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 Home > News & Policies > May 2003

For Immediate Release
May 30, 2003

Global Message

KEYPOINTS: THE LATEST ON WMD

"You have to believe that Saddam Hussein was willing to live under sanctions for 12 years, for no good reason, if you really believe that he was not hiding a weapons of mass destruction program. I just don't think that argument is credible." --National Security Advisor Rice, 5/28/03

  • President Bush has made identifying and eliminating Iraq's weapons of mass destruction a top priority.

  • We've had a major development in finding biological weapons labs, which correspond to the sketches that Secretary Powell showed at the UN.

  • We are interviewing scientists and recovering documents.

  • The process of identifying and verifying WMD is complicated and lengthy because the Iraqi regime designed these programs to deceive. The U.S. government has always expected the disarmament of Iraq to be a difficult and lengthy process.

  • The Coalition is taking a comprehensive approach by:

    • Obtaining the cooperation of key Iraqi personnel

    • Accessing and assessing possible sites

    • Obtaining and examining key documents and computers.

  • The Iraqi regime devised many concealment and deception tools.

    • Iraq's "just-in-time inventory" allowed them to put together weapons at the last moment.

    • Many facilities were inspections-proof. The Iraqis embedded as much as they could in the "dual-use infrastructure," allowing them - for example - to make as much as 50 percent more chlorine than needed.

    • The making of chlorine looks perfectly innocent, but it is a precursor for some chemical weapons.