UNITED NATIONS — Drawing on a high-tech collection of spy satellite imagery and intercepted conversations, Secretary of State Colin L. Powell charged Wednesday that Saddam Hussein has devised elaborate schemes to conceal weapons of mass destruction and warned that the time for international action to disarm Iraq is drawing closer.
"Clearly, Saddam will stop at nothing until something stops him," Powell said.
The secretary of State's methodical and measured presentation nudges the 12-year saga of disarming Iraq closer to a denouement, with new urgency attached to the weekend visit to Baghdad of the top two weapons inspectors and their next report to the Security Council on Feb. 14.
Powell's presentation included purported evidence that Iraq still has active programs in all four categories of proscribed weapons of mass destruction: nuclear, chemical and biological weapons and long-range ballistic missiles. Most of the case is based on intelligence garnered shortly before or since the return to Iraq of weapons inspectors Nov. 27, with other material from the late 1990s, when the previous U.N. teams were forced to leave Baghdad.
The accumulated effect, Powell said, provides strong proof that Hussein is engaged in an "active and systematic" scheme to prevent U.N. teams from finding key materiel and specialists in direct violation of Resolution 1441, which calls false statements, omissions and failure to cooperate with inspectors a material breach. By this standard, he said, Iraq is now undeniably in further material breach, a possible trigger for military action.
"Saddam Hussein is determined to keep his weapons of mass destruction; he's determined to make more," Powell told the Security Council. "Indeed, by its failure to seize on its one last opportunity to come clean and disarm, Iraq has put itself in deeper material breach and closer to the day when it will face serious consequences for its continued defiance of the council."
During the presentation, Iraq's U.N. ambassador, Mohammed Douri, smiled as he listened to one of the captured recordings because "it was ridiculous," he said afterward. In his rebuttal, Douri said: "Programs for weapons of mass destruction are not like an aspirin pill, easily hidden. They require huge production facilities, starting from research and development facilities, to factories, to weaponization, then deployment. Such things cannot be concealed. Inspectors have crisscrossed all of Iraq and have found none of that."
