09/30/2002
EDITORIAL NUMBER=0-10160

BLAIR ON IRAQI W-M-D

British Prime Minister Tony Blair addressed his country’s parliament on the threat posed by Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction. The regime of Saddam Hussein promised to renounce such weapons in 1991, after a U.S.-led international coalition drove Iraqi troops out of Kuwait. But as Mr. Blair pointed out, Iraq’s program to amass such weapons today is "active, detailed, and growing."

Prime Minister Blair presented findings from a fifty-page report on Iraq’s weapons program drawn from intelligence information. It details how the Iraqi regime has amassed and used chemical weapons, developed and stockpiled biological weapons, and sought to acquire nuclear weapons. The Iraqi military, the report says, can deploy chemical or biological weapons "within forty-five minutes of an order to do so." The Iraqi regime also retains the means to use such weapons in an attack. According to the report, Iraq has illegally retained up to twenty al-Hussein missiles, which are capable of carrying chemical or biological warheads and have a range of six-hundred fifty kilometers. This means they are in striking distance of Israel, Turkey, and British bases on Cyprus.

Iraq’s military planning indicates that the regime of Saddam Hussein is "willing to use chemical and biological weapons, including against his own Shia population," according to the report. This is particularly ominous, since the Iraqi regime used chemical weapons to kill thousands of Kurdish civilians in 1988. Intelligence reports indicate that Saddam is determined to retain his biological and chemical weapons capability as a necessary tool to maintain Iraqi political weight. For this reason, the report says, Iraq is already taking steps to prevent U-N weapons inspectors from finding evidence of its biological and chemical weapons programs.

As Mr. Blair said, the Iraqi regime has bought or attempted to buy equipment needed to construct centrifuges used to enrich uranium for use in nuclear weapons. And while Iraq has no active civilian nuclear power program, it has "sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa." According to Britain’s Joint Intelligence Committee, Iraq could produce a nuclear weapon in one to two years -- if it could obtain fissile material from foreign sources. A recent report by the independent International Institute of Strategic Studies concluded that Baghdad could produce a nuclear weapon "in a matter of months" if it received fissile material from abroad.

Civilized nations are demanding that the regime of Saddam Hussein destroy all of its weapons of mass destruction. As British Prime Minister Tony Blair said, this demand must be met.