INTERIM REPORT ON IRAQI WEAPONS
OF MASS DESTRUCTION

Media Stakeout with David Kay,
Chief Weapons Inspector,
Iraq Survey Group,
Sen. John Warner (R-VA) &
Sen. Carl Levin (D-MI)

U.S. CENTRAL INTELLIGENCE AGENCY

October 3, 2003

SEN. WARNER: Thank you very much. We have concluded a hearing of the Senate Armed Services Committee. Dr. Kay came before us. This is his fourth and final appearance on this trip back to the United States before the Congress.

I've asked my colleague, Senator Levin, to join us this morning, because Senator Levin and I do as best we can before our committee to put aside any partisan differences, and I believe without a doubt we did that this morning and received what I characterize as very forthright, honest opinions and evaluations from this fine public servant.

Yesterday, before the Senate Intelligence Committee, where I'm a member and again today, committee members on both sides of the aisle clearly indicate their respect and confidency (sic) in this extraordinary, well qualified, hard-working public servant.

Today, I felt we explored two areas that have not received the attention I believe they deserve to date. Number one, Dr. Kay and his group have clearly found significant evidence to support that Saddam Hussein, right up to the beginning of this war, was in violation of the U.N. resolutions as it regards weapons of mass destruction.

Secondly, that he has received from individuals in custody, Iraqi individuals, information now of a nature that indicates a greater degree of cooperation is forthcoming from the Iraqis. I think that's a very good and sound basis on which to say, when he returns in three months, again to give this nation, the entire nation and the world his evaluation, hopefully that will have improved further and provide additional valuable evidence.

Senator Levin, do you have an observation before we --

SEN. LEVIN: Yes. We've gone over with a fine-toothed comb the findings of Dr. Kay that there are to this point now weapons of mass destruction found in Iraq -- that despite the intelligence that was given to us prior to the war by the administration, by the intelligence community that weapons of mass destruction were present in Iraq. That statement was made repeatedly with great certainty, and in light of that, we've gone over the statements of Dr. Kay in his public document that there have been no weapons of mass destruction found to date in Iraq.

And what that reinforces is the need for the investigation to be completed into our intelligence as to how, at least based on this interim report, it could have been so far off and as to whether or not it was exaggerated or whether or not it was hyped, either by the intelligence community or by the users of that intelligence.

Dr. Kay's report has been extremely helpful. He's got approximately 1,200 people on the ground, we understand. According to the press reports, there are $600 million more that are being requested to continue and hopefully complete his work by June. And all of us hope indeed that that work would be completed in the next six to nine months, as Dr. Kay has said. But we want to commend him and his crew on doing this work under some very difficult and at times very dangerous conditions in Iraq.

SEN. WARNER: Thank you. Dr. Kay.

MR. KAY: Well, I have little of substance to add beyond what I shared with you yesterday. I will just say that as always in appearing before the Senate Armed Services Committee, I appreciated the frankness of the exchange of views, the quality of the questions and the willingness to listen to what this team, which I think is an extraordinary team, is doing in the field.

I'll just reiterate what I said yesterday. This is an interim report. We've been at work only three months under extraordinarily difficult conditions to work in. We are closing no files, reaching no final conclusions. We have, as you know -- you would have been probably the first to know -- found no actual weapons at this point. Doesn't mean we won't find them. We are continuing to look. We have found a lot of evidence of the Iraqi regime's intent to continue to acquire weapons of mass destruction. We have found significant evidence of continuing in prohibited activities that were hidden from U.N. inspectors, particularly in the biological and missile area; a lot of examples of foreign procurement that went well beyond anything that was known before the war. But we will continue these efforts.

And let me echo what Senator Levin said. It is our intention to finish this to the best of our ability in what we think will be six to nine months from now. I think there are important reasons for continuing our work. I think they relate both to the nature of and quality of intelligence that are used on proliferation matters. They certainly relate to force protection issues of American troops who are in Iraq today and the Iraqi population.

I'm happy to be back. I do look forward to returning to talk to the committee in January of next year.

SEN. WARNER: Could you touch on that very important point that there is evidence that Saddam Hussein and his regime were clearly in violation of the U.N. resolutions?

MR. KAY: Well, we've shared in the classified report about two dozen major cases of where Iraq hid equipment or engaged in prohibited activities that were not permitted under the U.N. resolution. There is a large number of these in the missile area. As you probably know, the missile area, Iraq was restricted to ranges of 150 kilometers. They actually had a liquid-fuel program, a solid-fuel program and a conversion program of a surface-to-surface missile and of a Silkworm, the anti-ship missile, that would have given them ranges out to a thousand kilometers. These are all hidden. They were much more than paper studies; there was actual physical work taking place on several of these. Not discovered by the inspectors because the Iraqis prevented them to.

In the chemical area, we have found dozens of sites of labs where there was prohibited declarable equipment that the Iraqis hid from the U.N. inspectors. We have the testimony of multiple Iraqis who, while they prepared for the inspectors' return in November, were told not to include these facilities in the full, final and complete declaration or to let the U.N. inspectors see them.

So there is, Senator Warner, a lot of evidence on that point.

SEN. WARNER: Thank you.

Take questions.

(Cross talk.)

Q Dr. Kay, President Bush intimated this morning that the press coverage from your statement yesterday focused too much on the absence of any weapons of mass destruction. Do you agree with him? And is it therefore -- is it fair to say that there are no weapons of mass destruction found so far?

MR. KAY: Partly because I've been on both sides of this microphone, I don't make critiques of the press.

You all work under extraordinarily difficult jobs of communicating a very complex issue in something like three inches of print space or 45 seconds of air time. I've tried to do it. I know how hard it is, so I'm not going to cast stones at you.

I think there is a lot more to this story if you can read even the unclassified testimony than, "We have not yet found weapons." That is not -- that would not be my lead if I were doing the story. But, like I say, I don't criticize you. I've been in the position.

Q So you're going to say there are no -- I mean, it is -- I mean, it's okay to say though that there are no weapons that you've found yet?

MR. KAY: I have said that we have not yet -- I wish you wouldn't drop the word "yet" -- we have not yet found any actual weapons, although we continue to pursue leads.

Q How confident are you --

Q What can you say about the foreign assistance to the missile program? To what extent was the foreign assistance -- (inaudible.)

MR. KAY: There was considerable foreign assistance to the missile program. We -- some of this still remains classified because we are actively pursuing that assistance. Not only is it related to Iraq; our fear is that that same assistance my be made available to other countries, and we would like to close off that avenue of proliferation.

In the back. In the back.

Q Senator Warner, and this is also for Senator Levin, based on the intelligence we had before the war and based on where we are now after the war, did this interim report meet your expectations of where you thought we would be in the search for weapons of mass destruction?

SEN. WARNER: Well, we discussed at length the absolute need to continue this program for six to nine months. Lessons will be learned from the work of Dr. Kay and his team which will enable us to improve the intelligence-collection system. And that is something very essential for this government. And consequently, we're fortunate that he and others will just continue until, as you said, we can have the facts to draw honest, forthright, bottom-line conclusions.

I think we should be grateful to the nation that this man and his team are working so hard and have come forward and forthrightly say, "To date, yet, we have not found them. But we're continuing to look." And we knew exactly what he had in 1991. We were beginning to destroy that. The U.N. came in, and then could not conclusively decide what he did with extraordinary amounts of weapons of mass destruction.

So, we're going to hopefully get to the bottom of that, and lessons will be learned to improve our intelligence system.

SEN. LEVIN: What's particularly striking to me about this interim report is not only that to date, there have been no findings of weapons of mass destruction, but two or three other comments as well. And I want to just read or summarize those comments.

One, the nuclear program was not restarted. Two, the Iraqi military units -- there is no evidence that Iraqi military units were prepared to use chemical weapons. And three, there is no corroboration of the existence of those mobile BW production efforts that have been referred to by the administration repeatedly. And it is my hope at a minimum until this report is concluded by Dr. Kay, that administration leaders would stop making the kind of statements that they make recently, including the vice president's statement just a few weeks ago when he said, "There's no doubt in my mind that Saddam Hussein had these capabilities."

There's no evidence that he had those capabilities. There's no evidence that the weapons program was restarted in the nuclear area; that it was restarted in the biological area; that the units were ready for chemical warfare. And I would hope that at a minimum, that the administration would hold off making -- continuing to make the kind of statements that it is making, even recently, about Saddam Hussein's capabilities in this area. This isn't an issue about intentions or what the hopes were or what the plans were or what the programs were. What took us to war were statements about weapons of mass destruction in the possession of Saddam Hussein and the threat of their imminent use.

So this report is valuable to all of us. It should be read in its entirety. It's not completed, but it needs to also be consumed and to be accepted, it seems to me, and understood by the administration.

SEN. WARNER: Any other questions of Dr. Kay?

Q Senator, there's a poll out this morning --

SEN. WARNER: Beg your pardon?

Q Senator, there was a poll out this morning showing that public support for the war is eroding. As long as weapons are not found, do you think that support will continue to erode?

SEN. WARNER: I don't think we (should deal ?) with that.

We thank you very much. We thank Dr. Kay for his appearance, and we wish him a safe journey home and a return in about three months.

Thank you, Dr.

MR. KAY: Thank you very much. Thank you very much.

SEN. WARNER: Very much.