[Congressional Record Volume 149, Number 14 (Monday, January 27, 2003)]
[House]
[Pages H157-H159]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
IRAQ HAS NOT DISARMED
The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under the Speaker's announced policy of
January 7, 2003, the gentleman from California (Mr. Hunter) is
recognized for 60 minutes as the designee of the majority leader.
Mr. HUNTER. Madam Speaker, 6,500 chemical bombs, which is roughly
1,000 tons of deadly chemical; 2,000 chemical rockets, 8,500 liters of
biological agent or medium, and that is enough to produce some 5,000
liters of anthrax; these weapons are the weapons which Chief Weapons
Inspector of the United Nations Hans Blix says the Iraqi Government has
failed to produce for the inspecting teams. In other words, Iraq has
not disarmed.
Now, we have heard in the last several months lots of statements from
the administration, and we have heard statements from proponents of the
President's policy and from opponents of the President's policy. But
these are the statements from the United Nations weapons inspector
whose job was to go to Iraq, confront the Iraqi Government with their
own statements, their own declarations and documents, some of which we
had captured, others which they had produced during the 1990s, list the
items line by line saying, here are weapons that you listed; where are
they? And, in fact, Iraq has now failed to produce those weapons,
meaning Iraq has failed to disarm.
This is an exercise in disarmament. That is where the country which
is being inspected is supposed to make a declaration as to what weapons
they have, just like South Africa did with its nuclear program, and
then offer up the locations of those stockpiled weapons and that
machinery that produces the weapons for destruction by this
international body. In fact, Iraq has done what we predicted it would
do, and that is that it has hidden these weapons, which it heretofore
had proclaimed it had. We know they have them, we know they have them
buried somewhere, and they are failing to produce them. That is, they
are failing to disarm, and those are the words of the Chief Weapons
Inspector.
Madam Speaker, let me just go to a couple of particulars once more. I
am quoting Chief Weapons Inspector Hans Blix. He says, ``The document
indicates,'' and he received the document from the Iraqi Air Force as
to how many bombs they had had at one time, chemical bombs, because we
know they use chemical bombs on their own people and on their
neighbors, and he said, ``The document indicated that some 13,000
chemical bombs were dropped by the Iraqi Air Force between 1983 and
1998, while Iraq has declared that 19,500 bombs were consumed during
this period. Thus, there is a discrepancy of some 6,500 bombs. The
amount of chemical agent in these bombs would be in the order of about
1,000 tons. In the absence of evidence to the contrary, we must assume
that these quantities are now unaccounted for.''
So, Madam Speaker, we know what they had, we know what they have.
Incidentally, Chief Inspector Hans Blix goes through each one of these
circumstances where they have failed to come forward and produce the
weapons or show evidence that they were destroyed. And in these cases
that I have cited, there is no evidence that they have destroyed any of
this stuff. We know it is still there, and we know it is there in most
cases not by evidence that we received through a third party, but by
the statements of Iraq itself at a previous time.
In turning to biological weapons, Mr. Blix said, and I quote, ``I
mentioned the issue of anthrax to the Council on previous occasions,
and I come back to it as an important one. Iraq has declared that it
produced 8,500 liters of this biological warfare agent which it states
it unilaterally destroyed in the summer of 1991.'' So Iraq claimed that
they had gotten rid of this in secret, and he says, ``I find no
convincing evidence for its destruction.''
He goes on. He says, ``As I reported to the Council on the 19th of
December last year, Iraq did not declare a significant quantity, some
650 kilos, of bacterial growth media which was acknowledged as reported
in Iraq's submission to the panel in February 1999. As a part of its 7
December, 2002, declaration, Iraq resubmitted the Amorim Panel
document, but the table showing this particular import of media,'' and
this is the media from which you grow anthrax, extremely deadly
anthrax, he said, ``The table showing this report was not included. The
absence of this table would appear to be deliberate, as the pages of
the resubmitted document were renumbered.'' Meaning that Iraq pulled
out this 650 kilos of anthrax media, simply tore that page out of the
report, renumbered the report, and handed it to the weapons inspectors.
That 650 kilos, incidentally, is enough growth media to produce about
5,000 liters of anthrax.
So we know now that Saddam Hussein has maintained and kept both
biological weapons and chemical weapons, and he has failed to turn them
over. He has failed to disarm.
Does he have a method to deliver these weapons? Yes, he does. They
include the AS-2 and the AF-2 missiles, which are illegal missiles,
because these missiles have been tested for ranges beyond 150
kilometers that Saddam Hussein is limited to.
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He has also refurbished his missile infrastructure, that means his
capability to develop and build missiles to carry these chemical and
biological weapons to their targets. He has also acquired, very
recently, some 300 rocket engines.
So the point is, Mr. Speaker, that when the smoke all clears, at
least with respect to the work that has been done so far, I think what
has happened is pretty predictable, because we on the Committee on
Armed Services in the House had in open session an Iraqi engineer who
appeared before us who was part of Saddam Hussein's weapons development
program. He said to us that even in the 1990s when we had inspectors on
the ground and those inspectors were being shown the insides of big
empty buildings, a few miles away Saddam Hussein's program was going at
full steam and the inspectors did not know anything about it.
So take this country, which is twice the size of the State of Idaho,
and take this small contingent, roughly the size of a police force in a
small American city, and spread them out over a piece of land twice the
size of Idaho. And having given the other guys literally years to hide
their weapons, it is no surprise that no weapons are found. In fact, if
some of our inspectors walked into the middle of one of these big
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empty buildings and actually found a large quantity of biological
weapons sitting there in the front of one of those big empty buildings
that the maid had somehow forgotten to clean up the night before, the
Iraqi bureaucrat who was in charge of that particular deception
process, and they have a whole agency devoted to deception, would be
two things: he would be considered to be the dumbest bureaucrat in Iraq
and, shortly thereafter, the deadest.
So the idea that somehow we are going to stumble upon a large number
of weapons is not realistic. That is what we have been saying for a
long time.
The message to us is very clear: Iraq has not disarmed. They have no
intention of disarming. The documented proof of their weapons systems
that they have maintained, when matched against what they have
produced, shows that they still have enormous chemical and biological
weapons on hand, along with the means to deliver them.
Mr. SAXTON. Mr. Speaker, will the gentleman yield?
Mr. HUNTER. I am happy to yield to my friend, the gentleman from New
Jersey.
Mr. SAXTON. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding. I would
just say to the gentleman from California (Mr. Hunter), I thank him for
taking this time to bring this very important issue before the House
and, indirectly, before the American people.
We just returned from a break. I had plenty of time, ample time, back
home to talk with my constituents, and in fact traveled around the
country a bit to talk with others from other people's districts. The
report that the gentleman makes reference to that is the Hans Blix
report I think speaks volumes to the questions that I was asked as I
made my way around my district and around other people's districts.
The basic question was: How do we know, or how does the
administration know and how will the Congress help to determine what
our policy should be toward Iraq when the inspectors cannot find any
weapons, any weapons of mass destruction? This report speaks volumes to
this.
However, before this report even came out, there were very strong
indications here in the Congress in the hearings that the Committee on
Armed Services held, both closed hearings and open hearings, where
members of the administration, representatives of the Department of
Defense, and representatives from our intelligence apparatus or
institutions would come before us and would say, here is what we know.
Without going into the specifics of what we heard in those closed
sessions, this report that the gentleman from California (Chairman
Hunter) has gone to great lengths to describe, which we have heard
about through the media all day, verifies much of the information that
we learned during those sessions earlier this year, actually in the
fall.
Also, I think it is very interesting to point out that yesterday the
Secretary of State in a speech in Switzerland said something that I
think is extremely important on this same question of how do we know if
we cannot find the weapons. The Secretary of State said simply this: we
have known for a long time that Saddam Hussein has weapons of mass
destruction. After all, he used them in the war against Iran. After
all, he used them against his own people, that is, chemical weapons,
which the gentleman from California (Mr. Hunter) referred to here just
a short time ago.
Then the Secretary of State went on to say that the question is not
and the job of the weapons inspectors is not to find the weapons; the
job, as designated in Resolution 1441, is to seek the cooperation of
the Iraqi Government in proving that they have destroyed their weapons.
That is where the Iraqi Government has been lacking. The Iraqi
Government has steadfastly denied having any weapons, but has failed to
offer an iota of proof.
For example, if chemical weapons have been destroyed, why can we not
talk to the people who destroyed them? If there are no biological
weapons, if those biological substances have been destroyed, where were
they destroyed? Show us. Let us talk to the people that destroyed them.
Mr. HUNTER. Mr. Speaker, I would tell the gentleman, we have
documents that were produced by Iraq during the 1990s where they gave
us the names of some 3,500 key people in the development of their
chemical and biological weapons. Do Members know what has happened to
those people? They have disappeared.
We asked them during this round, according to Hans Blix, to produce
those people. They only produced 400 of them. Of course, they do not
let any of them talk without an Iraqi keeper or bureaucrat standing
next to them. Also, they do not even produce the other 3,000 people.
Those 3,000 people in Iraq who are associated with their chemical and
biological weapons program have apparently disappeared from the face of
the Earth. They tell us we may get another 80 to talk to at some point,
but the 3,000 have disappeared.
Mr. SAXTON. This seems to me to be just what Colin Powell, the
Secretary of State, was talking about when he said that the question
really is when, on the one hand, the Iraqi Government says there are no
biological or chemical or nuclear weapons, why then on the other hand
will they not show us evidence to prove that? And the answer seems to
me, in light of the Blix report, quite simple: these weapons really
exist, and therefore they cannot prove that they do not.
So I think that the answer to the question that my constituents and
people that I talked to in other parts of the country over the break,
the answer to the question is quite evident. The answer is that these
weapons do exist, just as we have maintained for years, and in
particular in the last month.
So both Secretary Powell and Hans Blix in different words came to the
same conclusion. Hans Blix says on this subject, ``In the absence of
evidence to the contrary, we must assume that these weapons exist.'' We
have assumed, based on evidence that was gathered by the Committee on
Armed Services during the fall of this year, that they continue to
exist.
Another question which I think is important, and I think this report
bears on this question as well, my constituents and people around the
country ask me: What do the French, the Germans, the Russians, and the
Chinese know that we do not? They are part of the United Nations
Security Council, as well. I say that the evidence that is pointed out
in the Blix report should be taken very seriously and taken to heart by
the French and the Germans and the Russians and Chinese, because they
have as much at stake in this as we do.
This report, which speaks volumes, is an extremely important
document. I think one of the statements in the report by Hans Blix, who
has had an opportunity, obviously, to review the 12,000 pages which the
Iraqi Government forwarded in terms of its supposed accuracy as an
accurate report on the condition of their weapons of mass destruction
program, Hans Blix says, we have seen this all before. It is
essentially 12,000 pages copied from the transmissions that were given
to previous teams of arms inspectors, so the Iraqis have offered us
nothing new here. In fact, they have shown us once again that they are,
as Hans Blix said publicly today, not prepared to endorse the concept
of disarmament.
The Bush administration, the President himself, Secretary of Defense
Rumsfeld, Vice President Cheney, Secretary of State Powell, have all
maintained in different ways for months that we have to do something to
engage this problem. The Blix report from an independent United
Nations-appointed inspection team has now verified the contentious
situation that actually exists within the Iraqi Government today.
I am pleased and again I want to thank the gentleman from California
for taking this time so that he and I together can share this
information with our colleagues, and indirectly with the American
people.
Mr. HUNTER. I thank my distinguished colleague, and I thank him for
all the work that he has done and for the work that he is going to do
as chairman of this new subcommittee on the Committee on Armed
Services, which is going to oversee a great deal of this activity.
Let me just end by saying that we predicted that the tours that the
U.N. weapons inspectors were given would not result in them walking
into a big cavernous building and having a supply
[[Page H159]]
of chemical or biological weapons sitting there on the floor of that
particular facility waiting for them to scoop it up.
We predicted that the Iraqi Government, which has devoted entire
agencies to hiding this stuff as effectively as they could, will have
done just that, that is, to hide it in such a way that we would be more
likely to be able to ask all of the drug dealers in Washington, D.C. to
amass all of their illicit cocaine and marijuana and pile it in one big
area where the authorities could come down and seize it on a given day.
The burden was on Iraq to disarm. That is the key. It is not a game
where we have certain rules and if they are able to beat us, if they
are able to hide this stuff well enough, we do not find it. We know
they have it because the 6,500 chemical bombs, the 2,000 chemical
rockets, the precursors for 5,000 liters of anthrax, are weapons which
exist according to Iraqi documentation, not our documentation but their
documentation that they had produced earlier; also, those 3,000 people
who are associated with the programs, those 3,000 technical people who
now have disappeared off the face of the Earth.
So they have it. They have it just as surely as Nazi Germany had a
weapons program of massive proportions in the mid-1930s, even though
they were giving reports to the Allies that the air force that we
appeared to see in the skies was actually flying clubs that were
organized for recreation; but we knew that they were in fact producing
weapons. In this case, we know for a fact that Iraq is still heavily
weaponized, with the ability to kill lots of its neighbors and lots of
Americans and their allies.
So this report is, I think, more dramatic in what it says they have
not produced than what it says they have produced. I think it is
becoming clearer and clearer that the inspections are not going to
produce a situation in which the inspectors walk into a giant facility
and, lo and behold, there are piles of weapons sitting there on the
floor produced by the most ineffective Iraqi bureaucrat in history.
They will not disarm.
Mr. SAXTON. Mr. Speaker, if the gentleman will continue to yield, I
just would like to add that earlier today in a news report I saw or
heard that the Secretary General of the United Nations, Kofi Annan,
suggested that the inspectors need more time. Also, the Secretary of
State today indicated that if there was going to be more time, it would
not be much; but there is going to be more activity on the part of the
inspectors.
I would say this: I suspect that the people who are listening to this
are not in a position to answer these questions. But if Saddam Hussein
or his foreign minister or somebody was listening, I would say to them
that we know that they had thousands of artillery shells that were
capable of carrying chemical substances that would kill people to their
targets. They say they have destroyed them.
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If you have destroyed them, show us where they were destroyed, show
us where the remnants of them are, and let us talk to the people who
did it. Let us talk to the people who destroyed them. If you do not
have chemical weapons, show us how you destroyed them. Show us the
people, let us talk to the people that destroyed your chemical weapons.
That is how we verify. If you do not have biological weapons, show us
the disposition of what you had and let us talk to the scientists, let
us talk to the personnel that destroyed it, because we know you had it,
and we believe you still have it today. And if you are serious about
making statements that you do not have it, that these weapons do not
exist, then show us how they were destroyed.
And with regard to their nuclear weapons program, we know that the
Iraqis imported aluminum tubular material that is designed and built
specifically for the production of nuclear material. If those no longer
exist, show us how you destroyed them and let us talk to the scientists
and let us talk to the personnel who destroyed them. We have not seen
any of these things, and we have not talked to any of these people, or
the inspectors have not, I should say.
I heard today another statement that this process is not about
finding weapons, it is about developing trust. It is about developing
trust between the Iraqi Government and the rest of the governments of
the world. This is how we develop trust, by verifying your statements
so that we can trust. And so I hope that this process will move
forward.
The gentleman from California (Mr. Hunter) and I are sometimes asked
by people why we favor going to war. We do not favor going to war. We
favor dismantling the weapons of mass destruction that the Iraqis have,
and we have supported the process of inspections. We have supported the
process of investigation. We have supported the process of questioning.
We have supported the process of asking questions as to where these
materials are, whether they have been destroyed. And it is only as a
last resort that we would ever advocate using military force. The
gentleman from California (Mr. Hunter) has a son in the Marine Corps.
The last thing in the world the gentleman wants to do is to see our
country in another military conflict.
Just last Friday I went to Paris Island where I proudly watched my
nephew Curt graduate from basic training in the Marine Corps. The last
thing I want to see is Curtis in Iraq or anyplace else fighting a war
that can be averted by cooperation between people and cooperation
between countries and the development of trust.
So once again I give the floor to the gentleman from California (Mr.
Hunter). I hope that the Iraqis will in the next very short period of
time cooperate with the United Nations and the leadership of various
countries around the world.
Mr. HUNTER. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman, and I think it is
clear one last time to point out that there are 6,500 chemical bombs
that Iraq will not give up, it has not disarmed; a couple of thousand
chemical rockets; and 8,500 liters of what is known as biological media
for the production of anthrax that is capable of producing about 5,000
liters of anthrax. So they have not disarmed. And facts are stubborn
things. Those are the facts.
Mr. Speaker, I would recognize the gentleman from Georgia (Mr.
Collins), who has a major infantry base in his district, the great Fort
Benning, where I have spent lot of time low crawling.
Mr. COLLINS. It is home for the infantry, chief of the infantry.
Mr. Speaker, I have listened with strong interest here with the
comments of the gentlemen about the numbers that came through the
report today, and the gentleman here with his comments, too, and I am
glad both of you all are on the Committee on Armed Services. They have
put forth very good points here and made very good points of what is
going on.
This was a major conversation piece in my district. As I have pointed
out, the President of the United States does not want to go to war. The
purpose of all the deployment to the Middle East is to deal with this
issue from strength, to send the message large, loud and clear to
Saddam Hussein that the decision for war is his. The President has said
that he will make the decision, Saddam will make the decision. The lack
of coming forward with the information that they have previously given
in verifying, as so well put by the gentleman from New Jersey (Mr.
Saxton), is evidence he is making a decision.
His clock is ticking. Time is running out. He has to make a decision
as to own up to the disarmament, how it has been done, who did it and
verify, or we, as the United States, have no choice but to follow his
decision, Saddam Hussein's decision.
Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding. I thank the two
gentlemen for their comments and their remarks in support of the United
States and our freedom.
Mr. HUNTER. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for his very eloquent
point. Saddam Hussein has not disarmed. We know what he has. He has not
brought it forward, and we will continue to march down the next several
weeks to see if he brings those weapons out for destruction.
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