This Subcommittee has held hearings over the past five months on weapons of mass destruction proliferation around the globe and the threat they pose to the United States and our allies. We have discussed how non-proliferation programs, multilateral regimes, and export controls can prevent the spread of WMD to other countries and terrorist organizations.
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: 1. Iraq had a sophisticated WMD program, including nuclear weapons. 2. Iraq used chemical weapons against its own people and its neighbor, Iran. 3. Iraq had and has a missile program which can deliver WMD. 4. 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.
