09 December 2002
Full Disclosure Saddam Hussein's Only Hope, Former Inspector Says
(Believes Iraq playing "hide and seek" with UNMOVIC) (620) By Carolene Langie Washington File Writer Washington -- Saddam Hussein's back is against the wall and the only way he can avoid war is to completely disclose his weapons of mass destruction, according to former United Nations chief nuclear weapons inspector David Kay. Kay, now a senior fellow at the Potomac Institute for Policy Studies, spoke December 6 at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy. He told a group of about 50 scientists, scholars and journalists that inspections alone are unlikely to resolve the question of whether there will be military action against Iraq. "I think we are headed where we have always been headed with Saddam, and perhaps the only thing that will terminate his quest for weapons of mass destruction is, in fact, the termination of that regime," said Kay, who led the U.N.'s nuclear weapons inspection team in Iraq from 1991 to 1992. Kay said the inspectors again are being forced into a game of hide and seek in Iraq. He described how, when he was an inspector in Iraq, security guards would delay inspectors' entry into sites while apparently moving items to other buildings. On December 7, Baghdad submitted to U.N. officials a 12,000-page document, saying it was the regime's complete and final disclosure of information related to Iraqi weapons of mass destruction, in compliance with the timetable laid out in U.N. Security Council Resolution 1441. Interviewed December 8 on NBC's Meet the Press, a nationally televised news program, Kay said that the U.N. Monitoring, Verification and Inspection Commission, (UNMOVIC) faces a dead-end trap in Iraq. "What you're going to find are pieces, little pieces, of evidence," he said. Kay also said Iraq is using the global media it to manipulate public opinion. "I'm very impressed about the Iraqi understanding of media savvy. The first people to see the report? The world's media. And you saw a media gang following inspectors around last week," he said. Another example of the regime's adroit disinformation efforts, Kay told NBC, is its depiction of the effects of U.N. economic sanctions on the Iraqi people. "Most of the world believes its economic sanctions are kept in place by the United States, when in fact, it's the manipulation of economic sanctions by Saddam's regime which hurts women and children." Kay believes Saddam Hussein is pursuing nuclear, chemical and other deadly weapons to achieve the goals of Iraqi domination of the Middle East, the removal of U.S. influence in the region, and the elimination of the state of Israel. Kay said he believes inspectors cannot disarm a country that doesn't want to disarm and that Saddam Hussein has put himself in the position where the burden is on him to prove he has not pursued banned weapons programs. The prohibitions on Iraq's military programs are "based on almost 20 years of Iraqi misdeeds, cheating, lying, invading neighbors and using these weapons. It's not as if we've gone out and picked on Belgium," Kay said. Kay also said that if military action ensues, it's important to finish the job. "Saddam has violated his commitments repeatedly and spent vast amounts of money to acquire these weapons. ... By letting him walk the earth repeatedly, we allow him to lose his fear of us. Over time he has become much more dangerous and it's a risk that is unacceptable to run with weapons of mass destruction," Kay said. Iraqi officials deny the country has any weapons of mass destruction. However, U.S. officials maintain they have their own intelligence reports that Iraq does, indeed, have them, and President Bush has threatened that a U.S.-led coalition will disarm Saddam if he won't voluntarily do so. (The Washington File is a product of the Office of International Information Programs, U.S. Department of State. Web site: http://usinfo.state.gov)
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