis and the Marsh Arabs, whose culture has flourished for more than a millennium. Saddam Hussain's police State ruthlessly eliminates anyone who dares to dissent.”
2003-02-05 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.4701 (2003) · source
“With this track record, Iraqi denials of supporting terrorism take their place alongside the other Iraqi denials of weapons of mass destruction. It is all a web of lies. When we confront a regime that harbours ambitions for regional domination, hides weapons of mass destruction and provides haven and active support for terrorists, we are not confronting the past, we are confronting the present. And unless we act, we are confronting an even more frightening future. This has been a long and detailed presentation, and I thank you for your patience. But there is one more subject that I would like to touch on briefly. It should be a subject of deep and continuing concern to the Council: Saddam Hussain's violations of human rights.”
2003-02-05 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.4701 (2003) · source
“The support that this detainee describes included Iraq offering chemical or biological weapons training for two Al Qaeda associates, beginning in December 2000. He says that a militant known as Abu Abdallah al-Iraqi had been sent to Iraq several times between 1997 and 2000 for help in acquiring poisons and gases. Abdullah al-Iraqi characterized the relationship he forged with Iraqi officials as "successful". As I said at the outset, none of this should come as a surprise to any of us. Terrorism has been a tool used by Saddam for decades. Saddam was a supporter of terrorism long before these terrorist networks had a name, and this support continues. The nexus of poisons and terror is new; the nexus of Iraq and terror is old. The combination is lethal.”
2003-02-05 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.4701 (2003) · source
“As with the story of Zarqawi and his network, I can trace the story of a senior terrorist operative, telling how Iraq provided training in those weapons to Al Qaeda. Fortunately, that operative is now detained, and he has told his story. I will relate it to you now as he himself described it. That senior Al Qaeda terrorist was responsible for one of Al Qaeda's training camps in Afghanistan. His information comes first-hand, from his personal involvement at senior levels of Al Qaeda. He says Bin Laden and his top deputy in Afghanistan, deceased Al Qaeda leader Muhammad Atif, did not believe that Al Qaeda labs in Afghanistan were capable enough to manufacture these chemical or biological agents. They needed to go somewhere else. They had to look outside of Afghanistan for help. Where did they go? Where did they look? They went to Iraq.”
2003-02-05 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.4701 (2003) · source
“I am not comforted by that thought. Ambition and hatred are enough to bring Iraq and Al Qaeda together - enough so that Al Qaeda could learn how to build more sophisticated bombs and learn how to forge documents, and enough so that Al Qaeda could turn to Iraq for help in acquiring expertise on weapons of mass destruction. The record of Saddam Hussain's cooperation with other Islamist terrorist organizations is clear. Hamas, for example, opened an office in Baghdad in 1999, and Iraq has hosted conferences attended by Palestine Islamic Jihad. Those groups are at the forefront of sponsoring suicide attacks against Israel. Al Qaeda continues to have a deep interest in acquiring weapons of mass destruction.”
2003-02-05 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.4701 (2003) · source
“Saddam became more interested as he saw Al Qaeda's appalling attacks. A detained Al Qaeda member tells us that Saddam was more willing to assist Al Qaeda after the 1998 bombings of our embassies in Kenya and Tanzania. Saddam was also impressed by the Al Qaeda attack on the USS Cole in Yemen in October 2000. Iraqis continued to visit Bin Laden in his new home in Afghanistan. A senior defector - one of Saddam's former intelligence chiefs in Europe - says Saddam sent his agents to Afghanistan sometime in the mid-1990s to provide training to Al Qaeda members on document forgery. From the late 1990s until 2001, the Iraqi embassy in Pakistan played the role of liaison to the Al Qaeda organization. Some claim these contacts do not amount to much. They say Saddam Hussain's secular tyranny and Al Qaeda's religious tyranny do not mix.”
2003-02-05 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.4701 (2003) · source
“We are not surprised that Iraq is harbouring Zarqawi and his subordinates; this understanding builds on decades-long experience with respect to ties between Iraq and Al Qaeda. Going back to the early and mid-1990s, when Bin Laden was based in the Sudan, an Al Qaeda source tells us that Saddam and Bin Laden reached an understanding that Al Qaeda would no longer support activities against Baghdad. Early Al Qaeda ties were forged by secret high- level Iraqi intelligence service contacts with Al Qaeda. We know that members of both organizations met repeatedly, and have met at least eight times at very senior levels since the early 1990s. A foreign security service has told us that in 1996 Bin Laden met with a senior Iraqi intelligence official in Khartoum and that he later met the director of the Iraqi intelligence service.”
2003-02-05 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.4701 (2003) · source
“Three of those he identified by name were arrested in France last December. In the apartments of the terrorists, authorities found circuits for explosive devices and a list of ingredients to make toxins. The detainee who helped piece this together says the plot also targeted Britain. Later evidence again proved him right. When the British unearthed a cell there, just last month, one British police officer was murdered during the disruption of the cell. We also know that Zarqawi's colleagues have been active in the Pankisi Gorge, Georgia, and in Chechnya, Russia. The plotting to which they are linked is not mere chatter: members of Zarqawi's network say their goal was to kill Russians with toxins.”
2003-02-05 · UN Security Council · Security Council, S/PV.4701 (2003) · source