Charles Duelfer Senate transcript: Did Iraq have WMD?

 

 

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 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:

“Simply stated, there is no doubt that Saddam Hussein now has weapons of mass destruction. There is no doubt he is amassing them to use against our friends, our allies, and against us.”

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

“The Iraqi regime possesses biological and chemical weapons.”

And one day later he spoke of, quote:

“the stockpiles of anthrax that we know he has or VX, the biological weapons, which he possesses,”

close quote.

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

“geographic base of the terrorists who have had us under assault now for many years but most especially on 9/11,”

close quote.

On October 7, 2002, President Bush said:

“Iraq could decide, on any given day, to provide a biological or chemical weapon to a terrorist group or individual terrorists. Alliance with terrorists could allow the Iraqi regime to attack America without allowing any fingerprints.”

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

“The danger is clear: Using chemical, biological or, one day, nuclear weapons obtained with the help of Iraq, the terrorists could fulfill their stated ambitions and kill thousands or hundreds of thousands of innocent people in our country or any other.”

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:

“absolute certainly,”

close quote, were intended for nuclear weapons.

And which Condoleezza Rice said were:

“really only suitable for nuclear weapons programs.”

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.

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:

{0:51} “Iraq has weapons of mass destruction.
That is what the war was about.
And is about.”

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.

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 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 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 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.

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.

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, relative to the mobile biological weapon production program:

This is what you’ve stated in your report: That:

Is that your conclusion?

Mr. Duelfer. That—

I’m going to go a little longer on my response to that.

Because it is a more complicated question, or issue, and the biology area is one where there’s less certainty possible.

And part of that is due to the nature of the programs.

If you were to do sensitivity analysis about that, you know, little facts can make a big difference in that area.

On the mobile production systems question:

There were two trailers which were found in, I believe it was May of 2003, one in Irbil and one in Mosul.

Those are clearly, in my judgment, for the production of hydrogen.

They have absolutely nothing to do with any biological weapons.

A second question, though, arose from reports, largely from one individual, about a production facility which was mobile. These were quite detailed reports.

And to the extent we have been able to investigate that, we believe two things.

One, much of what this person said is incorrect.

Some of what he did say was correct, but the majority of the evidence which he was pointing to as a mobile production facility was wrong.

However, this is one of those issues where I’m not quite comfortable in pronouncing, that there was no mobile system in Iraq.

We believe we’ve done as much investigation as we can.

We’ve have found no evidence.

But I feel a little bit hesitant, about declaring, flatly, that there was no mobile production facility.

It’s one of those cases where there may be some uncertainty.

Sen. Levin. Just in conclusion, though:

The two trailers that were captured in 2003, that were stated to be part of a BW program — for the delivery of BW, the manufacture of BW — those particular trailers, you have found were — in fact — not part of a BW program.

Mr. Duelfer. Correct.

Sen. Levin. Is that correct?

Mr. Duelfer. Correct.

Sen. Levin. Because those are the two trailers that the vice president pointed to, as being definitely the evidence of the BW program.

And the evidence of weapons of mass destruction.

Those are the very trailers that the vice president said:

And now, you’re coming here today, relative to those two trailers, and telling us, that:

And, that those particular trailers were designed and built exclusively for the generation of hydrogen, which is a totally different purpose.

Is that correct?

Mr. Duelfer. Uh—

Sen. Levin. Those trailers.

Just—

Just focus on those trailers.

Are those your words?

That those trailers—

Mr. Duelfer. You had a lot of words in front of that—

Sen. Levin. All right.

Mr. Duelfer. —I’m sorry.

Sen. Levin. Nope.

Let me just talk about those trailers.

Those trailers—

Mr. Duelfer. The two trailers that were captured in Irbil and Mosul were for the production of hydrogen.

In my judgment — my firm judgment — and the judgment of most of the people who have looked at them — all of our experts — they had nothing to do with biological weapons.

Sen. Levin. Well, thank you for that testimony.

It just totally undercuts the statements which were made by the vice president.

Thank you.

Sen. Warner. Were you able to give a full response to that question?

I want to make sure that the record has all of your thinking on it.

Mr. Duelfer. The question of those two trailers is, to me, separate and distinct from the question of whether Iraq had a mobile biological weapons program.

Our efforts to fathom that possibility departed from a source who subsequently turned out to be largely a fabricator.

That does not mean that there was not an Iraqi mobile biological production capability.

But we have not found evidence of that.

Again, the biology area is an area where because it takes very few people, it takes very little in the way of resources, it is one of the areas where I think there is some risk that we might find new information that might change the content of this report.

Sen. Warner. And a very little area to conceal it?

Am I not correct?

Mr. Duelfer. It takes very little area to conceal.

Sen. Warner. And I thank you.

Senator McCain.

 

Senator John McCain (R-AZ). Thank you, Mr. Duelfer.

And thank you, General, for your great work.

Sort of a follow up:

So therefore, knowing the history of Saddam Hussein, his use of weapons of mass destruction, he had them in 1991, is there any doubt in your mind that if Saddam Hussein were in power today and there were no restrictions or sanctions placed on him, that he would be attempting to acquire weapons of mass destruction, Mr. Duelfer?

Mr. Duelfer. To me, I think that’s quite clear.

But more importantly, it was quite clear to many of the senior advisers around Saddam.

He had an exquisite sense of the use of power and influence.

To him it was a continuous spectrum, oil—

Sen. McCain. So there’s no doubt in your mind, he’s in power today, the sanctions are going, he would be pursuing them, because that was his history?

Mr. Duelfer. He had two life experiences where they saved him, which as I think why the pre-war assessments were colored.

I mean, people would kind of look at it and say: Why wouldn’t he have these things?

Sen. McCain. OK, let me lead you though a couple of questions here, because we only have six minutes.

There is the belief purveyed by some — this is in sort of aligned with what we were just saying — that there was a status quo in Iraq where basically the sanctions were in effect. And things were fairly normal. And so therefore we really had a choice between the status quo and an attack on Saddam Hussein.

Isn’t it more likely, as you have stated in previous testimony, the sanctions were being eroded, American airplanes were being shot at, as you just mentioned, businessmen all over Baghdad were thinking that it was a matter of time before the sanctions were lifted, we have a burgeoning scandal in the oil-for-food program, and there was not a status quo?

In other words, there was a steady deterioration of any restraints, real or imagined, that Saddam Hussein may have felt.

Is that an accurate assessment of the situation in Baghdad?

Mr. Duelfer. That is a very accurate assessment.

We spent a fair amount of time analyzing exactly that and trying to understand the strategy and tactics which Iraq was using to encourage the decay of sanctions.

Sen. McCain. So we didn’t have a choice between maintaining the status quo and attacking Saddam Hussein.

We had a situation which was rapidly deteriorating.

And eventually over time, in the view of most experts, Saddam Hussein would have been either relieved of or evaded these sanctions as more and more business was done and more and more — or excuse me, less and less actions on the part of the United Nation in enforcing those sanctions.

Mr. Duelfer. Sir, I think we detail at great length exactly those sorts of conditions, but we allow for others to draw their own conclusions.

But my personal view is that the sanctions were in free fall. They were eroding. There was a lot of corruption. Were it not for 9/11, I don’t know that they would exist today.

Sen. McCain. There’s also the belief in some circles that this was an idea that was hatched, either in the Department of Defense or somewhere in the White House right after 9/11:

And there was really a hidden agenda there.

Why, in your viewpoint, did every single intelligence agency on Earth, that I know of—

The British, our friends the French, the Germans, the Israelis—

Every single intelligence agency believed, as our intelligence agency did, believed that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction.

How do you account for that?

Mr. Duelfer. Well, sir, that wasn’t really my mandate.

However, I do have an opinion.

Sen. McCain. I’d appreciate your opinion.

Mr. Duelfer. I think there’s a lot of factors that are involved in that.

One, as I’ve mentioned before, Saddam had an experience where these weapons were vital to him.

So why wouldn’t he have them, sort of logically — why wouldn’t he?

Second, the United States had almost no contact with Iraq over more than a decade.

To me, I sometimes forget that, because I spent a lot of time there myself, but that was because I was with the U.N.

That means that the analysts who were forced to make judgments about this were actually in a very poor position.

They didn’t have any ground truth.

They spent a lot of time looking at computer screens, but not a lot of time talking to Iraqis, not a lot of time walking around Iraqi plants and getting a feel for them.

I mean, for example, if someone associates a particular vehicle with a chemical weapons program, as was done, there was something called a Simar Decon (ph) vehicle.

Well, if you spend much time in Iraq, you realize the Iraqis could be selling ice cream out of those vehicles.

To associate a particular vehicle with a particular program, you know, it’s that kind of a feel for the ground that was rare in the United States.

Also, Saddam, as we learned from talking with him, was deliberately ambiguous.

He gave a speech, I remember it quite well, in June of 2000 where he said, in essence, you cannot expect — and he wrote his speeches himself largely, by the way — but you cannot expect Iraq to give up a rifle and live only with the sword if its neighbors don’t give up rifles and live with swords.

Now, that’s kind of typical Saddam-ese.

But it makes you think, well, he’s saying he’s going to hang on to his weapons of mass destruction.

So we asked him what he meant by that. He said, well, he had audiences in mind. This is a rare time I think he actually was candid.

He said he had two audiences.

One was the Iranian threat, which for him was quite potent, palpable. The Iranian threat was very, very palpable to him. And he did not want to be second to Iran. And he felt he had to deter them. So he wanted to create the impression that he had more than he did.

Sen. McCain. So every intelligence agency was fooled by him.

Mr. Duelfer. Well, including, to a certain extent, the Iraqi intelligence agency, because there were many Iraqis who were not convinced that there either were or were not special weapons within their arsenal.

Sen. McCain. Well, my time has expired, Mr. chairman.

And we need to —

And I’m serving on a weapons of mass destruction commission —

And we need to find out why we were all so wrong.

But I think it’s important for everybody to keep in mind that it was every intelligence agency respected on Earth that came to the same conclusion.

And that’s an important factor as we move forward with this continuing, ongoing national debate about whether we should have attacked Iraq or not and whether we there was sufficient justification to doing so, and if so, why.

And, Mr. Duelfer, I appreciate you coming here at a very sensitive, political time. I appreciate your candor. And I also understand that it’s very inappropriate for you to get into any of the domestic policies, uh politics, of this country.

And I thank you.

And I thank you too, General.

Sen. Warner. Thank you.

If I have just a moment, could you provide for the record—

Did you believe, he had weapons of mass destruction, up—

Just prior to the use of force?

Mr. Duelfer. Well, my judgment was largely—

And I was in a think-tank at the time—

Was—

I expected there to be a small number of ballistic missiles, that would serve a function as a strategic reserve.

I believed that he would have retained the capability to produce chemical or biological agents, but not have stocks.

I felt that, at the time, he was keeping his nuclear expertise at four or five key facilities, so that they’d be better positioned to restart that program.

You know, like others, this was an imperfect assessment.

And that was from my experience at the U.N., at UNSCOM, from the unanswered questions.

But, I must say, that when they took the decision, in February of 2000, to begin discussions with the U.N., about readmitting inspectors—

To me, that was a very key indicator, that there probably wasn’t large stocks there to be found.

Sen. Warner. Senator Kennedy?

 

Senator Edward M. Kennedy (D-MA). Just, uh—

Thank you, Mr. chairman.

And I join my colleagues in expressing great appreciation for your service to our country.

Let me just continue this thought, Mr. Duelfer.

What would you say on a scale of zero to a hundred, what is the likelihood that we’ll ever find the stockpiles of weapons of mass destruction, that the president spoke about prior to the war?

Mr. Duelfer. I think the prospects of finding militarily significant — and I sound like I’m trying to create jargon here, but — a significant stockpile is — I don’t know — less than 5 percent.

Sen. Kennedy. It’s less than 5 percent.

And we have to ask — you have more than 1,000 people on your staff, now. Press reports indicate that we’ve spent more than 900 million dollars on the search for the weapons of mass destruction. And your testimony says that you’ve just obtained a large number of documents that’s approximately equal to the total previously received since the end of the war and that will clearly take many months to examine.

But isn’t this a total waste of money?

I mean, why does the search keep going on and on and on?

And aren’t we at the point where we have to admit the stockpiles don’t exist?

And then what’s obviously become a wild goose chase — I mean, the Bush administration had hoped we would find something, anything, to justify the war. But instead, you’ve basically nailed the door shut on any justification for the war.

And at the present time, David Kay told the Congress that there are approximately 130 known Iraqi ammunition storage points in Iraq, some of which exceed 50 square miles in size, hold an estimated 600,000 tons of artillery shells, rockets, aviation bombs and other ammunition.

The real question is whether these sites are adequately protected today or are they available to the insurgents.

So, General McMenamin, can you assure us that all these sites are tightly secured by U.S. forces and no weapons could fall into the hands of the insurgents?

Brig. Gen. McMenamin. Sir, I can’t assure you that that will happen. On the larger ones, we have security forces, overhead imagery. There’s an active program ongoing to destroy excess munitions around the country. On a regular basis, we’re destroying excess captured munitions to keep them out of the hands of the insurgency.

As the Iraqi forces come online in their security efforts, they’ll be able to take over and protect those assets to prevent them from falling into the wrong hands.

Sen. Kennedy. Well, my question is:

Wouldn’t the resource that you’re spending to find weapons of mass destruction that evidently don’t exist be better spent on weapons that do exist and that are threatening American servicemen every single day?

Mr. Duelfer. Sir, if I might just respond a bit on that.

My task was not to find weapons of mass destruction.

My task was to find the truth.

You know, I am quite proud of the work that we have done to delineate the program and to describe in detail, which anyone else can examine, what we did find.

I’m not suggesting that we should continue searching this.

I think, you know, the staffing and requirements to continue these small remaining uncertainties, resolving those, is small.

And you say “wild goose chase.”

And we’ve had a lot of people who have—

We’ve had a couple of people die.

We’ve had many people wounded.

And to tell them they’ve been involved in a wild goose chase to me it’s not really what we’re doing.

We were meant to find what existed with respect to WMD. We weren’t tasked to find weapons. We were tasked to find the truth of the program. And that’s what we tried to relate.

And I think it was a worthwhile endeavor.

Sen. Kennedy. Well, we all understand that anyone who is wounded or died in Iraq is a hero.

They are there to serve.

And the political decisions are made to send them over there.

And all of us who’ve expressed concerns about this war have the highest regard and respect for them.

But the fact is, we’ve had many distortions, misrepresentations, about the facts.

American people are entitled to facts.

John Adams says: Facts are stubborn things.

And we have seen distortions and misrepresentations about what is absolutely handled, being handed there.

And it’s fair enough to wonder whether we’re spending the $900 million that we’re spending — you say a very remote, a very remote likelihood of finding weapons of mass destruction — should not be spent in other areas to guard what David Kay said was necessary to guard if we wanted to try to have an impact in terms of the Americans.

Let me just ask you this:

With all respect, Mr. Duelfer, we didn’t go to war because Saddam’s intent, or future capability, to produce the weapons of mass destruction.

We were told that Saddam already had stockpiles of chemical and biological weapons, and that he could acquire a nuclear weapon within a year, which he could then give to terrorists.

That’s what we were told.

Now, I understand from your testimony, as you mentioned out here in response to Senator Levin, Iraq did not possess a nuclear device nor did it try to reconstitute a capability to produce nuclear weapons after 1991.

Your report talks about Saddam’s intent and future capability.

That is not what the American people were told.

They were told by the president—

President Bush said on September 27 that Saddam must be prevented from having:

And 10 days later, President Bush, unequivocally stated:

And he continued on October 7th:

And Secretary Rumsfeld said, with regards to weapons:

That’s the secretary of defense telling the American people.

And you haven’t been able to find them.

Mr. Duelfer. Sir, I’ve spent more time with the Iraqi secretary of defense than the American secretary of defense.

Ask me about Iraqis.

Sen. Kennedy. Well, I want to thank you very much.

Sen. Warner. Thank you very much.

You had adequate time to respond to Senator Kennedy’s questions?

Mr. Duelfer. I think so, yes.

Sen. Warner. Fine. Thank you.

Senator Inhofe.

 

Senator James M. Inhofe (R-OK). Thank you, Mr. chairman.

It seems as if we’re talking about the two assumptions that took this administration into this war — and I’m very thankful that we’re in this war — having to do with people disavowing that there’s a connection between Al Qaida and Saddam Hussein.

I just think it’s important to have into the record, Mr. chairman, some facts here.

One of the reports that was disclosed not too long ago, in terms of the — it was about a year ago — in terms of the connection, that a highly classified 16-page defense document, memorandum, and this is one that we talked about and we actually had some hearings on it, has not been refuted to this time.

It says that the unavoidable conclusion:

Saddam Hussein’s regime had been guilty as charged, tied for more than a decade to Osama bin Laden and his Al Qaida network for the purpose of waging attacks on their mutual foe, the United States of America.

Top Iraqi intelligence officials and other trusted representatives of Saddam Hussein met repeatedly with bin Laden and his subordinates.

U.S. intelligence received reports that Iraq provided safe havens, money, weapons, and fraudulent Iraqi and Syrian passports to Al Qaida.

It also provided training in the manufacture and the use of sophisticated explosions — we know about that.

Hikmat Shakir facilitated the movement of two of the September 11th, 2001, hijackers, Khalid Mihdhar and Nawaf Alhazmi, through the passport control center.

There were four meetings between the September hijackers, between Mohammed Atta and intelligence officials of Iraq.

All of these things were drawing that connection.

And I think we’ve adequately covered fact that weapons of mass destruction were certainly expected to be there by every intelligence force, including ours.

Senator Kennedy mentioned Dr. Kay.

And I can recall sitting next to Senator McCain when he was at this very table asking some of questions.

Saddam Hussein developed and used weapons of mass destruction; true. Talking about it in the past; yes, he used them against Iranians and the Kurds.

If so, if he were in power today, is there no doubt that he would harbor ambitions to develop and use a weapon of mass destruction? Absolutely no question about that.

And then it goes on and on as how better off we are today.

And I would include — I was going to run over the German intelligence reports, the French, the Russians, the Israeli reports, but also our own reports.

And when President Clinton was in office he said,

There was no doubt in anyone’s mind that this was going on.

Now, I think probably the best question that’s been asked here — and it’s been answered by you, so I won’t ask it again, it’s been asked to a number of witnesses — is are we better off today.

And I think people are so quick to forget the reports that we had about Saddam’s bloody regime, about the lining up the 8,000 people in the mass graves — we have seen — many people at this table have actually looked down into these mass graves — the lining up of 315 children and executing them, the 315 children; the policy of cutting tongues out if anyone is suspected of saying anything about that administration.

I recall in 1991 — Mr. chairman, you might remember this, although you were not on the trip — but we had the first freedom flight.

And it was Alexander Haig and myself and several others, went to Kuwait.

And we had at that time, Saud Al-Sabah. He was the ambassador to the United States from Kuwait.

And they didn’t even know the war was over then. There is right after it was officially over.

And I can recall the 7-year-old daughter of the ambassador — we went to their palace — they were a royal family — only to find that Saddam Hussein had taken over that palace and used it as a headquarters and went up to some girl to her bedroom. And there are body parts — that he used it as a torture chamber. Saw a little boy there with his ear cut off because he was caught with an American flag.

Now, you know, I think anyone who is trying to use for political purposes these two arguments is going to have to answer that question and have to answer it in the positive, that we are better off, or deny that we’re better off than we would have been if he were still in power.

So I think that’s the thing that we have to look at.

I know I’ve used almost all of my time.

But let me just ask you a couple of questions, Mr. Duelfer.

And also, thank you very much for your service both of you.

Would you describe Iraq’s strategy and tactics to divide the Security Council and defeat sanctions?

And would it have made sense, in your view, to stake our national security on the success of the U.N. sanctions regime?

Mr. Duelfer. Well, I think it’s pretty clear that the Iraqi strategy and tactics of dividing the Security Council were having a fair amount of success.

I think that’s clear in the report when you see the amount of conventional military equipment that was being sold to Iraq, being transported into Iraq by — in fact, with the help of some Security Council members.

There is, in my mind, little doubt that the trend — again prior to 9/11, the constraints that the U.N. was able to put around Iraq were collapsing.

Sen. Inhofe. Yes. Thank you very much.

Thank you, Mr. chairman.

Sen. Warner. Thank you, Senator Inhofe.

Senator Reed.

 

Senator Jack Reed (D-RI). Well, thank you, Mr. chairman.

And thank you, Mr. Duelfer and General.

I did have the opportunity to visit you, and I appreciate the arduous circumstances and the extraordinary commitment that you and your colleagues have made, to do your mission.

Mr. Duelfer, to follow up on a question that the chairman asked about your perception of the threat prior to the invasion.

I think you indicated that you thought there might some stockpiles, but I don’t want to put words in your mouth.

The question I have:

At that point did you think that that constituted an imminent threat to the United States and our interests?

Mr. Duelfer. Bear in mind, I was not a member of the intelligence community at that time.

I was just, you know, me with my own background—

Sen. Reed. Given what we’ve heard, you might have been in a better position.

Mr. Duelfer. It was my judgment that Iraq retained perhaps a strategic reserve; in other words, a deterrent, not an offensive capability.

Sen. Reed. I want to ask you another question which I think is very interesting.

You’ve had the opportunity to meet with Saddam.

Why did he accept the U.N. inspectors into his country with virtually unrestricted access?

I think, as I recall they actually discovered some of these missiles that were out of compliance and destroyed them.

Mr. Duelfer. First, let me correct a point in your premise.

The way we debriefed Saddam was by one interlocutor, who spent his entire time.

My interaction with him was always one step removed.

But the question, you know, “Why did he accept the inspectors?” I think to the best we understand from what he has said — which is not always the truth — but from those around him, was that he recognized the growing pressure.

I mean, it was clear that the military force buildup was taking place. His advisers finally convinced him that, “Look, there has been a ground shift of the support in the Security Council away from Iraq.” He was feeling isolation. Some of the revenues were tailing off.

And he was, I think, getting advice also from some of his friends on the Security Council, saying, “Look, the world has changed. You’ve got some problems here.”

Sen. Reed. That seems to be a pretty rational response from somebody whom we’ve, kind of, labeled as a lunatic or delusional.

That’s just an aside.

The inspectors on the ground, I presume, and you’ve got great experience as a former inspector, would probably be the best source of intelligence and information.

They could have significantly increased our awareness of the true facts; difficult to get at, I grant you.

But yet they were prematurely removed and very abruptly removed.

In your judgment, was that a wise decision?

Mr. Duelfer. I come back — I mean, first of all, I have enormous respect for the inspectors.

And there is no substitute for having people on the ground.

That provides a lot of information.

It provides deterrent.

But I would come back to the questions:

Were those conditions sustainable?

Hans Blix and his people were on the ground in an extraordinary set of circumstances.

The United States had deployed a lot of forces.

There was a crisis in the Security Council.

And so when I ask myself the question, you know, “Were inspections working?” you know, whatever you mean by that, I mean, and I’m asking myself that — you know, are you asking a question which is at one point and time or is it over a continuum?

And I find it hard to convince myself the circumstances which allowed the inspectors to be successful to the extent that they were—

I don’t think those conditions were sustainable.

Sen. Reed. Well, I think you raise the issue of the length of sustainability.

Certainly I would assume that you can see they could have been sustained for several more months, at least.

This coalition—

This was a huge, huge step backing him down, forcing him to admit that the situation had changed, that the U.N. was going to crackdown on him.

And perhaps it wouldn’t have lasted for two or five years or indefinitely, but for two or three months, for six months, for seven months, at which time we could have learned a great deal more about the very questions we’re debating now.

Were those biological labs producing hydrogen or something else?

Was it real nuclear program or was it, sort of, dormant?

Mr. Duelfer. I’m not sure I can answer that question, sir.

Sen. Reed. Mr. Duelfer, I respect you.

And I think that’s probably a good answer.

But certainly those questions should have been asked by our leadership.

Mr. Duelfer. That is the heart of a good discussion and good debate.

And I hope this report informs that discussion.

Sen. Reed. Let me ask you another question, if my time allows.

From what you said — and this might be repeating your response to Senator Levin — that Saddam consciously and deliberately ordered the destruction of virtually all of his weapons of mass destruction — chemical, biological — and termination, at some point, of the nuclear program, which begs the question, if he was so intent in reconstituting the program, if this was his unshakable idea, why didn’t he simply hide small portions of this material?

Mr. Duelfer. Well, he wanted to get out of sanctions.

That was his priority.

On a noninterference basis with that objective, he wanted to sustain — as we understand it from talking with his advisers and him, he wanted to sustain the intellectual capabilities and some bits and pieces that are hard to duplicate of his programs.

This is particularly the case in the early years of the U.N. constraints, from ’91 to, say, ’95, and particularly the period of time during which his son-in-law, who was in charge of developing and had some pride of creation of these programs, was still around.

But after he left in 1995, I think Saddam concluded that this business with the sanctions is going on longer than he expected.

He did not anticipate the duration of these and he had to take other decisions to include getting rid of some of the production capabilities and other things.

Sen. Reed. It seemed that the sanctions were working.

Mr. Duelfer. Well, again, if you look at a point in time and if you look at — it depends on what you mean — I hate to say this — by “working.”

The sanctions certainly were modifying Saddam’s behavior.

They were also having an enormous effect on the people in Iraq.

And once Saddam elected to begin the oil-for-food program because of the devastation on the Iraqi population and because of the threats that that caused to his own regime, once those oil-for-food programs began it provided all kinds of leverage for him to manipulate his way out of sanctions.

So, again, I come back to trying to avoid a static analysis and try looking at a more dynamic analysis.

What are the trends?

Where is this headed?

And I apologize if I sound like I’m disappearing into jargon here, but to me I think that’s a distinction with a difference.

Sen. Reed. Well, thank you.

General, thank you.

My time’s expired.

Sen. Warner. Thank you very much, Senator.

Senator Allard?

 

Senator Wayne Allard (R-CO). Thank you, Mr. chairman.

I wonder — this is for both of you to comment on — if you would just describe the extent of the evidence that Saddam’s regime destroyed materials and documents and equipment, and whether you’re findings were accurately reflected in Saddam’s 2002 report to the U.N. Security Council.

Mr. Duelfer. Sir, our task wasn’t to compare what we found with the U.N. document — what was provided to the U.N.

Likewise, it wasn’t to compare what we found with prewar intelligence assessments.

You know, we had enough trouble just trying to determine what it was that was on the ground.

However, in the process of doing that, it was quite clear we were finding things which were certainly at variance with the U.N. resolutions, but we didn’t line up what we found with what Iraq was declaring.

Sen. Allard. But you did see enough evidence there that raised suspicions about the accuracy of the 2002 report to the U.N. Security Council?

Mr. Duelfer. Well, there certainly were errors in that report.

Sen. Allard. Errors did exist?

Mr. Duelfer. Errors did exist, yes.

Sen. Allard. Similarly, did you uncover more evidence that the regime engaged in additional destruction of weapons of mass destruction, evidence after hostilities began in 2003?

Mr. Duelfer. Well, I think David Kay and I have both commented on that, that there was a lot of destruction at sites, the intentional destruction of documentation, materials.

And it’s difficult to determine exactly what was removed and destroyed, but there clearly was a concerted effort in certain areas to destroy materials that would be helpful in our investigation now.

Sen. Allard. Would you care to speculate on the motivation for the destruction of those?

Mr. Duelfer. Well, Iraq had throughout its existence a denial and deception activity for a multiplicity of reasons, but one of which was to conceal whatever they had with respect to WMD from U.N. inspectors, but also to protect the regime leadership in many ways.

So it could have been related to many different things.

There was also records unrelated to WMD, but perhaps related to atrocities that they wanted to cover up.

Sen. Allard. So you do think in your mind that there was some WMD programs that they were trying to destroy evidence of?

Mr. Duelfer. No, I haven’t said that, sir.

I’ve said there was active steps taken to destroy things and materials which could be help to our investigation.

I don’t know what it was that they were destroying of though.

I can’t make that next step.

Sen. Allard. I see.

Mr. Duelfer, your predecessor and certainly other recent commissions and government reviews have all concluded that we had poor human intelligence in Iraq to uncover or corroborate weapons of mass destructions facts and assertions.

In your opinion, how did we get into that poor state?

Mr. Duelfer. Well, it’s not my responsibility, nevertheless I do have opinions.

Because we did not have relations with Iraq, we didn’t have access for a long period of time, and that’s sort of one factor.

Sen. Allard. It was a closed society.

Mr. Duelfer. It was a very closed—

Sen. Allard. It was very difficult to get people in there on the field to verify.

Mr. Duelfer. That is true.

And while UNSCOM was operating in Iraq — I take some pride in this — we had a great deal of information about Iraq that we made public.

Our reports to the Security Council, which occurred four times a year, were quite detailed.

And I think perhaps people assumed that that was a pretty good source of information.

But, again, these are just my opinions and I’m not the best positioned person to comment on that question.

Sen. Allard. On its face, we have a closed society.

They agree to have inspectors come into their country in Iraq.

Then all of a sudden you kick them out.

I mean, that does raise suspicions about what’s going on in the country as far as weapons of mass destruction, doesn’t it?

Mr. Duelfer. Well, certainly in December 1998, when Desert Fox took place, there was four days of bombing.

UNSCOM left Iraq.

There was an enormous division in the Security Council at that time, because there was difference of opinion about whether that bombing should have taken place.

The Iraqis — certainly Iraqis I spoke with were actually quite satisfied and pleased. One individual I spoke with I remember said, “Well, gee, if we knew that that was all you were going to” — meaning the four days of bombing — “we would have ended this earlier.”

But from December 1998 until December 1999, the Security Council was in complete disagreement over what to do with Iraq. There was not a consensus. It took them a full year to arrive at a new resolution. During that period of time, Iraq was free obviously to do what it wants and it was clear that there was not a consensus on how to deal with Iraq, and they would draw their own conclusions from that.

Sen. Allard. I understand from your remarks there’s a degree of uncertainty regarding involvement of the neighboring countries in Iraq’s potential transportation of weapons of mass destruction or facilities.

For example, we saw reports that Iraq intelligence services would replace border security guards while cargo caravans crossed various border stations.

Would you want to elaborate on those assertions and facts?

Mr. Duelfer. Well, our investigations looked a lot at what took place at some of the border points and surrounding the border crossing points, and this is described in some detail in our report.

Certainly, there was a lot of activity related to the transfer of prohibited conventional munitions. The Mukhabarat, the Iraqi intelligence service was involved in that. They had people at these border points. There was a lot of traffic back and forth. There were reports about WMD-related materials crossing the border.

But I still feel that we have not yet run down all the leads that we can on that.

I’m not sure we’ll ever be able to definitively answer that question, but I still think there are some avenues of exploration which we can pursue.

Sen. Allard. Are some of those papers in the volumes of information you just acquired believe that they could be there?

Mr. Duelfer. Well, the customs documents are not replicated in the book, but the discussion about some of the lines of inquiry we have had are included in that, including the role of the Mukhabarat, the Iraqi intelligence service.

Sen. Allard. I see my time has expired, Mr. chairman.

Sen. Sessions. Thank you, Senator Allard.

Senator Nelson from Florida.

 

Senator Bill Nelson (D-FL). Thank you, Mr. chairman.

Mr. Duelfer, thank you for your public service.

Working in that environment, I visited with your team over there when it was — well, it’s been a year and a half ago.

And that’s a difficult place for you all to operate in, and I appreciate your public service.

If you would, explain just a little more for the committee — and I’m going to quote from your report, from page 5:

Can you describe that to us?

How did that ability decay?

Mr. Duelfer. The nature of a nuclear weapons program is such that you need large teams of very well educated, highly trained individuals.

It’s a complicated process.

Despite Saddam’s desire to retain that intellectual capital, over time those teams just decay. You just can’t sustain that.

The people working on the trigger mechanism, the people working on enrichment, the people working on material sciences, and the people working on rotors for production of enriched material — there is a wide range of talent and expertise which just simply melts away.

And that’s what happened.

Sen. Bill Nelson. General, Scott Speicher is from my state. He’s from Jacksonville.

And you have made the statement that the team that was there, which I visited a year and a half ago and of which were doing a magnificent job, you say that they departed this year in May?

Brig. Gen. McMenamin. Yes, sir.

They exhausted all in-country leads. They ran the ground, everything they could find in-country, returned to the United States to work on their report with the intelligence community POW/MIA cell.

That report is with the director of DIA right now for his review prior to going to the Department of the Navy and SecNav for his final assessment of the fate of Captain Speicher.

Sen. Bill Nelson. Well, that’s five months that they’ve been here.

Why is there not a report forthcoming?

Brig. Gen. McMenamin. Sir, the last update I had, it’s with the director of the DIA.

Other than that, I have no idea why it hasn’t gone any further.

Sen. Bill Nelson. What advice would you give to the committee for us to give any kind of comfort to the family that everything has been done and that the team has left Iraq?

Brig. Gen. McMenamin. Sir, basically with the team leaving Iraq, when they did their efforts to find the fate of Captain Speicher, that didn’t stop our efforts to pursue other leads.

Any leads that we get in country, we have individuals assigned that will actually work those leads. Whether it’s working with a unit in one of the different organizations, whether it’s a source from a human, whether it’s a walk-in to any of our platforms, we’ll continue to pursue any leads that come up in country or any leads that we get from the United States that may prove credible enough that we can give the family some hope and comfort.

Sen. Bill Nelson. Well, I know about some of those leads and we haven’t been able to follow up on them.

Brig. Gen. McMenamin. No, sir.

It’s extremely difficult to get about parts of the country right now to follow up on some of those leads.

Sen. Bill Nelson. Because of the difficulty of us having access, as well as the explosiveness of the local population, the threats, the intimidation, the retribution, all of that?

Brig. Gen. McMenamin. Yes, sir. Those are all parts of it.

In addition, some of the sources are Bedouins that move around quite frequently. They’re extremely difficult to find. Some of them still don’t trust any type of centralized government, just like they didn’t before.

But the leads that we get we do pursue. We sort — just on the WMD side, we sort through scams and realities to try to pursue the credible ones to ensure that we can do what we’re supposed to do.

Sen. Bill Nelson. In the 1990s, we found the aircraft. Supposedly, at that time was brought forth, what was told to us by the Iraqi government at that time, Scott Speicher’s flight suit.

We found a lot of the parts of the aircraft and yet we found no other things — no identification badges, we didn’t find his pistol, we didn’t find any of this.

It’s out there somewhere.

Brig. Gen. McMenamin. Yes, sir.

And it involves tracking down people somewhere in the country. Some are afraid to come forward. They’re there, it’s just going to involve getting to them and finding them and finding out what the answers are.

Sen. Bill Nelson. And what do you think I ought to tell the family so that they have some assurance that this is going to happen, given the fact that it took raising Cain by three senators in order to get this thing moving after about eight years?

Brig. Gen. McMenamin. Sir, the only thing I would be able to tell the family is that we will not give up looking for him. If that gives them false hope, it shouldn’t.

As time goes on and the situation stabilizes, it will give us better access to people, maybe people will be more forthcoming if their fears of retribution by either the insurgency or the former regime elements.

But I would say that we will pursue the effort to the best of our ability to find a good answer for the family.

Sen. Bill Nelson. Well, for your personal service, thank you very much.

My thought that I have is with others, that I think have dropped the ball, certainly not with you. It’s not with your predecessor. It’s not with all of those very courageous people that were part of that team that was sifting through every piece of debris that they could find in those prisons to get any shred of evidence.

It’s with the lethargy and inertia in these gargantuan organizations that suddenly let the fate of an American flyer that was walked away from suddenly be lost in the bureaucracy, and that I can’t stand.

And I can tell you I speak for Senator Roberts as well.

Thank you, Mr. chairman.

Sen. Sessions. Thank you.

Senator Lindsey Graham.

 

Senator Lindsey O. Graham (R-SC). Thank you.

Mr. Duelfer, I have a—

Try to put this whole issue on context and see if we can reach some type of sensible conclusions about what we’re to draw from all this.

Let’s go back, the starting point to me is the use of weapons of mass destruction by Saddam Hussein.

What kind of weapons are we talking about that he used?

Mr. Duelfer. In the Iran-Iraq War in the late ’80s, he used chemical weapons, both aerial bombs and artillery rounds. He used approximately 101,000 chemical munitions. They were mustard rounds largely in the case of 155 millimeter artillery shells. There were 122 millimeter rockets with sarin. There was— And aerial bombs.

In the case of the domestic use in Halabjah, in other cities as well, in northern Iraq, it was really the same mix but they tended to be dropped from the helicopters.

The third use was in 1991, and this is where the ISG developed more new information, and that is when the Shia were rising up. Again, they loaded helicopters with chemical munitions and used it against the Shia.

Sen. Graham. Were these weapons produced in-house, or did he buy this material from someone, or do we know?

Mr. Duelfer. Well, certainly the weapons were manufactured in Iraq. But some components and precursors of the agents were acquired abroad.

Sen. Graham. But the actual making of the chemical bombs was done in Iraq.

Is that correct?

Mr. Duelfer. That’s correct.

Sen. Graham. So at one time he did have a chemical capability within the country?

Mr. Duelfer. Oh, absolutely.

He had an enormous facility called the Muthanna State Establishment, and there is a long discussion of that particular facility in one of the annexes of the report. I mean, it is a huge facility. I think it’s like 5 kilometers by 10 kilometers, and with dozens of buildings. It’s quite a huge place.

Sen. Graham. In 1981, am I correct, was that the year that the Israelis bombed a nuclear power plant?

Mr. Duelfer. That’s correct.

In June of that year, they bombed the Osirak reactor.

Sen. Graham. Do you believe that was a wise decision on their part?

Mr. Duelfer. Uhm. After that activity, the Iraqis really did—

That’s when they really went full bore on a nuclear weapons program.

I don’t think I have a judgment on that, frankly.

Sen. Graham. The only reason I mention it is, was there ever at any time that Saddam Hussein was engaged in trying to acquire a nuclear weapon?

Mr. Duelfer. Well, he certainly was—

He had a very elaborate program. His top weapons designers, you know, freely admit that. They discussed that. The head of the program, Jafar Jafar, will tell you that, after being imprisoned and only let out of prison if he agreed to begin a program, to run the nuclear weapons program, he did that. And that continued on until 1991.

Sen. Graham. So what we know thus far, from history, is that he had chemical weapons within in house, he used them on people to survive, and that he was actively procuring nuclear weapons.

Now, was there ever any evidence that he transferred any material to a third country?

Mr. Duelfer. I—

We have not come across evidence that he transferred WMD materials to a third—

Well, let me rephrase it.

Sen. Graham. Group or country. To anyone.

Mr. Duelfer. We have some reports, that we’re trying to run down, as I mentioned earlier, of material moving out of Iraq just prior to the war.

But if your question means, was he sharing the wisdom and knowledge that he acquired about WMD, we haven’t seen that.

But neither has that been a particular emphasis of our investigation.

Sen. Graham. But you’re still searching out the issue of whether or not he may have moved some weapons material before the war?

Mr. Duelfer. That is correct.

Sen. Graham. How much—

How large a container would you need to hold enough weapons anthrax to kill 100,000 people?

Mr. Duelfer. Well, if you have dried anthrax, and it’s properly distributed, it does not take much, in terms of dried agent.

But you have to be able to deploy it.

There are many scenarios that you can spin out, but if you put it in an aircraft, like an agricultural type of aircraft—

You know, the amount of agent itself is very small.

It’s something that could readily fit in a small room.

The device that you would—

Whatever mechanism you choose to disperse this with is another issue itself.

But your point, I think, is that it is a very small amount of space, in the biology area, and that is true. It is difficult to find these things.

Sen. Graham. Is it also fair to say that, on paper, there were many weapons unaccounted for, biological and chemical agents unaccounted for, given what we know he had before ’91 and the latest inspection efforts?

Mr. Duelfer. Your term “unaccounted for” is well chosen, because there is much confusion on this point.

The U.N., UNSCOM in particular, but also UNMOVIC, reported that it was unable to verify the disposition of certain weapons.

But that is different than saying that they exist.

And so, we were unable to account for them.

Sen. Graham. Well, let’s try it one other way.

The Iraqi government was unable to account for it.

Mr. Duelfer. Correct.

Sen. Graham. So in conclusion, we have a very long history of use of weapons, procuring of weapons, on-paper unaccounted-for weapons.

I think what we need to learn from this, that we were wrong, and as a country we need to find out why we were wrong about some of our assessments.

But as a world, I think we need to come to grips with the idea that people like Saddam Hussein had too much opportunity to do too many bad things too long, and we should learn from that too.

Thank you.

Sen. Sessions. Senator Ben Nelson.

 

Senator Ben Nelson (D-NE) {FNS}: Thank you, Mr. chairman.

And I express my appreciation, as well for your service, as well as for you being here today.

It’s my understanding that the report that’s being released, Mr. Duelfer, will list companies that traded with Iraq after U.N. sanctions were imposed against trade.

But the version to be made public will not include the names of U.S. companies due to a prohibition in the Privacy Act, although the full version to be received by U.S. government officials, including members of Congress, will include those American companies’ names.

But, the report will name French, Russian, Polish and other companies that traded with Iraq, and some of the trade may not have been illegal, though much of it — I take in the words of the report — was clearly illegal.

Is this accurate?

Mr. Duelfer. Sir, it was my view to put forward all the data — names of people, companies, countries that were involved in this, because I felt it was important for people to understand that.

And believe me, this was—

I had to argue on this.

However, with respect to the American names, and lawyers have told me that the Privacy Act, you know, prohibits putting out publicly American companies’ names.

But they are included in the report, which is an official document provided to official Americans.

I’m also given to understand—

Sen. Ben Nelson. I assume that you took their legal advice, but you may not have shared that opinion.

Is that fair?

Mr. Duelfer. I am not a lawyer.

And so, if someone tells me I’m going to go to jail for something, I tend to — I listen carefully.

I mean, that’s not what they told me, but they said, “Look, this is the law. This is what you— This is as far as we can go.”

Sen. Ben Nelson. But isn’t it interesting that we print the names of petty criminals in the police blotter sections in weekly newspapers across the country, but somehow the names of these companies don’t get in.

Now, apparently the Privacy Act doesn’t relate to foreign companies.

Was that ever discussed with you?

Or do you have any thoughts about that?

Mr. Duelfer. It evidently does not.

I would point out also that these data on the — to which you’re referring — the oil vouchers and so on — that data is going to become public anyway.

It’s part of many investigations which are ongoing.

The U.N. has an investigation going on — documents which we received from the Iraqi government.

So I think, as a practical matter, the full disclosure of all of this is going to happen.

But, you know, we can’t be a part of that.

Sen. Ben Nelson. Now, let’s go to the unaccounted-for WMDs.

You mentioned that your view was, in going in, that you thought there probably was this strategic reserve for defensive purposes, not for offensive purposes.

And as you looked, did you also believe that there would be some capability of delivering those weapons of mass destruction in a defensive posture?

Mr. Duelfer. Again, this is just, you know, my own opinion beforehand.

Sen. Ben Nelson. Yes, I understand. It’s your own view.

Mr. Duelfer. I had thought that there would be some small number of ballistic missiles — you know, on the order of a dozen or 15, with the capacity to be loaded with either chemical or biological agent.

And this, you know, would be something as a deterrent in a sense.

Sen. Ben Nelson. Did you have any indication that would have led you to believe that these existing stockpiles, small or otherwise, that were not found, might have been secreted through Syria or some other place?

Mr. Duelfer. I had no wisdom on that, you know, when I was formulating my own opinions about what might remain.

You know, I was really drawing my judgment on residual uncertainties from my work at UNSCOM, from discussions with defectors when I was at UNSCOM, my sense from discussions with Iraqis during the years I was at UNSCOM, the overall incentive structure that Saddam had.

Those were the factors that kind of led to my judgment on that.

Sen. Ben Nelson. But you had no belief, going in, that you would find large stockpiles or large delivery capabilities?

Mr. Duelfer. Well—

Sen. Ben Nelson. As an assumption. As an expectation.

Mr. Duelfer. My thought was that Saddam, the Iraqi regime, would have preserved the opportunity, or the capability, to produce chemical agents and biological agents, if a decision were made to do that.

But this is just, you know, me as an individual. That was my judgment, that he would have retained the capacity to produce, you know, in a strategic build-up period, to put it in, you know, our kind or jargon.

Sen. Ben Nelson. In your previous statement, you said that you saw the destruction, but you couldn’t tell at what point that the destruction might have occurred of any stockpiles.

You also said, I think, that there was a deterioration just inherent in not keeping a nuclear program going because of the loss of staff and loss of capabilities there.

Do you think there was also a loss of potential capability in the ability to make weapons of mass destruction other than nuclear weapons, if you weren’t in the process of making them?

Mr. Duelfer. Less so in the other areas, because of the nature of the systems.

And let me go back to an earlier part of your introduction to that last question—

You said we were not able to understand when these weapons were destroyed.

We investigated that pretty extensively, through interviews and so forth, and really what we found was that most of the destruction was done in 1991 at various points—

Sen. Ben Nelson. So it wasn’t—

Mr. Duelfer. —throughout 1991.

Sen. Ben Nelson. —just in advance of the invasion?

Mr. Duelfer. No, not just in advance.

What—

I was talking about some destruction of evidence and materials that might have aided our investigation.

I just want to make sure that there wasn’t confusion on that point.

To your second point, or question really, the decay in the ability to produce chemical or biological weapons is different, again, because of the nature of the system.

Biology — it’s a small number of people that is required. The physical plant required is very small. So it would be easy for Saddam to conclude, or assume, that he has that capability and it’s on the shelf. And I said this in my testimony.

Because he was able to do it in the past, because the people are still there, because he can produce indigenously, even if he has to start from scratch. Fermenters, spray-dryers, tanks, and dispersal systems — that is something which, in his mind, he says, “I can do that if I want to, and it won’t take me long to do it.”

Chemical is somewhat more difficult. You know, it takes dozens of people in terms of the engineers, the production engineers and the chemists. It would be a bit more difficult depending upon the type of weapons system that you wanted to use. You know, if it’s simple dumb bombs, that’s one thing. If it’s missile warheads, that’s kind of another thing.

Interestingly, though, where he did choose to very openly violate the resolution was in the ballistic missile area.

And that is an area where he tried to draw a distinction between weapons of mass destruction and long-range ballistic missiles.

But he also, I think, understood this is a long-lead item.

Building — indigenously certainly — the types of missiles that he was building, the Samoud-2, that took a lot of time.

And it was when he was in possession of a substantial amount of wealth, largely derived from the oil-for-food program, that he actually committed to those production programs, particularly around 1999 and 2000.

Sen. Ben Nelson. Thank you.

And thank you, Mr. chairman.

 

Senator Jeff Sessions (R-AL). Thank you, Senator Nelson.

I would just, in general, would share the thought that, looking back over my comments at the time that we voted to go forward and authorize military action in Iraq, I mentioned weapons of mass destruction very little, but talked mostly about the consistent violation of Saddam Hussein of the 16 U.N. resolutions.

In a sense, he violated his agreement for peace.

He sued for peace when our military was moving forward in Iraq.

And he sued for peace and agreed to do a number of things which he did not do.

And, as the Economist magazine in London said in, I thought, a very important editorial, that the box was leaking. European nations, Russia, France, Germany particularly, were trading with him. The embargo was leaking. We were flying flights over Iraq on a daily basis and being shot at by his people and dropping bombs on him. And we were at a point, as the Economist said, to either put up or shut up; to walk away or not.

And I am absolutely convinced, had we walked away from Iraq, he would have broken the embargo, utilized the vast oil reserves he had to reconstitute a military that would have been a threat to the world and reconstitute his chemical weapons system.

That’s just my view.

That’s what I said at the time.

That’s what I believe today.

I know the CIA director, apparently according to Mr. Woodward, told the president it was a slam dunk that there were going to be weapons of mass destruction there.

And I do recall chairman Warner, in at least four or maybe six times, asking leading witnesses:

And every one said, “Yes.”

And one of those was General Abizaid, I do recall.

So I just would say, that people who talk about lying and misrepresentation really need to be talking about were there reporting errors and errors in analysis.

Which is why we’re passing, probably this very day, a bill to reform and strengthen our intelligence community.

Mr. Duelfer, you were asked by Senator Graham—

I thought you were a bit reluctant to answer.

The plain question was, “How much space does it take to have anthrax that could kill thousands of people?”

Just—

How much, would it be? If it’s properly handled?

Mr. Duelfer. Well, you know, I mean, it’s a matter of square feet in terms of, you know, the agent.

I mean, it’s something that, you know—

It’s a very small amount of agent.

Sen. Sessions. Well, could you put enough in one fruit jar to kill hundreds of people?

Mr. Duelfer. Well—

Sen. Sessions. If you know.

Just yes or no, if you know.

Mr. Duelfer. Again, the short answer—

If you make the right kind of material—

Sen. Sessions. Yeah, well if you make the right kind.

Mr. Duelfer. —and you disperse it correctly, and the atmospheric conditions are right—

You know, I mean, I’ve listened to too many biological weapons experts to be able to give you a straight yes-or-no answer.

I apologize to you.

Sen. Sessions. Well, at any rate. Yes, sure you—

Mr. Duelfer. But it’s a very small area.

Sen. Sessions. Yes, and—

Certainly it is.

And it’s hard to find that, if you’ve got to look over a nation of 20 million people.

It might be there.

What about this report I see that, I believe it’s in July, we moved out more than 1.7 tons of enriched uranium and other radioactive materials from Iraq?

What was that about?

Mr. Duelfer. This is material that had been part of the Iraqi nuclear power plant production, and had been under safeguard.

It’s not related to weapons programs.

Sen. Sessions. Is it convertible to a dirty bomb? Or something of that nature?

Mr. Duelfer. Well, this is the concern, yes.

Sen. Sessions. But so far as you know now, are there any other remaining nuclear materials in Iraq?

Mr. Duelfer. None which have not been accounted for by the IAEA.

I think, you know, I think we’re pretty solid on that.

Sen. Sessions. Uh—

Mr. Duelfer. But let me just make—

Sen. Sessions. Sure.

I mean, when you say “nuclear,” I mean—

Iraq, for one reason or another, has this, you know, someone—

They’ve got these cesium lightning arresters all over the place. I have no idea why they do, but there are little pieces of cesium all over.

And so we’ve been trying to collect up as many of those as possible.

But they’re not considered to be, you know, a major threat.

Sen. Sessions. With regard to the discussion about whether or not the aluminum tubes was part of a nuclear reconstruction effort by Saddam Hussein, I would just recall that we heard both views of that, in our intelligence briefings that we got, and then, uh, the Democratic nominees got, if they attended.

And some said it was, and some said it wasn’t.

I thought it was connected to nuclear myself, based on the briefings.

But it was certainly clear to those of us who listened to the briefings that some could interpret that differently.

What would you say about—

You form any opinion concerning former weapons inspector David Kay’s comments? That:

Close quote?

Mr. Duelfer. I would agree with all that, up until the last point.

Because I do not believe we know that WMD-related material left Iraq to go to Syria.

There was a lot of material, a lot of things, clearly a lot of money, which left Iraq and went to Syria.

Sen. Sessions. You deny it?

Or you just, personally, are not sure that that was included in the things that went out?

Mr. Duelfer. We are unable, so far, to make a conclusion on that.

We have seen reports, but what I can tell you, that I believe we know, is a lot of materials left Iraq and went to Syria.

There was certainly a lot of traffic across the border points.

We’ve got a lot of data that support that, including people discussing it.

But whether, in fact, in any of these trucks there was WMD-related materials I cannot say.

Sen. Sessions. I think probably what happened to us was that we knew — and I guess you have confirmed in your own mind — that he used chemical weapons against his own people and against the Iranians in the Iran war.

Is that correct?

Mr. Duelfer. That is correct, yes.

Sen. Sessions. And that you don’t deny that he was developing a nuclear weapons program when he was hit by the Israelis, a number of years back?

Mr. Duelfer. He clearly had a nuclear weapons program and he clearly had ambitions in all of these areas.

Sen. Sessions. And you believe he still had harbored those desires to achieve in those areas?

Mr. Duelfer. There’s no doubt in my mind.

Sen. Sessions. And that, I guess, frankly, the fact he’d had them previously, he’d been given opportunities to demonstrate how he got rid of them, and he refused.

I think that may have allowed, or caused some of our experts to reach conclusions, that we haven’t been able to establish at this point to be accurate.

Senator Dayton.

 

Senator Mark Dayton (D-MN). Thank you, Mr. chairman.

Thank you, gentlemen, for your candor and your persistence here today.

The discrepancy between what we were told just prior to the war beginning, in terms of Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction stockpiles, and the absence thereof, is really, to me, staggering.

And I want to just put in, for the record, the statement that Secretary of State Colin Powell made before the United Nations on February 5th, 2003.

He stated:

He also cited 18 trucks for mobile biological agent factories.

Your report indicates that there were none of these supplies — as did Dr. Kay — on the battlefield, stashed, or anywhere physically to be found in Iraq.

On the nuclear weapons question, Vice President Cheney stated on August 29th, 2002:

Just before the war began, he said on Meet the Press, on March 16th, 2003:

Your report, your testimony today, says:

So he had less capability, than he did in 1991, to produce a nuclear weapon.

At the time when we were convinced to support the resolution, in October of 2002, that the president requested—

And at the time the president made the decision to commit American forces to the war in Iraq—

We were told that Iraq possessed these magnitudes of weapons of mass destruction that constituted immediate and urgent threats to the United States.

Based on what you’ve learned subsequent, would you say that that assertion was correct?

Mr. Duelfer. Well, sir, I mean, I don’t want to be evasive, but, you know, again—

It wasn’t our job to evaluate prewar intelligence.

Sen. Dayton. Based on what I just said here, as were, which were the information we were given.

Mr. Duelfer. What we have found on the ground is a substantial variation from what you have described it as the prewar assessments were.

Actually I think that’s quite clear.

Sen. Dayton. Thank you.

Based on your overall knowledge of other nations — and maybe you don’t have the expertise, either of you, to answer this—

How many other countries would you say at that time or at the present time had weapons of mass destruction programs and weapons themselves greater in number or development than Iraq?

How many nations of the world?

Mr. Duelfer. Sir, I’m not—

I don’t know.

You ask about Iraq and I can go on forever.

Sen. Dayton. All right. Fair enough. Fair enough.

You mentioned in your closing of your testimony, Mr. Duelfer, something that was quite chilling about—

You detected, this summer, prospective links between, you say here,

and that you had thought you had been able to get ahead of this problem, you said, through the raids this summer.

You see that possible linkage as still a threat?

Mr. Duelfer. I do.

I was a little bit reluctant to put much more into the public report on that, because it’s an ongoing, you know, force protection kind of an issue.

But what we found—

The Army raided a facility called the Al Aboud (ph) laboratory in an area of Baghdad which is known as the Chemical Souk.

And, by chance, they found a person there who was working on some ricin.

And so we quickly got involved in that. We quickly began to debrief him and, you know, pare down his contacts and work a link analysis, et cetera. We pursued a series of raids pursuant to that. And we, you know, put together a picture of a series of efforts and a number of individuals who were trying to, you know, put chemical agents of various sorts into munitions, including mortar rounds.

We think we’ve got most of that particular activity, not under control, but we understand it.

Now, these individuals were anti-coalition people. They were not people that we identified with foreign terrorists.

But it has certainly been the case that characters like Zarqawi have expressed an interest in exactly this type of weapon.

But I think, you know, the resources of the ISG, the analysts, and the ability to react quickly, allowed us to get ahead of this problem.

And I’m quite proud of what the people did.

Sen. Dayton. I’m glad you did.

Yes, thank you for doing so.

It’s strikes me that one of the pretexts for this war was to prevent Saddam Hussein from dispersing his weapons of mass destruction to other forces.

And a terrible irony of the effort would be if, in fact, that had not been occurring and did, in fact, occur as a result of our intervention there.

And I appreciate your intervention to prevent that.

May I ask, regarding the long-range ballistic missiles that you say there were, what range are we talking about here, in terms of long range?

Mr. Duelfer. Well, the Al-Samoud, which was a weapon that he had and that he fired several in the war, had a range which exceeded 150 kilometers.

I think, probably, it flight-tested out to 180 kilometers.

But, in addition, he had under development range-extension programs that, by adjusting the fuel, in the near term he could have reached 250 kilometers.

Saddam had asked the development of much longer-range missiles, including up to 600 kilometers.

And all this is within the capabilities of the Iraqi scientists and engineers, aided and abetted by, you know, external assistance.

Sen. Dayton. My time is up.

May I just ask you to respond briefly:

How much longer do you think this investigation needs to continue?

Mr. Duelfer. Well, you know, I’m going to go back to Baghdad as soon as possible, because it’s safer there.

And I would anticipate some of the residual issues can be pretty well addressed in the next month or two.

This is not dragging on.

I know some of the questions seem to say, “Well, why are we, you know, wasting all this money and time on this?”

Sen. Dayton. Just asking.

Mr. Duelfer. Yes. I, I—

And in terms of subsequent reporting, what I would see the potential, you know, perhaps addendums on little defined issues.

You know, for example, “Was material shipped out of Iraq prior to the war?” you know, our judgments on that.

Sen. Dayton. Thank you — again, both of you, for your service.

Thank you, Mr. chairman.

Sen. Sessions. Senator Dayton, thank you.

Senator Clinton, the vote’s just started on final passage about two minutes or so. So if you’d like to go now, fine. I think Senator Warner will return after the vote.

 

Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-NY) {FNS}: I’d prefer to go now, if I could.

Sen. Sessions. Good. You’re recognized.

Sen. Clinton. Thank you very much.

And, Mr. Duelfer and General, thank you both for your service.

And please express our appreciation to your predecessors and all who serve in the Iraq Survey Group.

We have a deep understanding, based on the work that you’ve done, of issues that are quite difficult.

And I thank you for that.

Mr. Duelfer, when was your report finished?

Mr. Duelfer. Well, when it was in the printer, which was probably two or three days ago—

I mean, it’s dated the 30th, but, I mean, you know, the printing process—

I think the last volume of it actually trickled off in, you know, the couple days after the—

Sen. Clinton. And who have you, or anyone on your behalf, briefed with respect to this report?

Mr. Duelfer. Briefed. Uhmm.

Sen. Clinton. Or discussed, presented the report?

Mr. Duelfer. Well. Uhmm. For my part, I mean, I’ve talked to, you know, people as this has progressed, you know, including up here.

But this is, you know — earlier this morning the SSCI.

I’ve had meetings, you know, with various people saying, “Where are things coming out? Where are they going along?”

But in terms of the final report, it hasn’t been briefed anywhere other than to Congress right now.

Sen. Clinton. Have you had discussions with anyone at the Pentagon over your findings?

Mr. Duelfer. Uh, I haven’t. No.

Sen. Clinton. Has anyone, General, on your staff or anyone on behalf of the Iraq Survey Group briefed the report to anyone in the Pentagon?

Brig. Gen. McMenamin. No, ma’am.

Sen. Clinton. Have there been any briefings or any discussions of any kind, broadly construed, with anyone in the White House? Or the National Security Council?

Mr. Duelfer. I’ve had discussions with, you know, a staffer over there.

Yeah, I mean, let me be careful that—

The report has been around and circulated for declassification purposes.

A lot of people had to look at it, you know, for force protection reasons, and for other issues, to make sure it was proper that it all go out publicly.

Sen. Clinton. So the report has been in circulation within the government?

Mr. Duelfer. The report has been in the intelligence community.

And, frankly, it’s been all over town, in bits and pieces, while people went through it, to see if there was, you know, material in it that should not be out in the public domain.

Sen. Clinton. Now, Mr. Duelfer, with respect to the ongoing dispute about aluminum tubes, is it your testimony that finally that dispute has been put to rest, insofar as it is possible to determine the use for the tubes?

Mr. Duelfer. I have the advantage of being able to just make a call on this, because the report goes out under my name and I was just—

You know, this aluminum tube issue, to me, is just—

To me, it’s rockets.

Sen. Clinton. It’s rockets.

Mr. Duelfer. It’s rockets.

Sen. Clinton. So if the national security adviser, on Sunday, said of the tubes, quote:

unquote, is it fair to assume that she’s not been briefed, or not aware of the findings of the Iraq Survey Group?

Mr. Duelfer. Well, there may be people debating it in various places.

But, you know, they debated it in front of me, and I came to a conclusion and that’s what I put in this report.

Again, this is not an intelligence community report.

I have, you know, the great pleasure of not having to go through an interagency process on this.

Sen. Clinton. But you are representing the best judgment of a thousand people that filtered information and evidence up to you.

Let me ask, Mr. Duelfer, did you find any evidence that Saddam Hussein either passed weapons or materials or information to terrorist networks?

Or that there was a real risk of him doing so?

Mr. Duelfer. We found no evidence that he was passing to terrorist groups WMD material.

But that really wasn’t a strong focus for our work.

Sen. Clinton. So there is no evidence, in your report, that there was such a risk of him doing so?

Mr. Duelfer. We didn’t address that.

Sen. Clinton. And, is there any other source of information, other than the work of the Iraq Survey Group, that would present evidence, sufficient for a statement such as that to be made?

That you’re aware of?

Mr. Duelfer. I’m unaware of assessments on that.

But I’m not sure I would be aware.

Sen. Clinton. So if, this morning, President Bush said, and I quote:

unquote, he could not be relying upon your exhaustive reportd for that statement, could he?

Mr. Duelfer. Well, I mean, if, you know—

He had—

The talent and the knowledge existed in Iraq.

So what Saddam did with it you, again, have to evaluate.

Sen. Clinton. But he’s not talking about passing on, you know, talent.

He’s talking about “weapons,” “materials,” “information.”

Mr. Duelfer. The report describes what we found on the ground, which was, you know, no stocks.

There was a decision to sustain, to the extent they could, the intellectual capital.

But, you know, I’m trying to say exactly what we’ve said here.

Sen. Clinton. And I appreciate that, because I think you’ve done a great service to your country, Mr. Duelfer.

Because, you know, I sometimes fear that we’re trying to turn Washington, at least, into an evidence-free zone.

So the introduction of evidence, and facts, upon which reasonable people, I hope, can reach conclusions, is a great service.

We’ve seen too little of that.

So I am very appreciative of the professional way in which you have proceeded, in the fulfillment of your function.

Let me also ask you, Mr. Duelfer, as an experienced inspector:

The conclusions you reached about the decay of the attempt to obtain nuclear weapons is of great interest, I think.

Because we now are concerned about North Korea, about Iran.

We, obviously, were surprised by both India and Pakistan.

Those states, and perhaps even non-state actors, who are attempting to obtain nuclear weapons is the greatest threat we confront.

And that was certainly the case, you know, before Iraq and now, indeed, after.

Do you have any advice about, you know, the best way for the United States to try to degrade and decay such capacity, so that we can be assured that proliferation will not pose a threat to us or to others around the world?

Mr. Duelfer. Well, the decay that occurred in the Iraqi program was a function of the sanctions and, you know, the extraordinary limits it put on this regime.

We looked at some of the activities of these scientists, in areas where we thought they might have been serving as a surrogate for nuclear-related activities.

For example, there was a development program of a rail gun, which is an electromagnet — it’s like a magnetic device for firing projectiles. We thought that that might be a surrogate for development of nuclear expertise.

We looked at a series of projects like that, but we found that it was inconclusive.

Drawing conclusions that would apply to a country like North Korea — it’s difficult, frankly, Senator, because they are so different.

Iraq invaded another country and lost. It was subject to an extraordinary set of U.N. regulations. It fought a war with Iran. It had enormous natural resources. It has a population which is energetic; they’re great builders.

It’s in a different region where, you know, many would expect just objectively to see, you know, Iraq as a country and its people really should be the hub.

But, by virtue of the leadership, you know the difference between what is, in Iraq, and what could be, is huge.

I don’t know.

It’s difficult for me to draw lessons for North Korea.

But it’s a very good question.

Maybe others smarter than I can do it.

Sen. Clinton. Thank you so much, both of you.

 

Senator John W. Warner (R-Va). Thank you, Senator.

I thank the witnesses for their indulgence.

We are now voting on the intelligence bill, which is of utmost importance. I had the last two amendments, so I forgive you for my departure briefly.

And I have voted so I’m going to remain.

There’s at least one senator on the committee who desires to come back from the vote, since that individual did not have an opportunity to ask questions.

Would you all like to take a three-minute or four-minute stretch?

Or?

Mr. Duelfer. Sir, I’m used to Baghdad. This is fine.

Sen. Warner. General, as a former Marine myself, you just stay where you are.

Brig. Gen. McMenamin. OK, sir.

(Laughter)

Sen. Warner. Thank you.

Gentleman, I think we’ve had an excellent hearing.

There are many ways to judge the quality and content of a hearing—

Sen. Pryor. Mr. chairman, I’m back.

Sen. Warner. You’re back.

Sen. Pryor. I’ve been voting and I just got back.

Sen. Warner. Good. Well, I’m in the middle of a speech.

Sen. Pryor. Well, I’ll stay out of your way then.

Sen. Warner. A number of colleagues have come up to me on the floor, and in the passage way, and expressed tremendous satisfaction with your testimony and the fact that you have come and the work you’ve done.

And, General, of course, you’re the new boy on the block, but you’re doing your job, too.

And my question, at this point, and then I’ll yield to my good friend here, is:

Is the record complete, as to the future that you estimate for the ISG?

You’ve got 1,700 people.

I’m looking at your statement, General.

And that’s a considerable investment of people and capital.

The General points out, in his testimony, we have a wide range of other missionaries outside Mr. Duelfer’s responsibility.

So I think it would be helpful if you were to describe the force; the size is still 1,750.

Did you contemplate keeping that size?

And what other missions?

And over what period of time, do you hope to achieve those missions?

Brig. Gen. McMenamin. Sir, out of that 1,750, about a thousand of them are down in Qatar running the doc ex. They are the ones that will handle this large influx of material we just received. They will triage it, scan it and get it into the national databases.

Out of that thousand down there, about 700 of those are linguists, both cat 1 and cat 2 linguists, that do the scanning, the triage, and things like that. So that is a large undertaking down there.

Up in Baghdad, we have about 750 folks. That’s broken out between a small doc ex effort that focuses more on some tactical intelligence, taking care of things. We have an analytical base that encompasses a WMD section, a counterinsurgency section, and a political military section that handles the HVDs and the Captain Speicher investigations. That’s supported by a small staff, a security element, a HUMINT element that works throughout Iraq.

Based on the various missions we have, the numbers may change, depending on the size and the questions we need to follow, for Mr. Duelfer’s post-report requirements. We’re looking at how we can better integrate and work with the Multinational Force-Iraq’s collection efforts also, so we can support, over the next couple of months, the requirements that Mr. Duelfer identifies, and also General Casey’s requirements in the battle against the counterinsurgency and the counterterrorists, especially in these crucial months leading up to our elections, their elections, and the inauguration, our inauguration.

Sen. Warner. That’s a very clear statement, and I thank you.

And you’ve indicated, Mr. Duelfer, that you’re going to return.

Is that correct?

Mr. Duelfer. That is correct.

Sen. Warner. And you haven’t specified the duration of this next chapter?

Mr. Duelfer. No, but it is a much-diminished task and requirement, and the general and I have been discussing the personnel requirements and so forth.

But it is a very much smaller activity that will be required to address some of the—

Sen. Warner. What works do you deem essential to complete this?

Mr. Duelfer. Well, the criteria I put as, you know, I don’t want to be spending time and risking people’s, basically, lives on things which are just historical curiosities.

My criteria is something which could materially affect the future.

In other words, if we are uncertain about the disposition of some fermenter tanks, there remains the possibility that there is a biology capability.

So that’s worth, to me, investigating.

Sen. Warner. And then, of course, there’s the facts that will be revealed from this very large tranche of new material, which is down in the document examination.

Just one—

I’ve, sort of, been recycling Senator Kennedy’s question to you, Mr. Duelfer, in which he asked you, I guess it was something like, what percentage chance of a zero to a 100 of finding things, and you said 5 percent.

And I kept thinking that earlier, in reply to my inquiry and others, you said that the biological requires a very little space in which to house, store, preserve, or otherwise keep a supply, which supply could be extremely detrimental to a great number of people.

Am I correct about that?

Mr. Duelfer. Absolutely correct.

Sen. Warner. So was that included in your 5 percent?

Are we referring to large cachs, or weapons of mass destruction, in terms of the chemical, primarily?

Mr. Duelfer. The way I understood Senator Kennedy’s question was large, militarily significant stocks.

That the risk that there is a concealed biological capability of some sort, to produce some—

That is the area where I am least confident, frankly.

But because we have had access to those people we believe were involved in the previous biology program, you know that’s where we draw some confidence that we think we’ve run this as well as we could.

And that is the most important analytic approach on biology — is the people. Because there is a relatively small number.

But by the same token, it could be two or three people that you’ve never even heard or involved in this.

So, you know, sensitivity analysis on this whole endeavor would say, where you’re on the weakest ground is in biology.

Sen. Warner. I thank you very much.

Now, Senator, we’re delighted that you came back from the vote and now take your time.

 

Senator Mark Pryor (D-AR). Thank you.

Sen. Warner. I appreciate very much your staying with this hearing.

Sen. Pryor. Thank you.

Thank you very much, and I will try to stay within my six minutes if at all possible.

And I’d like to join the chorus of voices here thanking both of you for your public service. It’s great service to this country, and even beyond our borders. We really appreciate it.

If I may, Mr. Duelfer, I’d like to start with you.

I read in this morning’s Washington Post, it said, quote,

Is that true?

You worked independent of the CIA?

Mr. Duelfer. Well, I’m an independent voice.

I report to the Director of Central Intelligence.

Sen. Pryor. OK.

Is that true?

Mr. Duelfer. Other than for the declassification process which I described earlier.

I mean, it is — I controlled the content.

Sen. Pryor. OK. So they didn’t ask you to change it materially, just in terms of the classification aspect.

Mr. Duelfer. Correct.

Sen. Pryor. And did anyone else ask you — you know, outside the CIA, from another agency or the White House or anybody else — ask you to change your report?

Mr. Duelfer. No.

I mean, I received, you know, thoughts which I solicited from people because I think, you know, anybody who has a bright idea, I’m not averse to hearing it.

But, you know, no one tried to influence the outcome.

And if they knew me, they would, you know, they would realize they’d get the opposite reaction if anything.

Sen. Pryor. Did you find any connection between Saddam Hussein’s regime and 9/11?

I just want to be very clear on this, because this has come up in numerous contexts.

But have you found any connection between Saddam Hussein—

Mr. Duelfer. We weren’t looking for that.

But we found none.

Sen. Pryor. And also let me just be clear on this question because this, again, has come up in this committee and other places:

Is there any evidence that Saddam Hussein or his regime passed WMD to Al Qaida?

Mr. Duelfer. We saw nothing.

Sen. Pryor. And is there any evidence that he attempted to do that or he was contemplating doing that?

Mr. Duelfer. We saw nothing.

Sen. Pryor. OK.

As I understand in your testimony from earlier, when we started in the very beginning, you talked about the U.N. sanctions and I don’t want to put words in your mouth, but as I understand it, in your view, they had a very limiting effect on his ability to produce WMD.

Mr. Duelfer. Among the effects of the sanctions were to constrain his ability to produce WMD.

And that’s two-fold.

One is that there were some constraints, particularly in the early years, about what he could import.

But it also modified his behavior, because his prime objective was to get rid of those sanctions.

Sen. Pryor. So in that sense, the sanctions had worked, or were working.

But, also what you found, as I understand it, is individuals and companies from China, Russia, France and other countries were willingly evading U.N. sanctions.

Mr. Duelfer. I think the strength of the sanctions was clearly decaying, particularly after 1997.

Sen. Pryor. I think you mentioned that they were in a free fall.

Mr. Duelfer. Well, I’m a skydiver so, you know, a free fall’s not necessarily bad in my book.

(Laughter)

Sen. Pryor. Well, let me ask you this—

Sen. Warner. Let’s hope not.

Sen. Pryor. If China and Russia and France, if those companies and individuals were trading with Iraq, is it possible they could do that without their governments knowing that?

Mr. Duelfer. Uhm, yes.

We try to be very careful in discussing when we know it was a company dealing with Iraq, and when we know it was a government dealing with Iraq, or when we know it was a government-sponsored company dealing with Iraq.

Sen. Pryor. OK.

Mr. Duelfer. We saw evidence of all.

Sen. Pryor. OK.

And were these violations — by these, you know, governments and companies and individuals, et cetera — were these violations aiding Saddam Hussein’s attempted build up of WMD?

Were they aiding his WMD program?

Mr. Duelfer. They were certainly aiding his weapons infrastructure.

They were certainly aiding his long-range ballistic missile capability.

They were certainly aiding in the sense that the domestic infrastructure was improving and that would shorten a breakout capability, should he decide on that.

But we did not see specific imports, for example, dedicated to a biological program or dedicated to a nuclear program or dedicated to a chemical program.

Sen. Pryor. I see.

Now, I want to ask you a question, that I know you’ll get asked by the press, if you hadn’t already, and it’s possible that you already have been asked this today.

But President Bush, when he was asked whether there were chemical and biological weapons that existed in Iraq, prior to Operation Iraqi Freedom, he said:

My first question is, are you Charlie?

Mr. Duelfer. Uh, if he says so.

(Laughter)

Sen. Pryor. And the second question is, it’s just as I understand your testimony again, to be clear, that you did not find evidence of chemical or biological weapons at the dawn of Operation Iraqi Freedom?

Mr. Duelfer. We did not find stocks of either chemical or biological weapons.

Sen. Pryor. And is your report in any way inconsistent with David Kay’s findings?

Mr. Duelfer. No, I think—

Well, it’s—

In some cases we refined some of the material he presented.

We learned a bit more about some of the things that he originally found.

We were able to flesh out some of the organizations.

You know, for example, he first found some of these Mukhabarat labs.

And I think we were able to get a better understanding of what they were about.

It’s more of a—

Sen. Pryor. In other words, you fleshed out his report? More than him?

Mr. Duelfer. His report was really a snapshot of what they found.

I think, you know, this is more of, you know, a synthetic picture of—

Sen. Pryor. Comprehensive.

Mr. Duelfer. —what was going on.

Sen. Pryor. Comprehensive views of that—

Mr. Duelfer. It’s still not inconsistent with what he—

Sen. Pryor. Let me ask about a scenario that someone referred to a few moments ago.

And you actually have it in your written statement.

At least it’s referred to.

And maybe I should ask General McMenamin about this.

There’s a scenario out there that I think we, in the Congress, are concerned about.

What if insurgents team up with Saddam Hussein regime chemical weapons experts?

What if they team up and, you know, could cause quite a bit of damage there?

Here’s the question I want to ask the General:

Do we have, in your view, sufficient resources on the ground in Iraq to prevent this?

Brig. Gen. McMenamin. I would say, for the military commanders, the intelligence effort that we have, to try to identify these people, is sufficient at the moment.

One of the more successful programs that the Embassy is running is the scientist redirection program.

We are working with the Embassy and the Ministry of Science and Technology to actually employ some of these former regime scientists, either here in the United States or in Iraq, which will also help the issue.

Sen. Pryor. Now—

So—

I’m sorry—

The answer to my question, then, is what?

Do we have sufficient resources on the ground?

Brig. Gen. McMenamin. Yes, sir.

Sen. Pryor. We do.

OK.

We’re doing everything we can do to make sure that scenario doesn’t happen?

Brig. Gen. McMenamin. Sir, any time we get any notification of any type of chemical weapon, we send a team out, we interview sources, we run down sources.

We run down everything from epoxy glue to baby powder to crude schematic drawings of missile systems that somebody took out of a book just so they can get some money.

Sen. Pryor. Right.

Brig. Gen. McMenamin. So we investigate every potential lead.

Sen. Pryor. Thank you.

Mr. Duelfer, I’m really out of time, but let me ask you—

Sen. Warner. Senator, you go ahead and take another minute or two.

Yes, please do.

Sen. Pryor. One question—

Thank you, Mr. chairman—

And that is, is this your final report?

Or are you planning on doing another report?

Mr. Duelfer. This is a comprehensive report.

And I choose that word carefully, because I think, you know, as I mentioned, there’s a couple little remaining issues where I think we can fully develop more information.

And if we do, and if it’s beneficial, we will, you know, produce short addendums to this report.

Sen. Pryor. And I’d like to follow up on Senator Lindsey Graham’s question a few moments ago as well.

And that is, he mentioned the WMD unaccounted for.

And you may not be able to say how much is unaccounted for in this arena.

I’d like, at some point, to get an answer to that.

If you can say it here I’d like to hear it, but if not, I’ll be glad to get it later.

But, in your opinion, what happened to that WMD that’s unaccounted for?

What’s your view of that?

Mr. Duelfer. The unaccounted weapons, I mean, really derives from the weapons which Iraq declared it had but was not able to verify the disposition thereof.

For example, there was 550 155 mm artillery shells with mustard agent.

They were not able to account for those to the U.N.

What happened to them?

We may never really know.

But as we find these residual chemical rounds—

And we found a mere, I think, about 53 in the past several months—

Some of these unaccounted for weapons may just turn up that way.

They are not a significant threat.

Sen. Pryor. Let me just be clear on that.

Are these unaccounted for?

I mean, these weapons that you found, the mustard gas, et cetera.

Is this pre-’91?

Mr. Duelfer. They were produced before 1991.

That’s correct.

Sen. Pryor. And this really is my last question, because I’m indulging on the chairman’s time here.

But if I can follow up with Senator McCain’s question.

One of the things he says, basically, we had two choices in Iraq:

We could either keep the status quo, or we could attack Saddam Hussein.

I mean, I’m not trying to be over simplistic, but I think that’s essentially what he said.

But would you agree with me that actually we did have a third option, and that is that we could have the world rededicate ourselves to the sanctions.

In other words, to use your term, to stop the free fall, to plug the holes of the leaky — then there’s been a lot of analogies used today — but the leaky vessel, whatever we called it earlier.

Couldn’t we have done that and continued to thwart his ability to create WMD?

Mr. Duelfer. Sir, I’m really not in the position to answer that question.

I just—

One thing I would point to, though, is the sanctions had a lot of effects, far beyond addressing the Iraqi WMD capability.

And when you see what happened to the Iraqi country, particularly now that we’re there, you know, you have to take that into account as well.

Sen. Pryor. Mr. chairman, that’s all I have, thank you.

 

Senator John W. Warner (R-Va). Thank you very much, Senator, for your participation.

What has become of the scientists that worked on the — particularly the WMD, but biological programs?

Do you have an accounting for how many of them are around, what they’re doing?

And is there some program to discourage them from working with some other organization, terrorists, or leaving the country and spreading their knowledge into hands which would bring along an adverse situation?

Mr. Duelfer. Sir, we have a fair idea of where the prominent ones are.

Some of them are in jail.

Some of them are employed in Iraqi ministries.

As General McMenamin mentioned, there is a program that the United States is sponsoring to employ some of these individuals.

You know, frankly, it’s been my experience that most of these people would rather pursue other lines of business; that they want to pursue a line of business that allows them to, you know, earn an income.

Most of these people didn’t grow up thinking:

They were, kind of, channeled into that, by a very odd regime.

But I think, for the most part, we know where most of the biological specialists are.

And they’re in Iraq.

Sen. Warner. If we know what efforts have been made or not, we can certainly help you get a better understanding of it.

The nuclear programs in the former Soviet Union and now in this country, the Nunn-Lugar programs, we’ve expended a lot of the taxpayers’ funds to try and get a handle on where that material is and what’s being done to keep it out of the hands of third parties. Russia’s been extremely cooperative I think.

And we’re continuing to press forward.

Do we need a similar program here?

Mr. Duelfer. Sir, I think that, you know, there is a State Department program along those lines.

They’ve certainly come to us with — in request for, you know, who are the key individuals — and we’ve provided information to them.

But that’s — it’s outside the direct mandate of the ISG.

General McMenamin?

Brig. Gen. McMenamin. We work closely with our chem-bio unit — that does all the field testing — and has worked a very good relationship between the embassy and the Ministry of Science and Technology, and we actually have a very open dialogue with them to identify certain scientists that are either needed back here for the Department of Homeland Security or can be of use in Iraq.

Sen. Warner. And I thank you.

What has been your observation about the prisoners in custody and to the extent that they’ve been forthcoming in providing us any information that’s been of value in your work?

I want to separate this, of course, from the situation of Abu Ghraib prison, the military situation.

That is slowly working its way through the judicial system of the Department of the Army, and also this committee still is interested in that.

But what they called the deck of cards.

And they are kept in facilities where there’s an entirely different type of treatment being rendered.

Mr. Duelfer. That’s correct.

Frankly, I think some of them have been very helpful.

Some of them have not.

It is my opinion that very little purpose is served by detaining some of them.

Sen. Warner. Have you conveyed that to the appropriate authorities, your judgment on that?

Mr. Duelfer. That’s correct.

Sen. Warner. That’s good.

I think that’s helpful.

So some of it has been fruitful, and from time to time—

Mr. Duelfer. Some of them have been very helpful.

And, in fact, I think it would be very interesting when some of them are released for them to read this report and have a comment on it.

Sen. Warner. Lastly, you’ve been very helpful to the committee in giving your perspectives on Iraq and the future of Iraq, drawing on your many, many years of experience with the people.

I’m going to speak for myself:

It seems to me the greatest hope for fulfilling the mission of giving the Iraqi people the freedom that they deserve and hopefully want is through the training of significant numbers of military and police and paramilitary, borderm and the like, to secure their country.

I mean, we had Prime Minister Allawi, who was a very impressive man, and I had the opportunity to directly ask him questions along this line.

The anticipation is that the numbers, which are currently in the 60,000 to 65,000, could well, by the time the elections are held in January, grow to 100,000.

But as you study that culture, do you feel that sufficient numbers of people in Iraq will step forward, take on those responsibilities of providing for their own security, and in numbers which will hopefully enable our country to begin some phase-down of its force structure?

I mean, you see these tragic situations where those lining up as recruits are the targets of suicide bombers, and others, and yet those lines seem to form the next day.

So I’d be interested in your views on that, Mr. Duelfer.

Mr. Duelfer. Well, sir, it’s, obviously, unrelated to my report, but I’ve spent a lot of time there.

My sense is that what they desire most, of course, is security.

It doesn’t take a genius to figure that out.

If they have a structure to step into, and they believe it is their structure, not a foreigner’s structure, and that that structure is fair and represents Iraq, I think that’ll happen.

I had a lot of very candid conversations with many Iraqis, even under Saddam.

And there’s lots of discussions about the different tribes, clans, the Shia, the Sunni.

Many of them made the point to me, they said, “Yes, but, you know, over the last few decades, we have acquired our nationality. We are Iraqis first.”

And the way Saddam dispersed favor and so forth, he tended to reward groups, and so forth, and he fended off threats that way to himself.

But I think if there is a structure, that it is identified as an Iraqi structure, that it is seen as something which will contribute to their future, that there’s a true, you know, possibility that that will happen.

Sen. Warner. And I thank you very much.

Senator Levin.

 

Senator Carl Levin (D-MI). Thank you.

Just a few questions, Mr. Duelfer.

First on the unmanned aerial vehicles issue.

As I read your findings, on page 42, it’s that, quote,

Does that accurately state your findings?

Mr. Duelfer. That reflects our assessment.

Sen. Levin. Was there any—

Did you find any evidence in the documents that you looked at that Iraq had UAVs capable of or were intended to carry WMD?

Mr. Duelfer. In their possession, no.

Sen. Levin. And relative to chemical weapons, on, I believe, page one of the chemical section, your report says that:

Is that accurately stating your—

Mr. Duelfer. That’s correct.

Sen. Levin. And you also found that, relative to the sites, satellite photos of sites that were stated to be suspicious — chemical weapons storage sites, prior to the war — that you found, on page three of your report {194kb.pdf}, quote:

other than CW-related activities.

Is that accurate?

Mr. Duelfer. Yes. I mean—

This is referring to—

In Secretary Powell’s presentation to the U.N. Security Council, in particular the site called Musayyib, and there was some imagery of that.

And what we found on the ground was that, you know, what the Iraqis were doing there was unrelated to chemical weapons.

Sen. Levin. Now, Senator Pryor asked you about any evidence about a relationship to Al Qaida in the documents that you looked at, and I gather you answered in a negative to that question.

How many documents did you look at?

I don’t know whether to ask you, General, or who I look at for the answer to this, because you had some data in your prepared statement about numbers of documents, number of people—

So whoever wants to answer that question.

Brig. Gen. McMenamin. Sir, we went through over 40 million pages of documents.

Mr. Duelfer. We’ve also now acquired a like number, which we haven’t—

Sen. Levin. Right, so you’ve got another—

You’ve got 40 million more documents.

Mr. Duelfer. Another squillion, to put it in analytical terms.

Sen. Levin. Another?

Mr. Duelfer. I’m sorry. A squillion. A lot.

Sen. Levin. But at least in the 40 million you’ve gone through, there was no such evidence.

Is that correct?

Mr. Duelfer. Well, the approach that it’s gone through—

It’s a triage.

We haven’t put eyeballs on every page and looked at that.

But the process that we’ve gone through hasn’t yielded anything like that.

Sen. Levin. And then just one other question that relates to—

I don’t know if this was—

I’m trying to find out whether it was a conversation that you had, or you folks had, about his major concern.

I have the quote now.

Apparently, in the report, you were quoted as saying, that you were a—

Mr. Duelfer. Myself, among others, that’s true.

Sen. Levin. And that Iraq was in a position to be Washington’s best friend in the region?

Mr. Duelfer. That is something that a senior Iraqi said to me.

That’s true.

Sen. Levin. And what—

What came of those probes?

Mr. Duelfer. Nothing.

I mean, you know, the policy was not to have a dialogue, as I understand it, with Baghdad at the time.

But again, I wasn’t part of those, you know, policy decisions.

I just, you know, was the recipient—

They saw me as a convenient American to talk to.

Sen. Levin. Well, I guess I’m the closest thing we have here to a chairman.

While we’re waiting for the chairman—

Page one of the biological section says that, quote,

Is that an accurate reading of your page one?

Mr. Duelfer. Well, in the mid-’90s that’s true.

But with the improvements in Iraq’s domestic industrial circumstances as the ’90s proceeded it became less of a hurdle.

It also is addressing a program on the scale that they had before the war, which was a very substantial program.

We’re not really addressing there the small types of terrorist type of concerns that, you know, so often people talk about with respect to biological weapons.

Sen. Levin. Thank you.

Senator John W. Warner (R-Va). Forgive me.

I’m trying to handle a matter on the floor at the same time.

I think we’ve concluded—

And I thank—

Sen. Levin. I don’t know if Senator Pryor had—

Sen. Warner. Thanks—

Sen. Levin. I didn’t—

Sen. Warner. Thank you.

Sen. Levin. —have the gavel, so—

Sen. Warner. As I said, I thought we’ve had a very good hearing, and I wanted to personally come back and thank you for the service you have rendered, each of you, and continue to render.

And this committee would be very anxious to receive such subsequent reports and opinions that you might have, as we intend to continually monitor this important subject.

Thank you very much.

The hearing is concluded.

{gavel}

– end –

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