[Congressional Record Volume 149, Number 84 (Tuesday, June 10, 2003)]
[House]
[Page H5095]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                  IRAQ AND WEAPONS OF MASS DESTRUCTION

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Pursuant to the order of the House of 
January 7, 2003, the gentleman from Indiana (Mr. Pence) is recognized 
during morning hour debates for 5 minutes.
  Mr. PENCE. Mr. Speaker, I was in the grocery checkout line buying 
some Motrin for my ailing 8-year-old daughter late this Saturday night; 
and the woman next to me, seeing me wearing something of a Republican 
T-shirt on the weekend but not recognizing me as a Congressman, said, 
``I guess your President is in some hot water over weapons of mass 
destruction.'' And that seems to be what many on the other side of the 
aisle and many in the national debate would like to say about the 
President, that somehow this administration either directly or 
indirectly intentionally or unintentionally exaggerated the threat of 
weapons of mass destruction and the WMD program of the Nation of Iraq 
during the months and weeks leading up to Operation Iraqi Freedom. It 
is an extraordinary assertion, and as I went on to describe there in 
the checkout line last Saturday night and rise today to describe, it is 
patently untenable and ignores the real and demonstrable history of the 
nation of Iraq and the region.
  First, a lesson in history. We go back to 1981 when Israel was forced 
to bomb Saddam Hussein's nuclear reactor at Osirak. In fact, the United 
Nations established at that time that Iraq had begun a nuclear weapons 
program and, in their words, chemical and biological weapons capability 
systems. In fact, in the immediate aftermath of the last Persian Gulf 
War, Saddam Hussein and his regime as a part of the cease fire 
agreement acknowledged extensive biological and chemical weapons 
programs; and I cite now from UNSCOM's sources, the U.N. agency 
responsible for overseeing the cease fire of Iraq, that Iraq itself 
acknowledged 10,000 nerve gas warheads, 1,500 chemical weapons, and 412 
tons of chemical weapons agents.
  Last week before the Committee on International Relations, John 
Bolton, the Under Secretary for Arms Control at the U.S. State 
Department testified before us; and I asked him very specifically, Mr. 
Speaker, whether or not the assessment of the WMD program in Iraq 
changed significantly from the Clinton administration to the Bush 
administration. He hesitated and then very carefully said it had not 
changed in any significant way and that in many respects the Clinton 
administration assessed the WMD program in Iraq precisely the same as 
the Bush administration did. Citing those hundreds of tons of chemical 
and biological agents that Iraq admitted it had in 1991, Under 
Secretary of State John Bolton said, ``Both administrations said these 
materials were unaccounted for.''
  In fact, when President Clinton bombed Iraq in 1998 after they 
expelled our weapons inspectors, he justified the bombing by saying 
``it was necessary to attack Iraq's nuclear, chemical and biological 
programs and its capacity to threaten its neighbors.'' So said 
President Bill Clinton. So those who would say that in the 5 years 
leading up from the time Iraq expelled weapons inspectors to the time 
of Operation Iraqi Freedom that somehow, even though he refused to 
admit it, Saddam Hussein willingly and privately destroyed his enormous 
cache of weapons of mass destruction, ignore common sense, ignore 
history, the truth is, Mr. Speaker, we would have to believe the worst 
of George W. Bush and the best of Saddam Hussein to believe that there 
was not an extraordinary program of biological, chemical and even a 
nascent program for nuclear weapons being developed in the nation of 
Iraq and the capital of Baghdad.
  Facts are stubborn things, and reciting those facts that Iraq 
admitted to in 1991 and establishing a decade-long pattern of deception 
and denial confirms, as our Iraqi survey group continues to scour that 
country for further evidence of a WMD program, I remain confident, as 
the President said yesterday, that we will not only continue to find 
evidence of a program, the mobile labs, the biological and chemical 
suits and the syringes that were found with antidotes for chemical 
deployments, but the day will come in the very near future, I am 
confident, that U.S. and coalition forces will find the elusive 
evidence of a program of weapons of mass destruction.




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