Posted on 08/28/2002 9:49:19 PM PDT by kattracks
The U.S. needs to take out Saddam Hussein regardless of whether he reopens Iraq to U.N. or U.S. weapons inspections teams, because past inspections have proven worthless in detecting Iraq's nuclear weapons program, former assistant Defense Secretary Kenneth Adelman said late Wednesday.
"The fact is that when there was inspectors, before four years ago when Saddam Hussein kicked them out, they really didn't find anything of significance on the nuclear [program]," Adelman told Fox News Channel's Linda Vester. "They found bits and pieces of other weapons of mass destruction. But what they didn't find, according to defectors since that time, was just awesome."
Dr. Khidir Hamza, the former head of Saddam's nuclear weapons program who defected to the U.S. in 1994, has repeatedly warned in interviews and congressional testimony that Iraqi scientists had nearly perfected a Hiroshima-size nuclear weapon before the first Gulf War.
Iraq's defeat derailed the program only temporarily, Dr. Hamza has said, and before he defected Hussein had already resumed his quest for nuclear weapons - even as the Iraqi dictator continued to welcome U.N. inspection teams.
Adelman said that new weapons inspectors would also have a tough time detecting Hussein's mobile biological weapons facilities. "They can go on the road so when any inspector comes along they could be gone in a minute," he told Fox News.
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If I remember correctly the inspectors found centrifuges for the separation of U235. To me that is significant.
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