Armitage testified before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee on Jan. 30, 2003. Here's how his testimony started:
Testimony of Richard L. Armitage
Deputy Secretary of State
Senate Foreign Relations Committee
30 January 2003
Mr. Chairman, Members of the Committee.
In October 2001, a single letter containing one teaspoon of anthrax threw this body into chaos. The offices next door were closed down for three months. Hundreds of your staff were subjected to emergency medical treatment. And two postal service employees died -- the building they worked in is still not open for business.
According to the United Nations Special Commission [UNSCOM], which carried out inspections in Iraq for the better part of a decade, Iraq possesses some 25,000 liters of anthrax. That is, for the record, more than 5 million teaspoons of anthrax. And we have no idea where any of it is. Saddam Hussein has never accounted for one grain of it.
This is a matter of terrible urgency. I welcome the opportunity to discuss with you and this Committee the latest developments in the inspection process and what those developments mean for our commitment, as a country and as part of the world community, to see that Iraq is disarmed fully, finally and right now of all weapons of mass destruction and terror....
You can read his entire speech at http://japan.usembassy.gov/e/p/tp-20030131a3.html.
Regarding which
I have been waiting
in vain
many months now
for an official report
on the status of this missing anthrax.
Surely
a most striking case
of a dog that didn't bark.