Thank you very much Congressman Conyers for the kind words of introduction.

I sit before you in awe of the intellectual and moral integrity of the two gentlemen to my left. I think everybody in this room should pay heed to what they have said about the situation in Iraq. I cannot add to what they have said. The XXXXX of sanctions alone apparently has not grabbed the imagination of the American people. Apparently, the subject of the deaths of four thousand, five thousand, six thousand, however many thousand Iraqi children under the age of five, has not shocked the American public into doing something. Mr. Halliday has just set out some ideas, some concepts about moving this issue forward, but frankly speaking none of this has a chance of succeeding so long as it is XXXXXX It is very important that Congress be apprised of this threat and that Congress be apprised of the situation in Iraq.

I sit before you as an unlikely ally in this cause. I'm very conservative, Marine Corp.- trained, a Republican. And yet this not a Republican issue. This is not a Democratic issue. This is an American issue. So I sit before you--[Applause]--so I sit before you today as an American and an American with a unique perspective. We have to overcome the concern that exists-and it is a justified concern-what will happen if sanctions are lifted? Will we be not or will we not be empowering this brutal dictatorship that exists in Iraq? Will we not be coddling a dictator and giving him the means of reconstituting the weapons of mass destruction programs I and many others like me struggled so long to rid the world of. Will Iraq not immediately become or resume its role as international pariah by threatening its neighbors. This is the question, frankly speaking, that you-members of Congress--must address to your constituents. And it's one of the reasons why the issue of sanctions has not caught hold. Prior to the Gulf War, the United Sates spent a lot of time preparing the American people for the prospect of sending its young servicemen and women abroad to fight in a war. And they did so by demonizing Saddam Hussein, a man who, frankly speaking, is very easy to demonize. He is a brutal dictator. He has a long record of human rights violations. Demonizing Saddam Hussein is not a problem. Dealing with Saddam Hussein from the perspective of fact seems to be a problem. While Saddam Hussein is a horrible leader , a brutal dictator, and is clearly repressing the innocent people of Iraq, he is not the Middle East equivalent of Adolph Hitler. Saddam Hussein in his government in Baghdad is not capable of world or regional domination. And yet this seems to be a fear that many put forward. And frankly speaking, a lot of the blame for the perceptions that exist in this crowd and around the United States today can be laid at my doorstep.

In September of 1998 when I resigned as an inspector from the United Nations Special Commission, I testified between a joint session of the United States Senate and before a joint session of the United States Congress and I spoke about Iraq. And I spoke about Iraq from the perspective of a weapons inspector. It was not my business to sit before the distinguished members of Congress and put forward a solution on how to solve the Iraqi problem. I resigned for one reason and one reason only and that is because of the manipulation by the government of the United States in the process of weapons inspections as mandated by the XXXXXX

I was speaking out as a proponent of adhering to international law, to international norms, to the process that had been agreed upon by the Security Council and set forth under Chapter Seven resolutions. And I was putting out a clear warning to the members of Congress and to anybody who cared to listen that should we continue as American government to manipulate the process of weapons inspections, we will kill the weapons inspection process and we will create the scenario for something that is less than honest in terms of dealing with the problem of Iraq. I called it the illusion of arms control.

Well, ladies and gentlemen, in December of 1998 apparently my warnings went unheeded because the government of the United States undertook military action called Desert Fox which had nothing to do with pushing forward the mandate of the Security Council and everything to do with pushing forward the mandate of the United States government, that is to get rid of Saddam Hussein-- not to get rid of weapons of mass destruction. And much as I had feared, this manipulation led to the demise of the inspections program. So don't judge my position today based upon the narrow interpretation of my words in September of 1998. I spoke as an inspector in defense of the international standards for dealing with Iraq as codified by Security Council resolutions. I spoke in warning that should we continue with our policy we will destroy the framework of international law. That framework has been destroyed and we must seek a way through the Security Council to reestablish that framework.

The main problem is how do we de-demonize a demon--upon the basis of fact not the basis of fiction. There are many aspects to this difficult problem. I will address one. And that is weapons of mass destruction. Under the original Security Council resolutions put forward regarding Iraq's disarmament obligation, Iraq-- terms of compliance were established at one hundred percent-one hundred percent. That means that Iraq cannot be found in compliance so long as it possesses any weapons, weapons components, means of production, or raw materiel associated with these weapons of mass destruction. When I sat before Congress in 1998, Iraq had not complied with its obligations to disarm in accordance with the mandate of the Security Council.

But that's not the problem facing us today. The problem facing us today is what threat does Iraq present and what threat will Iraq present should sanctions be lifted. Original resolutions against Iraq are quantitative in terms of determining Iraq's disarmament obligation-that is one hundred percent. But the reality is that, from a qualitative standpoint, when you judge Iraq's current weapons of mass destruction capabilities today, they have none. In terms of long-range ballistic missiles, missiles with a range greater than 150 kilometers, Iraq no longer has these missiles. They have been disarmed. In terms of missile production facilities, which were associated with the production of long range missiles, these facilities have either been destroyed, dismantled, or prior to the American military action in 1998under strict monitoring by the weapons inspectors. The same holds true with chemical weapons. In 1991 Iraq had one of the largest chemical weapons manufacturing establishments outside of the United States and Russia-that is the MUFANA STATE establishment. That establishment no longer exists today and all establishments that were capable of dual purpose activities, that is activities that could be modified for use in the production of chemical weapons, were subject to strict monitoring by weapons inspectors prior to December 1998.

The same holds true for biology. The same holds true for nuclear. So when we talk about Iraq's current weapons of mass destruction threat, the answer is there is no weapons of mass destruction threat.

Now when you lift economic sanctions, is Iraq immediately going to be able to reconstitute this capability? Again, as Mr. Halliday has said sanctions cannot be lifted in a vacuum. Right now the current legal framework for the lifting of sanctions is Iraqi compliance with the Security Council mandate to disarm. If the Security Council were to reevaluate Iraq's disarmament obligations along qualitative lines not quantitative, it would be very easy to come up with a finding of compliance. And once that finding of compliance has been given , if you reestablish a viable monitoring regime-not a bunch of Scott Ritter type inspections going around Iraq looking for every last nut, screw, bolt, and shred of documentation. Those aren't weapons of mass destruction. Those are things that can be used by Iraq to reconstitute a weapons of mass destruction capability but in themselves are nothing more than a bunch of garbage. And as long as you have weapons inspectors in place carrying out viable monitoring, that material is useless to Iraq.