THE PRESIDENT:(Feb. 8, 2003) Good morning. On Wednesday, Secretary of State
Powell briefed the United Nations Security Council on Iraq's illegal
weapons program, its attempts to hide those weapons, and its links to
terrorist groups.
The Iraqi regime's violations of Security Council Resolutions are
evident, they are dangerous to America and the world, and they continue
to this hour.
The regime has never accounted for a vast arsenal of deadly,
biological and chemical weapons. To the contrary, the regime is
pursuing an elaborate campaign to conceal its weapons materials and to
hide or intimidate key experts and scientists. This effort of
deception is directed from the highest levels of the Iraqi regime,
including Saddam Hussein, his son, Iraq's vice president and the very
official responsible for cooperating with inspectors.
The Iraqi regime has actively and secretly attempted to obtain
equipment needed to produce chemical, biological and nuclear weapons.
Firsthand witnesses have informed us that Iraq has at least seven
mobile factories for the production of biological agents -- equipment
mounted on trucks and rails to evade discovery.
The Iraqi regime has acquired and tested the means to deliver
weapons of mass destruction. It has never accounted for thousands of
bombs and shells capable of delivering chemical weapons. It is
actively pursuing components for prohibited ballistic missiles. And we
have sources that tell us that Saddam Hussein recently authorized Iraqi
field commanders to use chemical weapons -- the very weapons the
dictator tells us he does not have.
WASHINGTON (Reuters May 31, 2003) - U.S. intelligence was "simply wrong" in leading military commanders to believe their troops were likely to be attacked with chemical weapons in the Iraq war, the top U.S. Marine general there said on Friday.
But Lt. Gen. James Conway said in a teleconference with reporters at the Pentagon that it was too early to say whether the United States also was wrong in charging that Iraq had chemical and biological arms when the invasion began 2-1/2 months ago.
"We were simply wrong," he said of the assessment that chemical shells or other weapons were ready in southern Iraq and likely to be used against invaders by deposed Iraqi President Saddam Hussein's forces.
"Whether or not we are wrong at the national level I think still very much remains to be seen. ... 'Intelligence failure,' I think, is still too strong a word to use at this point," added the commander of the 1st Marine Expeditionary Force who was speaking from Hilla, 62 miles south of Baghdad.
U.S. forces have been scouring Iraq -- thus far unsuccessfully -- for chemical and biological weapons. The United States cited the need to rid Iraq of such weapons of mass destruction as a key reason for the war.
Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and other Bush administration officials have expressed confidence that such arms will be found, although Rumsfeld this week conceded that Iraq may have decided to destroy them ahead of the invasion.
Conway said he was convinced when U.S. and British troops swept into Iraq from Kuwait that they would come under chemical or biological attack before they reached Baghdad.
But such shells have not been found even in ammunition storage sites, he told reporters.
"It was a surprise to me then. It remains a surprise to me now that we have not uncovered weapons ... in some of the forward dispersal sites," said Conway.
"Believe me, it's not for lack of trying. We've been through virtually every ammunition supply site between the Kuwaiti border and Baghdad. But they're simply not there."
U.S. and British troops carried chemical masks and protective outfits into Iraq during the invasion and donned them frequently early in the war in anticipation of possible attack.
"What the regime was intending to do ... in terms of its use of weapons we thought we understood," the general said.
"We certainly had our best guess -- our most dangerous, our most likely courses of action -- that the intelligence folks were giving us."
©Charlie Carey 5/03 Mail me
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