27 January 2003
White House Cites Links Between al Qaeda and Iraq
(White House Report) (300) Speaking shortly before United Nations Chief Weapons Inspector Hans Blix delivered his report on Iraq to the U.N. Security Council, White House Press Secretary Ari Fleisher said the Saddam Hussein regime continues to give the U.N. inspectors the runaround. "The United States will read the Blix report to see one thing," Fleisher told reporters in his daily early morning meeting with them on January 27. "Is Iraq complying -- yes or no? If the answer is only partially yes, then the answer is no," Fleischer said. "What we know on the chemical warheads, which can kill millions, is that Iraq has discovered 16 of the 30,000. At the pace that Iraq is cooperating, it will take inspectors 300 years to find the rest," said Fleischer. He repeated what he had said last week, that Iraq is "running out of time." The White House also reported concerns about links between Iraq and al Qaeda. "We clearly know...there have been contacts between senior Iraqi officials and members of al Qaeda going back for quite a long time," Fleischer said. "We know that several of the detainees, particularly some high-ranking detainees, have told us that Iraq provided some training to al Qaeda on chemical weapons development. So, yes, there are links between al Qaeda and Iraq. There are some al Qaeda personnel who found refuge in Baghdad. It is a source of concern. "It is a serious concern about Saddam Hussein being armed with chemical weapons and taking the lives of millions," the press secretary said. "These aren't toys. These are weapons that inflict massive, gruesome casualties -- particularly when a regime has 30,000 warheads." (Distributed by the Office of International Information Programs, U.S. Department of State. Web site: http://usinfo.state.gov)
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