Today, we face the question of what to do once a nation, in
this case Iraq, has such weapons.
United Nations’ inspections between 1991 and 1998 were
successful in uncovering and reducing much of Iraq’s WMD
capabilities. Economic sanctions have prevented Iraq from
acquiring materials to restore its military-industrial base and
have severely limited clandestine arms acquisition.
However, Iraq continues to pose a significant national
security threat to the United States. Iraq continues to
rebuilding its weapon of mass destruction capabilities. If U.N.
sanctions were completely lifted, its weapons program would
accelerate. We may have hindered or prevented upgrades to Iraq’s
WMD capabilities, but what should we do about the capabilities
they already possess? Even this may not be the case, as one of
our witnesses today will state his assessment that Iraq’s
Biological Weapons program is stronger today than it was in
1990.
These are the facts:
Iraq had a sophisticated WMD program, including
nuclear weapons.
Iraq used chemical weapons against its own people and
its neighbor, Iran.
Iraq had and has a missile program which can deliver
WMD.
We believe that Iraq continues to have and develop
WMD warheads.
Now, the key questions are how worried do we need to be and
what should we do about it?
Should we become more aggressive militarily and more active
in our support of Iraqi opposition groups?
There has been considerable discussion about whether or not
the United States should invade Iraq to overthrow Saddam
Hussein.
There has been less talk about invading Iran although Iraq,
Iran, and North Korea are described by President Bush as the
"axis of evil."
Yet the WMD programs in Iran may be more advanced because
they have been able to proceed without the restraint of UN
sanctions. Iran is believed to be developing nuclear, chemical
and biological weapons and intercontinental ballistic missiles.
We also know that the Department of State lists Iran as an
active state sponsor of terrorism and as systematically abusing
its own people. We hope Iran can change from within but there
are no guarantees and anti-American hardliners appear to be
still in charge.
Can we attack one country and not the other ?
That question is among the many I hope we’ll address today.
For example, another Gulf War will likely require many more
troops than are now deployed in Afghanistan and may result in
chemical and biological attacks against our forces.
My view at this time is that we should continue to push to
get UN inspectors back on the ground both to constrain the Iraqi
WMD program and to gain a better understanding of the scope of
current Iraqi efforts. Keeping Saddam Hussein bottled up and
forcing him to confront obstacles in every direction is not a
bad outcome as we consider our long term strategy while
rebuilding our military arsenal.
I have asked our witnesses to describe the current Iraqi WMD
threat. They will also discuss the impact sanctions have had on
the weapon programs and how international opinion of the Iraqi
WMD threat has changed. I have also asked them to discuss policy
options and their consequences.
Our witnesses are the Honorable Robert Einhorn, Dr. David
Kay, and Dr. Richard Spertzel.
Robert Einhorn of the Center for Strategic and International
Studies was Assistant Secretary for Nonproliferation in the
State Department. He was responsible for nonproliferation of
nuclear, chemical, and biological weapons, missile delivery
systems, and advanced conventional arms. His experience will
serve us well in our discussion today.
Our second witness, Dr. David Kay of the Science Applications
International Corporation, was the United Nations’ Chief Nuclear
Weapons Inspector and led many inspections into Iraq to
determine their nuclear weapons production capability. He will
share his insight and expertise on the Iraqi nuclear weapon
program.
Our final witness, Dr. Richard Spertzel is a retired Army
colonel and former Deputy Commander of the U.S. Army Medical
Research Institute of Infectious Diseases at Fort Detrick and is
an expert on biological weapons. He has served as the head of
the United Nations Special Commission Biological Weapon
Inspections team in Iraq from 1994 to 1998. I look forward to
hearing his views on Iraq’s biological weapon prospects.
I want to thank all of our witnesses for being with us today
and helping us make sense of the numerous reports and
speculations about Iraq’s WMD capabilities.
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