Full Text of Powell's Address to U.N.
Feb. 5 -- Secretary of State Colin Powell presented satellite photos and audiotapes of Iraqi officers' conversations as proof to the U.N. Security Council that Saddam Hussein has failed to disarm. Below is the complete text of Powell's speech.
POWELL: Thank you, Mr. President.
Mr. President, Mr. Secretary-General, distinguished colleagues, Iwould like to begin by expressing my thanks for the special effortthat each of you made to be here today.
This is important day for us all as we review the situation withrespect to Iraq and its disarmament obligations under U.N. SecurityCouncil Resolution 1441.
Last Nov. 8, this council passed Resolution 1441 by aunanimous vote. The purpose of that resolution was to disarm Iraq ofits weapons of mass destruction. Iraq had already been found guiltyof material breach of its obligations, stretching back over 16previous resolutions and 12 years.
Resolution 1441 was not dealing with an innocent party,but a regime this council has repeatedly convicted over the years.Resolution 1441 gave Iraq one last chance, one last chance to comeinto compliance or to face serious consequences. No council memberpresent in voting on that day had any allusions about the nature andintent of the resolution or what serious consequences meant if Iraqdid not comply.
And to assist in its disarmament, we called on Iraq to cooperatewith returning inspectors from UNMOVIC and IAEA.
We laid down tough standards for Iraq to meet to allow theinspectors to do their job.
This council placed the burden on Iraq to comply anddisarm and not on the inspectors to find that which Iraq has gone outof its way to conceal for so long. Inspectors are inspectors; theyare not detectives.
I asked for this session today for two purposes: First, tosupport the core assessments made by Dr. Blix and Dr. ElBaradei. AsDr. Blix reported to this council on Jan. 27, quote, "Iraqappears not to have come to a genuine acceptance, not even today, ofthe disarmament which was demanded of it," unquote.
And as Dr. ElBaradei reported, Iraq's declaration of Dec. 7,quote, "did not provide any new information relevant to certainquestions that have been outstanding since 1998."
My second purpose today is to provide you withadditional information, to share with you what the United States knowsabout Iraq's weapons of mass destruction as well as Iraq's involvementin terrorism, which is also the subject of Resolution 1441 and otherearlier resolutions.
I might add at this point that we are providing all relevantinformation we can to the inspection teams for them to do their work.
The material I will present to you comes from a variety ofsources. Some are U.S. sources. And some are those of othercountries. Some of the sources are technical, such as interceptedtelephone conversations and photos taken by satellites. Other sourcesare people who have risked their lives to let the world know whatSaddam Hussein is really up to.
I cannot tell you everything that we know. But what I can sharewith you, when combined with what all of us have learned over theyears, is deeply troubling.
What you will see is an accumulation of facts anddisturbing patterns of behavior. The facts on Iraqis' behavior — Iraq's behavior demonstrate that Saddam Hussein and his regime havemade no effort — no effort — to disarm as required by theinternational community. Indeed, the facts and Iraq's behavior showthat Saddam Hussein and his regime are concealing their efforts toproduce more weapons of mass destruction.
Let me begin by playing a tape for you. What you're about tohear is a conversation that my government monitored. It takes placeon Nov. 26 of last year, on the day before United Nations teamsresumed inspections in Iraq.
The conversation involves two senior officers, a colonel and abrigadier general, from Iraq's elite military unit, the RepublicanGuard.
(BEGIN AUDIOTAPE)
Let me pause and review some of the key elements of thisconversation that you just heard between these two officers.
First, they acknowledge that our colleague, Mohamed ElBaradei, iscoming, and they know what he's coming for, and they know he's comingthe next day. He's coming to look for things that are prohibited. Heis expecting these gentlemen to cooperate with him and not hidethings.
But they're worried. "We have this modified vehicle. What do wesay if one of them sees it?"
What is their concern? Their concern is that it's something theyshould not have, something that should not be seen.
The general is incredulous: "You didn't get a modified. Youdon't have one of those, do you?"
"I have one."
"Which, from where?"
"From the workshop, from the Al Kendi (ph) Company?"
"What?"
"From Al Kendi (ph)."
"I'll come to see you in the morning. I'm worried. You all havesomething left."
"We evacuated everything. We don't have anything left."
Note what he says: "We evacuated everything."
We didn't destroy it. We didn't line it up for inspection. Wedidn't turn it into the inspectors. We evacuated it to make sure itwas not around when the inspectors showed up.
"I will come to you tomorrow."
The Al Kendi (ph) Company: This is a company that is well knownto have been involved in prohibited weapons systems activity.
Let me play another tape for you. As you will recall,the inspectors found 12 empty chemical warheads on Jan. 16. OnJan. 20, four days later, Iraq promised the inspectors it wouldsearch for more. You will now hear an officer from Republican Guardheadquarters issuing an instruction to an officer in the field. Theirconversation took place just last week on Jan. 30.
(BEGIN AUDIOTAPE)
Let me pause again and review the elements of thismessage.
"They're inspecting the ammunition you have, yes."
"Yes."
"For the possibility there are forbidden ammo."
"For the possibility there is by chance forbidden ammo?"
"Yes."
"And we sent you a message yesterday to clean out all of theareas, the scrap areas, the abandoned areas. Make sure there isnothing there."
Remember the first message, evacuated.
This is all part of a system of hiding things and moving thingsout of the way and making sure they have left nothing behind.
If you go a little further into this message, and you see thespecific instructions from headquarters: "After you have carried outwhat is contained in this message, destroy the message because I don'twant anyone to see this message."
"OK, OK."
Why? Why?
This message would have verified to the inspectors that they havebeen trying to turn over things. They were looking for things. Butthey don't want that message seen, because they were trying to cleanup the area to leave no evidence behind of the presence of weapons ofmass destruction. And they can claim that nothing was there. And theinspectors can look all they want, and they will find nothing.
This effort to hide things from the inspectors is not one or twoisolated events, quite the contrary. This is part and parcel of apolicy of evasion and deception that goes back 12 years, a policy setat the highest levels of the Iraqi regime.
We know that Saddam Hussein has what is called quote, "a highercommittee for monitoring the inspections teams," unquote. Think aboutthat. Iraq has a high-level committee to monitor the inspectors whowere sent in to monitor Iraq's disarmament.
Not to cooperate with them, not to assist them, but tospy on them and keep them from doing their jobs.
The committee reports directly to Saddam Hussein. It is headedby Iraq's vice president, Taha Yassin Ramadan. Its members includeSaddam Hussein's son Qusay.
This committee also includes Lt. Gen. Amir al-Saadi, anadviser to Saddam. In case that name isn't immediately familiar toyou, Gen. Saadi has been the Iraqi regime's primary point ofcontact for Dr. Blix and Dr. ElBaradei. It was Gen. Saadi who lastfall publicly pledged that Iraq was prepared to cooperateunconditionally with inspectors. Quite the contrary, Saadi's job isnot to cooperate, it is to deceive; not to disarm, but to underminethe inspectors; not to support them, but to frustrate them and to makesure they learn nothing.
We have learned a lot about the work of this special committee.We learned that just prior to the return of inspectors last Novemberthe regime had decided to resume what we heard called, quote, "the oldgame of cat and mouse," unquote.
For example, let me focus on the now famous declaration that Iraqsubmitted to this council on Dec. 7. Iraq never had any intentionof complying with this council's mandate.
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