Charles Duelfer Senate transcript: Did Iraq have WMD?

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Senator John W. Warner (R-Va):  The committee meets today to receive the testimony from Mr. Charles A. Duelfer, the special adviser to the director of Central Intelligence regarding Iraqi weapons of mass destruction programs, concerning his report {html copy} on efforts to determine the status of weapons of mass destruction and related programs in Iraq.

Mr. Duelfer is joined by Brigadier General Joseph P. McMenamin, United States Marine Corps, military commander of the Iraqi Survey Group.

This is the sixth time the committee has received testimony from the top leaders of the Iraq Survey Group. Our committee views the work of this group a very, very important part of our overall policy and objective and aims in Iraq.

We welcome both.

We thank you for your service under difficult and often personally dangerous conditions.

When Senator Stevens, Senator Hollings, and I met with Mr. Duelfer and the ISG in Baghdad this past March, we witnessed firsthand the damaged vehicles that you utilized in the daily operation of your work and the consequent hazards that you face, not only yourself, but all of your team.

America, and indeed the world, is indebted to you for this risky operation that you have performed and are continuing, General, to perform.

The mission of the Iraq Survey Group has been to search for all facts — and I repeat, all facts — relevant to the many issues involving Iraqi weapons of mass destruction and related programs and their status, in the past and today and what they might have been in the future.

This very complex, difficult mission will continue until all possible leads are exhausted.

Sen. Warner: Patience will continue to be required to ensure that this mission is completed with a thorough assessment of all facts.

I think we should step back a minute in history and remember that the issue of Iraq’s possession and use of weapons of mass destruction has a long history.

Iraq used chemical weapons against Iran during the Iran-Iraq war.

Against their own people they used chemical weapons, the Kurds.

In 1991, following the first Gulf War, the United Nations Security Council adopted resolution 687 {910kb.pdf, 910kb.pdf}, which stated, and I quote,

A clear statement of policy by the world community confirming the existence of such weapons and programs.

What followed was 12 years of Iraqi obstruction and 12 of the 17 additional U.N. Security Council resolutions demanding Iraq compliance with its ’91 obligations to destroy its weapons of mass destruction and capabilities.

In other words, the U.N. had repeatedly — repeatedly — tried to enforce the purposes of 687 {910kb.pdf, 910kb.pdf} with subsequent resolutions.

There was no doubt about Iraq’s capabilities and intentions in this area in that period.

Now, in November 2002, U.N. Security Council Resolution 1441 {58kb.pdf, 58kb.pdf} recognized — I underline the word “recognized” — and I quote it:

And continuing, it said:

We are still, to this day, seeking a full, final and complete disclosure of all the facts on this issue.

And I compliment both of you for your efforts to achieve that goal.

In this hearing today, we will receive your assessment of what has been accomplished, what conclusions have been reached concerning Iraqi WMD weapons programs, and what, in your professional judgment, remains to be done by the Iraq Survey Group.

The findings of Mr. Duelfer and the Iraq Survey Group have been significant.

While the ISG has not found stockpiles of WMD, the ISG and other coalition elements have developed a body of fact that shows that Saddam Hussein had, first, the strategic intention to continue to pursue WMD capabilities; Two, created ambiguity about his WMD capabilities that he used to extract concessions on the international world of disclosure and discussion and negotiation.

He used it as bargaining tactic and as a strategic deterrent against his neighbors and others.

Ongoing WMD research programs; he had them.

He had also a capability for quickly reviving chemical weapons production on a large scale within months — examples: mustard gas within three to six months, and nerve agents within two years.

Furthermore, Saddam Hussein deceived U.N. inspectors for over 12 years.

And lastly, he systematically attempted to thwart and undermine U.N. and other international sanctions.

These are important lessons we must apply to current and future U.S. and international efforts to stop the scourge of proliferation of such weapons elsewhere in the world.

It is clear from your statements and Mr. Duelfer’s reports that your conclusions differ from the pre-war assessments of our intelligence community, differ from the assessments of the United Nations, and differ from the assessments of intelligence services of many other nations.

That’s a cause for concern.

The Intelligence Committee report on prewar intelligence concerning WMD programs concluded that there were shortcomings in the intelligence provided to the policy-makers and to the Congress.

Your report {html copy} lends credence to the conclusions of that committee.

And my understanding—

I’m a member of that committee, you testified before that committee this morning.

We must understand why and take corrective measures.

Our policy-makers must be able to rely on the intelligence they are provided and our battlefield commanders must have sound intelligence.

The lives of our men and women in uniform and many others are dependent on that intelligence, as does the security of our nation.

As we speak, over 1,700 individuals, military and civilian, are in Iraq and Qatar, continuing to search for facts about Iraq’s WMD programs.

The ISG has had some of the best and the brightest of our military and our intelligence community to accomplish this task.

And we thank them for their service.

We thank you, Mr. Duelfer, for the service that you have provided to our nation.

And, General McMenamin, for the service that you and the ISG are continuing to provide.

We look forward to your testimony.

Senator Levin.

Senator Carl Levin (D-MI) {FNS pf}: Thank you, Mr. chairman.

Let me first join you in welcoming our witnesses, Mr. Duelfer, General McMenamin.

Thank you both for your presence.

Thank you for your service to this nation.

The Iraq Survey Group began its mission in June 2003.

It’s mission was very clear, and it was stated to be the following by the former director of central intelligence, George Tenet:

It’s been 15 months since the ISG began its work, a survey group with some 1,750 employees, and having made visits to 1,200 suspect WMD sites, has not found weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, nor evidence that Iraq had stockpiles of such weapons at the start of the war.

It is important to emphasize that central fact, because the administration’s case for going to war against Iraq rested on the twin arguments, that Saddam Hussein had existing stockpiles of weapons of mass destruction and that he might give weapons of mass destruction to Al Qaida to attack us — as Al Qaida had attacked us on 9/11.

So the fundamental conclusion of the ISG effort means that the administration’s two major arguments for going to war against Iraq were incorrect.

We did not go to war because Saddam had future intentions to obtain weapons of mass destruction.

The administration told the American people that we had to attack Iraq because Iraq possessed stockpiles of weapons of mass destruction and that they were allied with terrorists like Al Qaida, to whom Iraq would like to give such weapons.

Here’s just a few examples.

In August of 2002, Vice President Cheney said quote:

 
 

President Bush asserted on September 26, 2002, that, quote:

 
 

And one day later he spoke of, quote:

close quote.

 
 

In September of 2003, Vice President Cheney described Iraq as the, quote:

close quote.

 
 

On October 7, 2002, President Bush said:

 
 

In his March 17, 2003, speech to the nation on the eve of the war, President Bush said, quote:

 
 

Now, these are just a few examples of many similar statements made by senior administration officials before the war.

So before we delve today into a speculative discussion about Saddam’s possible future intentions, with respect to weapons of mass destruction, it is important to return to the starting point, for the administration’s argument for going to war, that Saddam possessed stockpiles of chemical and biological weapons and might give them to terrorists to attack us.

We’ve heard many claims before the war about Iraq’s weapons, and efforts to build more deadly weapons.

The American people were told about aluminum tubes that Vice President Cheney said we knew with, quote:

close quote, were intended for nuclear weapons.

 
 

And which Condoleezza Rice said were:

 
 

We were told about unmanned aerial vehicles in Saddam Hussein’s possession that were intended for delivering biological weapons, including against the U.S. homeland.

We were told about Iraqi efforts to obtain uranium from Africa.

These allegations — like the assertions about Iraq having weapons of mass destruction in their stockpiles — were all wrong.

And that’s what today’s report will state {html copy}.

After the war started, the administration began an effort to change the subject of the debate, from the actual presence of weapons of mass destruction to WMD programs, then to WMD-related program activities and, more recently, to speculation about intentions.

However, that effort cannot obscure the historical fact, and the critical fact — that’s most critical to the American people — that as President Bush’s press secretary acknowledged, quote:

Close quote.

 
 

We welcome this report today.

Commend again both of you for making yourself available today.

And we also want to thank you for making this an unclassified report {html copy}.

Given the importance of this issue, the public deserves to know as much as possible about the details, and we look forward to your testimony.

Sen. Warner: Thank you, Senator Levin.

Mr. Duelfer?

Charles A. Duelfer (Special Advisor to the Director of Central Intelligence for Strategy Regarding Iraqi Weapons of Mass Destruction Programs): Senators, thank you very much for the opportunity to appear here today.

Sen. Warner: You have an extensive prepared written statement {105kb.pdf} which will be placed into the record in its entirety.

The same with you, General {223kb.pdf}.

Mr. Duelfer: If I may, I would like to go through it just to—

Sen. Warner: Oh, I’m not suggesting other than all of it’s going to be in.

Mr. Duelfer: OK. Thank you.

I’d also like to thank those of you who came out and visited in Baghdad.

That means a lot to the people doing this work to know that there are people who really are interested in the work that goes on out there.

I know it is a difficult trip to make, is not a safe trip to make, but I welcome it.

I know that General McMenamin welcomes it. And I think it’s a useful thing to do. You do get a sense of what goes on on the ground.

Thank you very much.

The relationship between Iraq and the rest of the world has been complicated and dangerous for three decades, a dilemma that has confounded the international community through much of recent history.

Three wars, devastating sanctions, and an endless progression of international crises have eroded or ruined thousands of lives.

The region and Iraq are both complicated and unstable, and obviously very dangerous. Weapons of mass destruction have added to the uncertainty and risk posed by an unpredictable and clearly aggressive regime in Baghdad.

This report {html copy} is not simply an accounting of the program fragments that we have examined in the aftermath of the recent war and the ongoing conflict.

Nor is it my aim merely to describe the status of a program at a single point in time.

The complexity and importance of the question deserves a more synthetic approach, in my opinion.

Instead, the objective of this report is to identify the dynamics of the regime’s WMD decisions over time.

I want to identify the area under the curve, not just a single point on a trend line that may be going up or down.

In other words, this problem deserves calculus, not algebra, and thus the report {html copy} I have prepared attempts to describe Iraqi WMD programs not in isolation, but in the context of the aims and objectives of the regime that created and used them.

Which is not to say that I’m not going to look at the artifacts and what we did find at the given point in time when we began work.

I’ve also insisted that the report include as much basic data as reasonable and that it be unclassified.

Since the tragedy that has been Iraq has exacted such a huge cost for so many for so long, I feel strongly that the data we have accumulated be presented in as thorough a manner as possible to enable others to draw their own conclusions.

Certainly I have a concept of the dynamics that underlaid the course that Saddam followed with WMD, and this is conveyed in the report.

Others, including Iraqis themselves, may examine this and conclude otherwise.

The report {html copy} consists of six chapters. It includes at the end a time line showing key events that bear on the Iraqi WMD program.

Aiming to introduce the reader to the Iraqi frame of reference, the report begins with an analysis of the nature of the regime and its aims, in chapter one.

As compared with most countries, fathoming the intentions of the regime is made easier in Iraq, because it really boils down to understanding one person, Saddam Hussein, who was the regime.

The highly personalized nature of the Iraqi dictatorship under Saddam with its multiplicity of security organs and unclear, often overlapping lines of authority, progressively created a governmental system of operating alien to those steeped in the norms of Western democracy.

An understanding of the workings of the Iraqi system of governance is important so that the evidence or the lack of evidence can be evaluated within the frame of reference of Baghdad, and not the frame of reference of Washington, London, or Canberra.

For example, given the nature of Iraqi governance, one should not look for much of an audit trail on WMDs.

Even Saddam’s most senior ministers did not want to be in a position to tell him bad news or make recommendations from which he would recoil.

The most successful and long-lived advisers were those who could anticipate his intentions.

Hence, there was a very powerful rule for implicit guidance.

This is particularly the case for the most sensitive issues, such as actions related to human rights or weapons of mass destruction.

This dynamic limits the evidence that one might expect to find; that is, little documentation or senior advisers who could honestly say that they had instructions on certain matters.

This, of course, makes it risky to draw conclusions about the absence of evidence, a continuous problem that was found in Iraq.

Further obfuscating the picture is the fact that Baghdad had a long experience in dealing with inspection by western outsiders.

From the experience of dealing with U.N. inspectors, the Iraqis learned a great deal about what signatures we looked for.

And I point out, I spent many years in that activity myself.

Iraqis generally knew a lot more about us than we did about them.

For various reasons, their ability and desire to conceal their intentions and capabilities were quite good.

Beyond a discussion of how the regime operated, the report also provides a sense of Saddam’s goals, aspirations and political vision as a means to better understand his decisions about WMD, their development, use, and destruction and role in the future realization of his political-military aims for the Iraqi nation.

We have tried to understand his objectives and how he developed and used power.

I’d point out that after the 1991 war, Saddam established as his prime objective, taking into account survival, of course, his prime objective was the termination of U.N. sanctions on Iraq.

And he weighed all policy actions and steps for their impact on this overarching objective.

Saddam committed the brightest minds and much national treasure to developing weapons of mass destruction.

Moreover, Saddam saw this investment as having paid vital dividends.

Senior Iraqis state that only through the use of long-range ballistic missiles and the extensive use of chemical weapons did Iraq avoid defeat in the war with Iran.

And there was a second, less obvious, instance where the regime attributes its survival to the possession of WMD.

In the run-up to the 1991 war, Iraq loaded, dispersed, and Saddam pre-delegated the authority to use biological and chemical weapons, if the coalition proceeded to Baghdad.

The regime and Saddam believed that the possession of WMD deterred the United States from going to Baghdad in 1991.

Moreover, it has been clear in my discussions with senior Iraqis that they clearly understand that they blundered in invading Kuwait before completing the nuclear weapons program.

Had they waited, the outcome would have been quite different.

Finally, Saddam also used chemical weapons for domestic purposes, in the late ’80s against the Kurds and, as we learned in our work at ISG, during the Shia uprisings immediately after 1991 war.

Again, this first chapter, aspects of Saddam’s decision-making were examined by identification of several key inflection points, when Saddam made a choice affecting WMD. Several such points have been identified and dissected to see the dynamics of these decisions.

This tool of using a time line and identifying key inflection points was also useful in tracking his strategy and tactics toward the United Nations and the sanctions imposed by the U.N. Security Council.

Saddam’s personal direction of much of Iraq’s relations with the U.N. reflected his approach to influence, and is described in some detail in the report.

{NPR News audio begins: 48:05, at 0:32-14:08}

Overall, the hope is that not only will we see what Saddam decided to do with WMD, but why.

This may be instructive for future policy considerations, and certainly for future intelligence considerations.

The second chapter of the report is an extensive analysis of Iraq’s financing and procurement, a bid to identify the resources available to Baghdad and examine how they were allocated.

We made it a high priority to obtain complete information from the oil ministry and the state oil marketing organization. These data were extremely valuable in obtaining an understanding of how the regime operated and its priorities.

This is a way of bounding the problem, in a sense. Because Iraq had limited resources, that was one of the ways we could delimit our analysis. It turned out to be quite instructive.

Our investigation makes clear the top priority for Saddam was to escape the economic strangle-hold of the U.N. sanctions. The sanctions limited his ambitions in many ways and took an enormous toll on Iraqi society. The disintegration of the middle class, civil infrastructure, the health system, and the blight on the hope of young Iraqis were clear through the ’90s.

The U.N. Security Council, in attempting to mitigate the effects of sanctions on innocent Iraqis, created the oil-for-food program. It is instructive that the regime rejected the opportunity to export oil for civil goods until conditions were so bad that they threatened survival of the regime.

Chapter two — this chapter — makes clear the range of steps the regime took to erode support for and the efficacy of the U.N. sanctions program.

The steps the regime took to erode sanctions are obvious in the analysis of how revenues, particularly those derived from the oil-for-food program were used.

Over time, sanctions had steadily weakened to the point where Iraq in, roughly the 2000 to 2001 time frame, was confidently designing missiles around components that could only be obtained outside of sanctions.

Moreover, illicit revenues grew to quite substantial levels during the same period, and it is instructive to see how and where the regime allocated these funds.

Our investigation also makes quite clear how Baghdad exploited the mechanism for executing the oil-for-food program to give individuals and countries an economic stake in ending sanctions.

The regime followed a pattern that Saddam has applied throughout his career, offering rewards and a rationale for accepting them, successfully arguing its case that the sanctions were harming the innocent and that the moral choice was to elude and diminish them.

It is grossly obvious how successful the regime was. It is also grossly obvious how the sanctions perverted, not just the national system of finance and economics but, to some extent, international markets and organizations.

The procurement and finance section notes that a sizable portion of the illicit revenues generated under the oil-for-food program went to the Military Industrial Commission; that is the government-run military industrial establishment.

The funding for this organization, which had responsibility for many of the past WMD programs, went from approximate $7.8 million in 1998 to $350 million in 2001. During this period of growing resource availability, many military programs were carried out, including many involving the willing export to Iraq of military items prohibited by the Security Council.

And I would note that some members of the Security Council participated in violating those very same resolutions.

The remaining four chapters deal with the different types of WMD programs, which Iraq had previously worked.

The first of these is a delivery system chapter describes the work Iraq had been pursuing with respect to missiles and unmanned aerial vehicles.

Iraq continued to work on missile delivery systems in the wake of the Gulf War. Some missile activity was permitted, in fact, by the U.N. resolution.

Saddam drew a distinction, however, between long-range missiles and other WMDs, a distinction not drawn in the U.N. resolutions.

Iraqi’s missile development infrastructure continued to develop under sanctions, and included work on propulsion, fuels and even guidance systems.

As more funding became available following the implementation of the OFF program, the oil-for-food program, Saddam directed more missile activities.

In the latter years, more foreign assistance was brought in, including both technology and technical expertise.

While it is clear that Saddam wanted a long-range missile, there was little work done on warheads.

It is apparent that he drew the line at that point so long as sanctions remained.

However, while the development of ballistic missile delivery systems is time consuming, if and when Saddam decided to place a nonconventional warhead on the missile, this could be done quite quickly.

The chemical weapons and biological weapon warheads put on Iraqi missiles in 1990 and 1991, for example, were built in months.

A couple of points are of interest from the Iraqi missile efforts.

One is that they did not abide by the range limits set in U.N. Security Council Resolution 687 {910kb.pdf, 910kb.pdf}.

The range capabilities of the ballistic missiles they were developing exceeded the stated limits.

Iraq also used components from SA-2 — those are surface-to-air missile engines — that they had been expressly prohibited from doing.

Iraq also produced fuel that was not declared.

They also tested UAVs, unmanned aerial vehicles, in excess of the range limits.

 
 

Iraq missile developers became so confident that others would violate the sanctions that they designed new missile systems which depended upon the import of guidance systems which were prohibited by sanctions.

Further, they drew upon foreign expertise that was readily available for such areas as propulsion; again, in violation of the sanctions.

The next chapter is on nuclear programs, and it reviews the program up to the 1991 war and describes the activities of the scientists and engineers following the war.

The analysis shows that despite Saddam’s expressed desire to retain knowledge of his nuclear team and his attempts to retain some key parts of the program, during the course of the following 12 years Iraq’s ability to produce a weapon decayed steadily.

Sanctions and inspections lasted longer than Saddam anticipated. The inspections were also much more intrusive than expected. Therefore, retention of weapons material put at risk his higher immediate objective of escaping sanctions.

Nevertheless, Saddam’s son-in-law and chief weapons development manager, Hussein Kamal, directed that design information and very limited physical material be hidden from inspectors. These concealment efforts were successful until Hussein Kamal himself, the son-in-law, fled to Jordan in 1995.

There were also efforts to retain the intellectual capital of nuclear scientists by forbidding their departure from Iraq and keeping them employed in government areas.

However, over time, there was decay in the team.

Unlike other WMD areas, nuclear weapons development requires thousands of knowledgeable scientists, as well as a large physical plant.

Even with the intention of keeping these talented people employed, a natural decay took place, and the time it would take for Iraq to build a nuclear weapon tended to increase for the duration of the sanctions.

The Iraqi Atomic Energy Commission utilized the same people in a range of projects during the 1990s and addressed technical problems akin to those in nuclear weapons development.

These efforts, however, cannot be explicitly tied to an intention to revive a nuclear weapons program.

Despite this decay, Saddam did not abandon his nuclear ambitions.

He made clear his view that nuclear weapons were the right of any country that could build them.

He was very attentive to the growing Iranian threat, especially its potential nuclear component.

And he stated that he would do whatever it took to offset the Iranian threat, clearly implying matching Tehran’s nuclear capabilities.

Saddam observed that India and Pakistan had slipped across the nuclear weapons boundary quite successfully.

Those around Saddam seemed quite convinced that once the sanctions were ended and all other things being equal, Saddam would renew his efforts in this field.

Chapters dealing with chemical weapons and biological weapons tell somewhat different stories.

In the chemical weapons area, the Iraqis had long experience with production and use of mustard and nerve agents.

In Baghdad’s view, these weapons saved Iraq from defeat in the war with Iran and, in combination with biological weapon capabilities, deterred the United States from deposing the regime in 1991.

Following the Iran-Iraq War, Iraqi chemical weapons activity shifted from production to research and development of more potent and stabilized agents.

In contrast to the nuclear field, chemical weapons work requires not thousands of scientists, but hundreds.

The top expertise is developed among a few dozen scientists and chemical production engineers.

Once inspections began, in 1991, Iraq chose to yield most of its weapons, and bulk agent, as well as the large facilities that were widely known to exist.

As in the other WMD areas, Saddam sought to sustain the requisite knowledge base to restart the program eventually and, to the extent it did not threaten the Iraqi efforts to get out from sanctions, he chose to sustain the inherent capability to produce such weapons as circumstances permitted in the future.

Over time, and with the infusion of funding and resources following acceptance of the oil-for-food program, Iraq effectively shortened the time that would be required to re-establish the chemical weapons production capacity.

Some of this was a natural collateral benefit of developing an indigenous chemical production infrastructure.

By 2003, Iraq would have been able to produce mustard agent in a period of months and nerve agent in a less than a year or two.

We have not come across explicit guidance from Saddam on this point, yet it was an inherent consequence of his decision to develop a domestic chemical production capacity.

Iraq denied it had offensive biological weapons programs to inspectors in 1991 and secretly destroyed existing stocks of agents and weapons in 1991 to 1992.

Iraq decided to retain the main biological weapons production facility, but under a guise of using it to produce single-cell protein for animal feed.

 
 

These decisions were taken with Saddam’s explicit approval.

Saddam clearly understood the nature of biological weapons.

He personally authorized their dispersal for use in 1991 against coalition forces, Saudi Arabia and Israel.

He clearly took steps to preserve this capability and was successful until 1995.

Preservation of Iraq’s biological weapons capabilities was simpler than any other WMD area because of the nature of the material.

First, the number of experts required is quite small, perhaps a couple dozen.

Then, too, the infrastructure to produce an agents can be readily assembled in quite simply domestic civilian plants.

Moreover, little, if any, activity would be necessary to keep this option on the shelf.

Some activity that might have been related to a biological program has been examined closely, including work with a bio-pesticide, bacillus thurengiensis.

While this work could have been related to advancing Iraqi anthrax knowledge, information is inconclusive.

This work could and certainly did sustain the talent needed to restart a potential biological weapons program.

However, we can form no absolute conclusion whether this work represented active efforts to develop further anthrax programs.

Given the developing infrastructure in Iraq in the late 1990s and early 2000, such a reconstitution could be accomplished quite quickly.

Other aspects of the Iraqi BW program remain cloudy.

For example, it is still difficult to rule on whether Iraq had a mobile biological weapons effort or made any attempts to work with smallpox as a weapon.

We were able to eliminate some of the questions and resolve some of the questions which circulated about the mobile question earlier though, however.

And I can deal with those in questions.

What is clear is that Saddam retained his notions of the use of force, had experience that demonstrated the utility of WMD.

He was making progress in eroding sanctions, a lot of progress.

And had it not been for the events of 9/11, 2001, things would have taken a very different course for the regime.

Most senior members of the regime and scientists assumed that the programs would begin in earnest when sanctions ended, and sanctions were eroding.

A variety of questions about Iraqi WMD capabilities, and intentions, remain unanswered, even after extensive investigation by ISG.

For example, we cannot yet definitively say whether or not WMD materials were transferred out of Iraq before the war.

Neither can we definitively answer some questions about possible retained stocks, though, as I say, it is my judgment that retained stocks do not exist.

Developments in the Iraqi intelligence services appear to have been limited in scope.

And I’m referring here to some laboratories which were discovered in late 2003, where the Iraqi intelligence service was found conducting some work in chemical and biological areas.

{NPR News audio ends}

Some of these activities were not declared to the United Nations.

What they really did represent and was there a more extensive clandestine activity with another set of technical experts, we cannot say yet for certain.

Opportunities to develop new information are decreasing.

However, I must mention that we just came into possession of a large number of documents recently accumulated by coalition forces. The number of these documents is approximately equal to the total received since the end of the war, and it will clearly take many months to examine what has been found and provide an initial summary of what they contain.

Then, too, we continue to receive a continuing stream of reports about hidden WMD locations. When such reports are judged sufficiently credible, ISG conducts an investigation. And in fact, two weeks ago, we had a source came to us with a partially filled canister from an old — and I repeat and underline “old” — 122-millimeter rocket round.

These, like others recovered, are from pre-1991 stocks.

And despite these reports and findings, I still do not expect that militarily significant WMD stocks are hidden in Iraq.

A risk that has emerged since my previous report to Congress is the connection of former regime CW expertise with anti-coalition forces.

ISG has uncovered evidence of such links and undertook a sizable effort to track down and prevent any latch-ups between foreign terrorists or anti-coalition forces in either existing CW stocks or expertise from the former regime that could be used to produce such weapons.

I believe we got ahead of this problem through a series of raids throughout the spring and summer.

I am convinced that we successfully contained a problem before it matured into a major threat.

Nevertheless, it points to the problem that the dangerous expertise developed by the previous regime could be transferred to other hands.

Certainly there are anti-coalition and terrorist elements seeking such capabilities.

It is my hope that this report will offer a generally accurate picture of the evolution and disposition of WMD within the former regime.

I am quite aware that the Iraqis who participated in these programs will be reading this report and ultimately will comment upon it.

I hope they learn from it and do not find too many errors.

I’ve spend hours with many of the Iraqi participants, both before the war as deputy chairman of UNSCOM in the 1990s, and after the war when many were in custody.

Many of these individuals are technocrats caught in a rotten system.

Some, on the other hand, wholeheartedly participated in that system.

In either case, Saddam channeled some of the best and brightest Iraqi minds and a substantial portion of Iraq’s wealth toward his WMD programs.

It has, of course, been very difficult to discern the truth from these participants, given the mix of motivations that inescapably color the statements of those who remain in custody.

It is sometimes very difficult to recognize the truth.

This applies to Saddam himself, especially so.

He was a special case in all of this.

We had the opportunity to brief him for months.

But he naturally had limited incentives to be candid or forthcoming at all.

Nevertheless, many of his statements were interesting and revealing.

In the end, only he knows may of the vital points.

Even those closet to him had mixed understandings of his objectives.

In fact, there was uncertainty among some of the closest advisers about WMD and whether it even existed.

And with that, Senator, I will end my remarks.

Thank you.

Sen. Warner: Thank you very much.

General?

Joseph J. McMenamin (Brigadier General, U.S. Marine Corps, Commander, Iraq Survey Group): Mr. chairman, thank you and the committee for the opportunity to discuss the activities of the Iraq Survey Group.

I’ve been in position since June of this year when I replaced Major General Keith Dayton.

During these months, the Iraq Survey Group has remained focused on searching for Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction and associated WMD programs, supporting the efforts to defeat the insurgency in Iraq and pursuing any additional leads concerning the fate of U.S. Navy Captain Michael Scott Speicher.

In addition, the ISG has bee supporting the Regime Crimes Liaison Office in its efforts to assist the Iraqi special tribunal.

Since Major general Dayton left, three things have changes that bear on the mission of the Iraq Survey Group.

First, the U.S. transferred sovereignty to the interim Iraqi government on 28 June, 2004. While we did not anticipate any major changes to our operating procedures, we did carefully consider the conduct of post-transfer missions and have worked to incorporate coalition combat units and the Iraqi police service whenever possible and practical.

Second, the United States Central Command transferred operational control of the Iraq Survey Group to Multi-National Force Iraq. This shift was undertaken in conjunction wit the transfer of sovereignty and occurred when all forces in Iraq were placed under the command of the commanding general, Multi-National Force Iraq.

Third, there’s been an increase in violence by former regime elements, foreign fighters, and common criminals seeking to undermine and discredit the new Iraqi government.

 
 

While Mr. Duelfer discusses the ISG’s substantive findings, which are treated in detail in his comprehensive report, I would like to touch briefly on the other missions.

The Speicher team exhausted all in-country leads regarding the fate of Captain Speicher and departed the ISG in May.

No new leads have been developed since their departure. All data previously collected with regard to the status of Captain Speicher is with DIA, which is in the process of writing an updated report. As stated during previous testimony on this topic, the ISG will immediately pursue any new leads or data generated in Iraq on the status of Captain Speicher.

As for the counterterrorism mission, we are working at the direction of Multi-National Force Iraq to help neutralize former regime elements involved in the insurgency, working targeting and collection packages on Zarqawi cells, and following closely any potential links between the terrorists and chemical weapons.

Our main support to the Regime Crimes Liaison Office is through the processing of documents in Qatar and Iraq and assisting with interviews of high-value detainees. The Regime Crimes Liaison Office funds their own activities. No intelligence funds are used for this effort.

The ISG will continue to support the DCI’s post-report requirements on WMD and counterinsurgency fight in Iraq.

Dedication, professionalism and enthusiasm of all members of the team have ensured that the missions assigned have been carried out thoroughly and in a professional manner.

Mr. chairman, thank you for inviting me to speak to the committee today.

I will finish this statement by thanking all of you for your support for what we have undertaken in the Iraq Survey Group and the continuing support you provide to the Americans, Australians, and British, both military and civilian, who risk their lives daily in this endeavor.

Thank you, sir.

Senator John W. Warner (R-Va):  Thank you very much, General.

We will proceed with a six-minute round of questions.

Mr. Duelfer, you’ve spent a good deal of your professional career examining Iraq, and you were at one time a weapons inspection person.

Would you sketch that brief career? Or give us a brief description?

Mr. Duelfer: Well, I was chosen by Ambassador Ekeus to be his deputy at the U.N. Special Commission on Iraq in 1993.

And so I was the deputy chairman of that U.N. organization for several years, and in fact was the acting chairman of it at the end, when UNSCOM ended and the new organization called UNMOVIC, which was headed by Dr. Hans Blix, began.

And that caused me to have a great deal of contact with the Iraqis, spend a lot of time in Iraq and talk with the people who were involved in these programs.

And then the director of Central Intelligence asked me in January if I would take the position as his special adviser on Iraq WMD, to succeed David Kay.

Sen. Warner: Well, we’re fortunate you did.

And my question will be very simple.

It’s asked frequently, it’s discussed frequently:

Is it your professional judgment that the world is better off with Saddam Hussein now in custody, facing the rule of law?

Mr. Duelfer: Well, in my opinion, there was a risk of Saddam Hussein being in charge of a country with that amount of resources and with that amount of potential for both good and evil.

What Iraq was under Saddam, and the potential for what it could be, there was an enormous difference.

The trends I think are important.

Our analysis and this study was to not look at a single point in time, but to look at dynamics and trends.

He clearly had ambitions with respect to weapons of mass destruction.

He clearly had a strategy and tactic to get of the restraints of the U.N. sanctions.

He was clearly making a great deal of progress on that.

But for the intervention of the events of 9/11, I think the world would be in a very different position right now.

Sen. Warner: In conclusion, the world is better off with his now facing — in custody — the rule of law to account for his crimes?

Mr. Duelfer: I am analyst, and I realize I’m in a political world right now.

Sen. Warner: No. It’s just that I have to—

Mr. Duelfer: Analytically, the world is better off.

Sen. Warner: And I thank you for that straightforward response.

And it’s predicated on many years of dedicated service.

Mr. Duelfer: Thank you.

Sen. Warner: Do you think that, since the world is better off, that that situation could have been achieved without the intervention of the coalition forces and the active use of military force in what appeared to be a complete and utter breakdown of diplomacy to achieve the goals that we’ve thus achieved, making the world better off?

Mr. Duelfer: The way that question is sometimes framed, sir—

Sen. Warner: Why don’t you reframe it in a manner that you’re more comfortable?

I’ll get to it, if I feel necessary, and revise it.

You go ahead.

Mr. Duelfer: It is clear that Saddam chose not to have weapons at a point in time before the war.

Sen. Warner: Now, let’s explain which war.

You’re talking about the second one?

Mr. Duelfer: The most recent one.

Sen. Warner: That’s correct.

Mr. Duelfer: When we look at the frame of reference that Saddam saw around him—

I mean, he saw U.N. sanctions, he saw forces around him, he saw diplomatic isolation after 9/11, he saw his revenue streams dropping.

He chose at the point in time to allow U.N. inspectors in.

As an analyst, I look at that and say, “Well, were those conditions sustainable?”

And I find it hard to conclude that those conditions were stable or sustainable.

So while Saddam chose not to have weapons at that point in time, the conditions which caused him to make that decision were, A, not sustainable; B, extremely expensive not just for the international community, but for the Iraqis themselves.

Over the last decade, observing what happened to the civilian infrastructure of Iraq under the sanctions is stark.

I mean, here is a country with enormous talent. The people are educated, Westward-leaning for the most part. They had a great education system.

And watching that decay under sanctions was not a pleasant experience. There was an enormous price for that.

Those are some of the factors. Others will look at the data and draw other conclusions.

But my opinion is that the conditions were not sustainable over any lengthy period of time.

Sen. Warner: Had he lost his life by whatever means and the assets that he then had under his control had fallen into the hands of one or several of his children, particularly his sons, they clearly presented an equal, if not greater, danger to the world if they had control and custody of those assets.

Am I not correct?

Mr. Duelfer: Well, from the discussions of the top people around Saddam, his ministers, military leaders, they were not fond of Saddam’s offspring. And these people had a high tolerance for tough behavior.

So I would have to agree with you that a succession from Saddam to one of his offspring, while it’s a hypothetical and it’s hard to imagine exactly how that would play out, but it was not a pleasant prospect.

Sen. Warner: Did you assess how many of the 17 U.N. resolutions that your facts clearly indicated he was in violation?

Mr. Duelfer: It wasn’t our task explicitly to, you know, match up what we found on the ground against what the U.N. was requiring, although because of my background in it, I certainly had an interest in it.

It was quite clear that many of the things that we found were in clear violation of the U.N. requirements. And you had missiles which exceeded the range. There was a lot of equipment which should have been declared. There were laboratories which should have been declared.

In each of the weapons areas there were materials or things which were to some extent in violation of the U.N. sanctions.

Sen. Warner: Let’s go back to the U.N. Security Council resolution and what you now know about the likelihood of the absence of large stockpiles of prohibited weapons of mass destruction.

Can you explain why Saddam Hussein did not avail himself of the final opportunity for the full and immediate compliance by U.N. Security Council 1441 {58kb.pdf, 58kb.pdf} and thereby having avoided the use of force?

Mr. Duelfer: Senator, that’s a question which many of us have puzzled over. And, in fact, many very senior Iraqis have puzzled over the same question.

And it really requires you to get into Saddam’s mind.

And the answer is: It’s difficult to know for certain.

Certainly some of his senior advisers, foreign affairs advisers, argued that they should have just, you know, very shortly after 9/11, fully complied, without hesitation, without trying to negotiate.

But what they say is that Saddam always wanted to negotiate. If he was going to accept inspectors coming in, he wanted to get something for it. He wanted to get sanctions lifted. And he kept trying to bargain or barter, and he had not realized the nature of the ground-shift in the international community.

That was Saddam’s intelligence failure. He did not understand very quickly the radical change of the international landscape.

One can understand that to a certain extent because in the period leading up to 9/11, there was a great deal of sympathy for his regime.

Baghdad was filled with businessmen. The international fair that Baghdad runs was often filled with lots of companies. They were making lots of transactions in full violation of the sanctions.

The ministers around Saddam and Saddam himself expressed the opinion that sanctions were about to end, through erosion, through their own collapse.

So the radical change, in a sense, that occurred in the international community following September 11th, it took a while to penetrate, in his judgment.

Sen. Warner: Given that 1441 was clear, it seems to me you could draw the conclusion, his failure to avail himself to avoid that destruction and to enable him to remain in power shows a very irrational mind, an irrational mind that was a danger to the world.

Mr. Duelfer: Saddam is certainly dangerous.

He’s certainly demonstrated the ability to make monumental mistakes.

I remember a conversation I had with Tariq Aziz when I asked him, “Well, why did you invade Kuwait before you had a nuclear weapon?” And he more or less shrugged and pointed to the picture on the wall.

And the picture on the wall, in virtually any room you were in in Iraq in those days, was Saddam.

So he’s very shrewd.

He has an exquisite sense of what motivates people, often at the basest level, but is enormously susceptible to making hugely dangerous decisions.

Sen. Warner: Thank you.

Senator Levin?

Senator Carl Levin (D-MI) {FNS, pf}:  Thank you, Mr. chairman.

On page 64 of your report, you say that:

 
 

Is that correct?

Mr. Duelfer: That’s correct.

Sen. Levin: Now, what you’re telling us, in addition to that, today, is that in addition to having no WMD stocks before the war, for the reasons you gave, Saddam chose not to have those weapons.

Is that correct?

Mr. Duelfer: That is correct.

Sen. Levin: Those are stunning statements.

Not only did he not have weapons of mass destruction.

But for the reasons you gave, he chose not to have weapons of mass destruction.

That is 180 degrees different from what the administration was saying, prior to the war.

They were saying that he had stockpiles of weapons of mass destruction, and indeed had an active effort to acquire more, and was a threat for that reason.

So, I just want to focus, not just on your speculation about intentions — which I think anyone can speculate on, and it’s fair enough to speculate on them — but in terms of the facts that you’ve found.

Which are what you were assigned to find:

To find the facts, one way or another.

Those particular facts, it seems to me, are pretty stunning.

And you also found on page seven, as I read your report, or parts of your report, that:

 
 

Did I read that correctly from your report?

Mr. Duelfer: I’m sure you read it correctly.

But if I might respond a bit to your premise.

You used the word “speculation.”

And, again as an analyst, I would say, it is not really speculation.

What we were trying to do is derive information from the people we had the opportunity to talk to, firsthand, including Saddam.

So, I mean, I just have to come back a little bit on that.

 
 

Sen. Levin: Sure.

Mr. Duelfer: With all due respect.

Sen. Levin: That’s all right.

But I want to now get to your nuclear program statement:

You say that you found — as a matter of fact — that Iraq had not tried to reconstitute a capability to produce nuclear weapons after 1991.

Are you saying, therefore, it seems to me, that Iraq had no active nuclear weapons reconstitution program, before the war.

Is that correct?

Mr. Duelfer: What we said was there was an attempt to sustain intellectual capability and to sustain some elements of the program, particularly before 1995.

But active nuclear weapons program?

No.

We found no evidence, nor do we judge that there was one.

Sen. Levin: All right.

Now, relative to the aluminum tubes:

Your report says, on page 21, that:

 
 

Is that correct?

Mr. Duelfer: That is correct.

That is my judgment, that those—

Those tubes were most likely destined for a rocket program.

Sen. Levin: And that although you “uncovered inconsistencies that raised questions about whether high-specification aluminum tubes were really needed for such a rocket program”, that, in your words:

 
 

Is that your judgment?

Mr. Duelfer: That is my judgment.

Recognizing that, in Iraq, the types of logic that we apply here don’t always apply there.

Sen. Levin: That is your best judgment?

Mr. Duelfer: Correct.

Sen. Levin: Now you also found, on page seven in the nuclear section, that:

 
 

And, in another page, you said that:

 
 

Is that your judgment?

Mr. Duelfer: That is also what we found.

Sen. Levin: Now, relati