‘Material Omissions Constitute a Breach’

Excerpts from remarks by Secretary of State Colin L. Powell announcing that Iraq’s arms declaration fails to meet a U.N. resolution:

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The inspectors ... said that in some cases they even have information that directly contradicts Iraq’s account.

Our experts ... have found it to be anything but currently accurate, full or complete.

Indeed, thousands of the document’s pages are merely a resubmission of material it gave the United Nations years ago, material that the U.N. has already determined was incomplete.

Before the inspectors were forced to leave Iraq, they concluded that Iraq could have produced 26,000 liters of anthrax. That is three times the amount Iraq had declared.

Yet the Iraqi declaration is silent on this stockpile, which alone would be enough to kill several million people.

The regime also admitted that it had manufactured 19,180 liters of a biological agent called botulinum toxin. The U.N. inspectors later determined that the Iraqis could have produced 38,360 additional liters. However, once again, the Iraqi declaration is silent on these....

The Iraqi declaration also says nothing about the uncounted, unaccounted precursors from which Iraq could have produced up to 500 tons of mustard gas, sarin gas and VX nerve gas.

It should be obvious that the pattern of systematic holes and gaps in Iraq’s declaration is not the result of accidents or editing oversights or technical mistakes. These are material omissions that, in our view, constitute another material breach.

Unfortunately, this declaration fails totally to move us in the direction of a peaceful solution.