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u.s. officials speeches
Although No WMD Found, Saddam Had Intent, Capability, Powell SaysWashington, DC
October 8, 2004 |
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U.N. Iraq sanctions were falling apart, secretary of state saysEven though the latest report on Iraq's weapons of mass destruction (WMD) states that no stockpiles were found and such programs were abandoned, Secretary of State Colin Powell says Saddam Hussein retained his intent and capability to produce illicit weapons.
In an October 7 interview, Powell said that when he took office, he found that the U.N. sanctions imposed on Iraq in August 1990 when that country invaded Kuwait "were falling apart, and [Saddam Hussein] was going to get a free ride to do whatever he wanted." If this were to continue, he "would go right back to the same kind of behavior that he had [exhibited] in the past," Powell said.
Powell said when he presented the U.S. case on Iraq to the U.N. Security Council in February 2003, everything in it was "supportable based on the collective body of intelligence that the [director of central intelligence] and CIA had provided to policymakers."
The full transcript of Powell's interview is available on the Internet at http://www.state.gov/secretary/rm/36930.htm.
The full text of the Duelfer report is available at http://www.odci.gov/cia/reports/iraq_wmd_2004/index.html.
Following are excerpts from Powell's interview:
U.S. DEPARTMENT OF STATE
Office of the Spokesman
October 8, 2004
INTERVIEW
Secretary of State Colin L. Powell
By Warren Strobel of Knight-Ridder
October 7, 2004
Washington, D.C.
MR. STROBEL: And you know the first question: the Duelfer report [i.e., special report to the director of central intelligence on Iraq's weapons of mass destruction]. Mr. Secretary, it doesn't just say that there weren't stockpiles; it also seems to indicate that this was perhaps a decaying threat, at least on the nuclear side, and that even if Saddam [Hussein] had gotten WMD [weapons of mass destruction], his main initiative or motivation for doing so would have been Tehran and to increase his regional status.
Given that and given the report on [Abu Musab al-]Zarqawi that came out last week -- maybe there's a relationship, maybe there's not -- did the administration miscalculate the threat from Saddam?
SECRETARY POWELL: The only thing that I think we got wrong, really, was that he did not have stockpiles. And I think between what Mr. [David] Kay [former head of Iraq Survey Group] has said and what Mr. [Charles A. Duelfer [current head of Iraq Survey Group] has said, it appears they did not have weapons. But I still have no doubt in my mind about the intention that he had and the capability that he retained. And as you saw from the Duelfer report, he was doing everything he could to get out from under the sanctions. He was cheating on the sanctions. He was deceiving the world, sometimes in ways that are incomprehensible as to why he was trying to deceive the world in that way, which was just putting him at greater risk. But that's what he was doing.
And the intention and the capability were there, the history was there of what this guy has done in the past, and there was no reason to believe -- at least in my judgment and in the judgment of the president and the other coalition leaders -- that if left to his own devices and allowed to be free of the sanctions regime, you could put a bet down: Was he going to go back to weapons of mass destruction or not? And I don't think it was reasonable to think he would not. And certainly Duelfer, when you read the report, it pointed in that direction.
You can then make an assumption, as you did in your question: oh, he was just doing this to deter Iran. Well, you could believe that if you wish. He has used them in the past to kill his own people; and in the post-9/11 world, do you really want that kind of regime around with potential connections to terrorist organizations? Zarqawi had a presence in Baghdad. He traveled in and out. He had murdered, was responsible for the murder of Mr. Laurence Foley in Jordan. And all those things taken together suggest that this was a danger to the region, to the world; and in a post-9/11 environment, it was a risk the president was not going to take, nor were the other coalition leaders.
We tried to keep the sanctions reasonably intact, as you'll recall, Warren, with the smart sanctions.
MR. STROBEL: Right. That was one of your first initiatives.
SECRETARY POWELL: Everything -- first initiative. The reason? Because when I came in, we sat in this room in my first week and discussed this with my staff. The sanctions were falling apart and this guy was going to get a free ride to do whatever he wanted. And he had given every indication over years that if allowed to get that free ride, he would go right back to the same kind of behavior that he had had in the past.
Now, we also believed, based on the intelligence information that we were presented by the director of central intelligence [DCI] and the work done by other intelligence agencies in other countries, that he had stockpiles, and that was information provided to the Congress, to the Senate and to the House, to the president, to me and to everyone else, and information the CIA and the Defense -- the director of central intelligence fully stood behind.
MR. STROBEL: It was in the NIE [National Intelligence Estimate].
SECRETARY POWELL: Mm-hmm.
MR. STROBEL: Stockpiles. Different subject --
SECRETARY POWELL: There was nothing in my presentation of 5 February [2003], nothing the president said, that wasn't supportable based on the collective body of intelligence that the DCI and CIA had provided to policymakers.
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