Replies to post #329699 on Zeev's Turnips Talk Politics (ZTTP)

[benzdealeror2]

A little blast from the past...;) Amazing quotes...The only guy with any sense is the General. Read the bold statements.

08 September 2002
U.S. Officials Make the Case Against Saddam Hussein in Sunday Interviews
(Cheney, Powell, Rumsfeld, Rice, Myers appear on Sept. 8 talk shows)
(1440)
By Howard Cincotta and Tom Eichler
Washington -- Senior U.S. officials, appearing on major U.S.
television news programs on September 8, stressed that Saddam Hussein
poses a deep and growing threat not only to the United States but to
the international community.
In making the case against the Iraqi regime, and the imperative for
action to end the threat, officials were preparing the both the
American public and foreign governments for President Bush's address
on Iraq to the United Nations General Assembly on September 12 -- one
day after the anniversary of the terrorist attacks of September 11,
2001.
"We are trying very hard not be unilateralist," Vice President Cheney
said on NBC's Meet the Press. "We are working to build support with
the American people, with the Congress, as many have suggested we
should. And we are also as many of us suggested we should, going to
the United Nations, and the president will address this issue."
Cheney pointed out that Saddam Hussein has repeatedly refused to
comply with U.N. resolutions; aggressively sought to acquire chemical,
biological, and nuclear weapons; used chemical weapons against Iran
and his own people; and both invaded his neighbors and launched
ballistic missiles against them.
More recently, Cheney said, intelligence reports indicate that Saddam
has increased his capacity to develop biological weapons and
significantly reconstituted his nuclear weapons program.
A nation needs three elements to acquire a nuclear weapon, Cheney
said, technical expertise, a weapons design, and weapons-grade
material such as plutonium or enriched uranium.
According to Cheney, Saddam has the first two nuclear components --
technical knowledge and at least two different designs for nuclear
weapons -- found after the Gulf War. "We do know with absolute
certainty that he is using his procurement system to acquire the
equipment he needs in order to enrich uranium to build a nuclear
weapons," he added.
Cheney concluded that the United States may find itself in a situation
where it has to defend itself with military action. "We would like to
do it with the sanction of the international community. But the point
in Iraq is this problem has to be dealt with one way or the other."
The threat posed by the Iraqi regime is one that the world community
must confront, said Secretary of State Colin Powell, interviewed on
Fox News Sunday. "Saddam Hussein and the Iraqi regime, by their
violation of these resolutions over these many years, is affronting
the international community, is violating the will of the
international community, violating the will of the United Nations."
Powell said there is "no doubt" that Saddam Hussein has chemical
weapons stocks, and "we are confident" that he has some stocks of
biological weapons and is probably trying to develop more. On the
question of nuclear weapons capability, Powell pointed to recent
reports that Saddam Hussein is trying to acquire specialized aluminum
tubing that would be used in centrifuges to enrich uranium to
weapons-grade level.
So there is no question that Saddam Hussein has weapons of mass
destruction, Powell said. "But even more importantly, he is striving
to do even more, to get even more. That's why he won't let the
inspectors back in. That's why he has frustrated the will of the
international community, and that's why he has been violating all of
these resolutions for all these years."
Powell stressed that the United States is committed to the elimination
of Iraq's weapons of mass destruction, not simply the return of
weapons inspectors.
"You should have a skeptical attitude as to how much inspections can
do," Powell said, "particularly in the presence of a regime that's
going to do everything they can to hide things from inspectors. But we
are going to discuss all of this with our friends and colleagues, and
the president will make a statement with his conclusions as to what he
thinks we should do to move forward as a community, as an
international community."
Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, appearing the same day on CBS's
Face the Nation, also stated that the goal of inspections is
disarmament. "The question is ... is there such a thing as an
inspection regime that would be sufficiently intrusive ... that you
could at the end of that period say to yourself, 'Well, fair enough,
he's disarmed. ...'
Rumsfeld, noting that the administration is relying on intelligence
sources in forming its judgments of Saddam Hussein's intentions, said
not all that intelligence can be shared with the public. "We spend
billions of dollars gathering intelligence ... and to the extent you
take that intelligence and spread it out in the public record, what
you do is you put people's lives at risk, the sources of that
information."
Asked nevertheless whether some of the intelligence would become known
in the weeks to come, Rumsfeld said "I'm sure some of it will; I'm
sure some of it won't."
The secretary said it is no surprise that there is not unanimity on
the Iraq issue. The president has not yet made the case, he said, but
will make it at the U.N. General Assembly in coming days, and
administration officials will be making it in congressional testimony
in the weeks ahead. He noted that it took time to build up the
coalition against terrorism. "It was built one country at a time over
a long period of time. And why? Because if you're right, if you
provide leadership, and you stake out a direction, people, over time,
find a way to support that."
Appearing on CNN, National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice sounded a
similar warning about the need to act now against the threat posed by
Saddam Hussein.
"There is no doubt that Saddam Hussein's regime is a danger to the
United States and to its allies. It is also a danger that is gathering
momentum," she said in an interview with CNN reporter Wolf Blitzer,
"and it simply makes no sense to wait any longer to do something about
the threat that is posed here."
Rice noted that not only does the U.N. charter endorse the right of
self defense, but it is under the charter that the U.N. has issued
repeated resolutions calling for the Iraqi regime to eliminate its
weapons of mass destruction.
Without weapons inspections, Rice said, no one knows for certain how
close he is to acquiring nuclear weapons. "But we don't want the
smoking gun to be a mushroom cloud."
In response to the Iraqi claim that it no longer possesses weapons of
mass destruction, Rice said, "This is a regime that has lied and
cheated. It is a regime that refused to admit anything to weapons
inspectors until defectors came out and pinpointed where certain
programs were taking place."
Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff General Richard B. Myers,
appearing on ABC's This Week, said he thinks Iraq's military
capabilities now "are much less" than they were in 1991 during the
Gulf War. "On the other hand, the U.S. armed forces and the armed
forces of our friends and allies are much stronger," he added.
Myers said, for example, that about five percent of the munitions used
by U.S. forces in the Gulf War were precision-guided munitions, while
in the Afghanistan action that began in October 2001 approximately
55-60 percent of U.S. munitions were precision-guided.
Saddam Hussein "has been somewhat hampered by the restrictions put on
him in the Oil-for-Food Program, although he has found ways to
circumvent much of that. But we think he is a much weakened military,"
said Myers.
Asked about the risks to U.S. combatants if they were to become
involved in urban combat in Iraq, Myers said "I would just caution
people there are lots of ways to defeat an enemy, to have the effects
on the battlefield that you want to have. Door-to-door fighting would
be one of those ways, there are many other ways. And I can guarantee
you that, you know, we're looking at all those options with respect
not just to Iraq but just how we conduct warfare in the 21st century.
... [A]n urban situation is a very, very tough situation. But it's one
for the last decade at least that the Army and the U.S. Marine Corps
have worked on very hard, as well as the U.S. Air Force and the Navy.
So it's not a situation we're unfamiliar with. But nothing dictates
that that's where we go."
(Distributed by the Office of International Information Programs, U.S.
Department of State. Web site: http://usinfo.state.gov)

http://www.globalsecurity.org/wmd/library/news/iraq/2002/iraq-020908-usia02.htm

[rollingrock]

that isn't the way it happened.//