Wolfowitz Comments before Council on Foreign Relations

SCOTT RITTER served with UNSCOM from 1991 until August 1998 and is the former chief of its Concealment Investigations Unit.

Seven years in Iraq? Wonder what he did for sexual release during that period.

I'll bet Saddam knows and has pictures.

Uh oh!
CFR.

It was an excellent speech. I didn't hear all of it. Thanks for the transcript.

Wolfowitz brought up SOOOO many great points of fact that it's hard to sort impressions by point, but there are two that are sticking in my head:

1:)) "Intimidation and Coercion: In the past, Iraq did not hesitate to use pressure tactics to obtain information about the inspectors. Often the pressure was quite crude. During the UNSCOM period, one inspector was reportedly filmed in a compromising situation and blackmailed."

He only says one...it's a given that there were more.

2:)) Former inspector David Kay has recalled that in 1991, the inspectors came across a document warning the chief security official of the facility about to be inspected that Kay would lead the U.N. team. That warning had been issued less than 48 hours after the U.N.'s decision had been made, at which time fewer than 10 people within the inspection organization were supposed to know about the operational plan.

MAYBE Iraqi hackers...but information flows MUCH more quickly, smoothly and with less chance of detection when there is inside help.

"screw the globalist CFR"

Agreed, but he accomplished his mission : he got the truth out on cable news networks.

THROWN THE SPANISH FLAG UP THERE, goodnesswins.

At 12:05 p.m today Pacific Time, they announced they, too, are going to support the US if push comes to shove, and will allow the United States to use Spanish air bases.

During the UNSCOM period, one inspector was reportedly filmed in a compromising situation and blackmailed.

If that can be documented, I don't know if it counts as quite a casus belli, but it surely would be a way to make Iraq look very bad.

HOW'S THIS? Added Spain, Qatar, and Kuwait.... DAY of SUPPORT…Tues, 1/28/03....FLY your flags (U.S., British, Hungarian, Polish, Czech, Australian and Japanese one, too if you have them)....and put up your BUSH/CHENEY signs, (and the BIG W's on your SUV's) for the STATE of the UNION next Tuesday, Jan 28th, if you support the President, our MILITARY and the United States of America. PSST....pass it on.

One of the reporters was as disgusting and rude as you could get basically saying that he trusts Iraq more than the United States Government.

Herein is the basic problem with the leftist media (a redundancy, I'm sure). And it's the problem of the peace nazis we saw in the streets this past weekend. These folks are opposed to war with Iraq because they are anti-American. In fact, they are those who probably believe that we had 9/11 coming to us. So what's France and Germany's excuse? Better yet, what's the Democrat Party's excuse?

Better yet, what's the Democrat Party's excuse?

The words Anti-American comes to mind for them as well!

PING

In the 1990s, there were reports that Iraqi intelligence recruited U.N. inspectors as informants, and that Iraqi scientists were fearful about being interviewed. Recent reports that Iraq continues these kinds of efforts are a clear sign that it is not serious about disarmament.

-SNIP-

Intimidation and Coercion: In the past, Iraq did not hesitate to use pressure tactics to obtain information about the inspectors. Often the pressure was quite crude. During the UNSCOM period, one inspector was reportedly filmed in a compromising situation and blackmailed.

During the UNSCOM period, one inspector was reportedly filmed in a compromising situation and blackmailed.

Now, who might that be...?

>I never miss an opportunity to take a jab at CFR, UN...

Of all the "pulpits"
open to the president,
why pick this snake's nest...

Great. Only thing is you need a border around the Japan flag, otherwise it makes it look like a red dot between the other flags. I'll try to give you a flag now with the border intact.

Here's a Japanese flag, WITH a border. Good luck!

Thanks....now if only I could figure out how to post them grouped instead of in a column.....got any ideas? Thanks.

THE Q & A:

Peterson: Okay. We'll now go to our Washington friends. Bob Orr?

Orr: Thank you, Pete. I think Judge Webster will ask the first question.

Q: Mr. Secretary --

Wolfowitz: Hi, Bill.

Q: (Inaudible.) Can you hear me?

Wolfowitz: I can hear you fine.

Q: Fine. Thank you.

Well, your well-chosen remarks brought back many memories of the same kind of dissemination, cheating and evasion 10, 12 years ago, and now we see some more. I think the American people right now, not to mention some of our erstwhile friends and allies around the world, are looking for what kind of a case can be made for what kind of action. And in that -- to that extent, the role of intelligence does play a role.

I think we have heard far more -- at least I have heard far more of a case from you this morning than I have heard in bits and pieces in the last several months of illustrations. And I'm wondering to what extent a strategy can be developed to provide more factual intelligence in a way that does not prejudice, of course, sources and methods, but makes the case in a way that the American people can understand it and be willing to support it.

Wolfowitz: Of course, you know probably better than anyone the difficulties in revealing things we know, because inevitably you reveal things about how you found them out. At the risk of teasing the press, there are three words in my speech that I was forced to substitute for two rather stunning paragraphs, on the grounds that we would say too much about what we're observing even today.

But what I'd really like to do is to go to the premise of this question. And it's not to say it's the wrong question; I understand why people ask it all the time. But just think about it for the moment.

Saddam Hussein must watch CNN. He certainly gets daily reports on every question that's asked here, sort of like a serial murderer sitting out there, saying, "Well, the district attorney has no grounds for arresting this man, no way to go for him."

We have got to send a message to Saddam Hussein that he has to change. If he thinks that every little possible loophole in the case, every possible way of explaining away, every resort to the old patterns of cheat-and-retreat will get him off the hook, then we are going to continue marching down a road that leads to only one and -- one rather grim conclusion.

Twelve years ago we entered, with real expectations, into a process for Iraq's voluntary disarmament. We really believed it would happen. We were disappointed.

This time we went into it with our eyes open, with an understanding that the only way it could happen was if he were convinced that we were prepared to act.

I understand -- I understand very well, and we spent a lot of time talking, especially to senators and congressmen, about the concerns you refer to. But I think it is very important to make it clear we have a powerful case. It is a case grounded in history. It is a case grounded in current intelligence, current intelligence that comes not only from American intelligence, but many of our allies; intelligence that comes not only from sophisticated overhead satellites and our ability to intercept communications, but from brave people who told us the truth at the risk of their lives. We have that; it is very convincing. At some point we can probably talk about more of it.

But right now, time is running out. It is time for Saddam Hussein to do something that he clearly hasn't done yet, and it is the essential solution to this problem.

Orr: Perhaps, Paul, I could give do a little follow-up. Why do you think it's been so difficult to persuade our leading allies -- France and Russia, and so forth -- of the evidence that presumably you've shared a lot of?

Wolfowitz: I don't know. That would sort of require me to speculate about motives, and you get in trouble when you do that.

I think one of the problems with a lot of people is a well-intentioned belief that the key to preventing war is to persuade us that we mustn't act. And the key, in fact, here to achieving the one alternative to war, which is cooperative disarmament, is to persuade Saddam Hussein that he must act. So I would say whatever the intentions of our allies -- and I believe they agree with us completely that he has these weapons -- I would hope they'd put more effort into persuading Saddam Hussein than into persuading us.

Orr: Thank you.

Now we'll come to New York, please.

Yes, sir?

Q: Michael Gordon, New York Times. Paul, I'd like to just follow up on the first question. The Bush administration has asserted not only that Iraq has had weapons of mass destruction, but that it has resumed production of biological and chemical weapons. And President Bush, in his appearance before the General Assembly, cited Iraq's efforts to acquire aluminum tubes as evidence that Iraq was trying to rejuvenate its nuclear weapons program.

But not all of these claims have been accepted by the U.N. inspectors that you cite. For example, just two weeks ago, the IAEA said that it had looked into the matter of the aluminum tubes and determined, on the evidence so far, that it thought they were for a conventional rocket program. And the IAEA also said that the uranium -- attempts to purchase uranium that you cited in your speech today -- that it had received no information from any governments that would allow it to determine the validity of this assertion as to when Iraq tried to purchase uranium, whether it was recent or long ago, as the Iraqis assert.

Given that we're talking about matters of war and peace, does the administration plan to make a further report and provide intelligence information to address these concerns stated by the IAEA in its public report, and to buttress its claims that Iraq has resumed the production of weapons of mass destruction? And if not, is this because of targeting concerns, sources and methods, or do you simply not have reliable information that would stand up in a public forum on this?

Wolfowitz: I think the short answer, Michael, really is there is a lot of evidence; as the evidence accumulates, our ability to talk about it undoubtedly will grow. But we don't have a lot of time; time is running out, and I repeat: What has clearly not happened is any change of attitude by the Iraqi regime.

Yeah, it's possible that we have been misinformed on some things. The only way to verify that you've been misinformed is with the kind of openness of the South Africans or the Ukrainians or the Kazakhs demonstrated. If you can go into places and talk freely to people and look at all the records, you might be convinced. But in a country that has a history of constructing Potemkin villages, there's absolutely no way to know whether what the inspectors were shown were indeed those aluminum tubes that we're concerned about or whether it was a whole facade constructed to substantiate a certain story.

So, you've got to look at Iraq's behavior toward the inspectors; you've got to look at Iraq's intimidation of its scientists. These efforts to obstruct are very, very clear signs of Iraq's intentions, just as 12 years of foregoing what are estimated to be $100 billion to $200 billion of oil revenues in order to not comply with U.N. resolutions are a sign of their policy.

Peterson: Let's take another New York question. Over here, please.

Q: Thank you. I'd like to follow up also on Judge Webster's question. I think, Mr. Wolfowitz, your answer amounts to: "We can't tell you what we have of information, but trust us. It's there." Now, isn't the fundamental principle of a democratic free nation precisely not to trust government? Why should Americans trust their government? We've heard that before in Vietnam, we've heard it many times: "Trust us," and it turned out to be untrustworthy.

I don't see how this administration thinks it can build a policy for war, preventive war, that would be accepted by our allies and by American citizens on the basis of "We've got the info; we can't tell you how we got it or where we got it; we got it, trust us." And isn't that a foolish and ultimately self-destructive way for this administration to proceed?

Wolfowitz: In some cases, we can tell very clearly where we got information from. In some cases, you would put somebody's life at risk if you told how you got it. That's a fact of life; it's not something you can overcome.

I must say I sort of find it astonishing that the issue is whether you can trust the U.S. government. The real issue is, can you trust Saddam Hussein? And it seems to me the record is absolutely clear that you can't. And we're going to have to have some very powerful evidence that he has changed and that we can trust him, because otherwise, we are trusting our security in the hands of a man who makes ricin, who makes anthrax, who makes botulism toxin, who makes aflatoxin, and who has no compunctions whatsoever about consorting with terrorists. Who do you want to trust?

Peterson: (Calls on questioner.)

Q: Kathleen McCarthy, the Graduate Center, City University of New York. Thank you for a very interesting talk, Mr. Secretary.

My question is this: Why is it a much more important immediate short-term goal to disarm Iraq than North Korea, when we know that North Korea also has a very sophisticated arsenal and ties to terrorist groups. Why is supporting and promoting freedom in Iraq more important than promoting freedom in North Korea, when we also know that the administration there is very cruel as well?

Wolfowitz: It's a reasonable question and I hear it a lot. It seems to me, though, very often it sort of comes in the form of let's not do anything because everything ought to wait for something else. When President Bush first talked about Iran and Iraq and North Korea in the same speech, everybody said, "It's terrible, these countries are all different." Well, they are different. We've developed different policies for each. And now that we have different policies, people say, "How come you're treating them differently?" (Laughter.)

We have not one, but 17, U.N. Security Council resolutions to deal with the problem of Iraq. We're at a point of real decision, and if we lose that point, the credibility not only of the United States but of the entire world body is going to go down the tubes. We haven't yet even been able to bring the North Korean issue to the Security Council, much less have a resolution. When we do -- and I think we will, and I think we should, and I think we're going to -- our credibility and the credibility of the Security Council will be greatly increased if we have managed -- peacefully or, if necessary, by force -- to enforce the will of the U.N. expressed in 1441.

These are different cases, different countries. The North Korean people suffer as much, maybe worse, if it's possible. They're the only candidates in the world for suffering worse than the Iraqi people.

But again, it is a different case. We have different partners, different countries to work with. We have got to have a strategy that doesn't just do one problem at a time, take the most important one and wait for everything else. We're trying, in a reasonable way, to focus now where we have the world's entire attention focused, to clean up something that's 12 years old.

The North Korean problem is there, and we're also dealing with that. But it's a good question. Thank you.

I think this has to be my last one. Pete, I'm sorry.

Peterson: All right. Well, then we'll go to Washington, please. Bob Orr?

Orr: Karen DeYoung?

Q: Thank you. My question is also on intelligence. You said that it's not the job of inspectors to find weapons of mass destruction in Iraq and disarm Iraq, but it's for Iraq to voluntarily supply that information. If that's the case, why, then, are we interested in giving the inspectors some of our most sensitive intelligence information, as we've said we've done, to help them find those weapons?

And secondarily, we now say that we have been supplying some of that information, primarily site information, presumably so that the inspectors have a chance of finding some of it. Yet it doesn't seem to have produced any results yet. Is that because, in your view, that the intelligence was mistaken, or the inspectors have not been able to follow up on all of it yet? And if the latter is the case, then what's the case against giving them more time to use that intelligence?

Wolfowitz: There are many good reasons for giving the inspectors intelligence, starting with the fact that we've been asked by the Security Council in 1441 to do exactly that. And we believe in complying with the resolution, though the Iraqis are not. And as I said in my talk, at some length, there is a clear, important role for inspectors to play in verifying if you have genuine compliance. And if you saw the signs of genuine compliance, you would also want the most sophisticated intelligence, to make sure that those signs that you saw were not somehow deceptions.

But when you see signs, absolutely clear signs, that that fundamental decision to disarm hasn't been made; when you start with 12,200 pages of what has been called, correctly, a long, long lie, the inspectors are disabled. The inspectors are there, I repeat, to enable us to have confidence, if Iraq decides to disarm cooperatively, that it has in fact done so.

If Iraq decides to continue hiding and cheating and stealing, the inspectors cannot disarm Iraq, and they may or may not find particular things in particular places. Biological weapons labs, as I mentioned, are a prime example.

But if you're looking for evidence, you can start with the fact that they have a declaration that is known to be false even by the standards of the old U.N. report.

Thank you very much. (Applause.)

<img src="..." border="1"> works pretty well too.

Goodness...I THOUGHT that must be a Japanese flag.

Thanks for adding the Q&A.