Iraq's Declaration on Weapons of Mass Destruction

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MR. MARTIN S. INDYK:
Ladies and gentlemen, we're very glad that you could join us this morning for a special press briefing on Iraq brought to you by the Saban Center for Middle East Policy at the Brookings Institution. I am Martin Indyk the Director of the Saban Center at Brookings.

With the report of the full, final and complete declaration by Iraq presented to the United Nations last week, now we have a situation where everybody is pouring over the pages and trying to come to an assessment. Meanwhile military preparations and diplomatic preparations for a potential war against Iraq are moving into high gear over in the region. The Secretary of Defense there now, the Deputy Secretary of Defense there last week. And exercises going on in Qatar.

So we thought it was a very good moment to try to bring you some analysis of the situation particularly with regard to the reports from Iraq and the inspections, but also focus on the military preparations.

To do so today we have assembled a panel of real experts. We're very grateful to Dr. David Kay for joining us this morning. He will speak first. He is a Senior Fellow at the Potomac Institute for Policy Studies where he concentrates on counterterrorism and homeland security issues. He was formerly the Senior Vice President of Science Applications International Corporation where he led their efforts to support the U.S. government's counterterrorism initiative and efforts to prevent the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction. But his real claim to fame is that he served as the United Nations Chief Nuclear Weapons Inspector in Iraq after the Gulf War, leading numerous inspections in that country to determine Iraqi nuclear weapons production capability. He led teams that found and identified the scope and extent of Iraqi uranium enrichment activities, located a major Iraqi center for assembly of nuclear weapons, and seized large amounts of documents on the Iraqi nuclear weapons program. He even spent four days as Saddam's hostage in a Baghdad parking lot.

After David speaks, Ken Pollack will make his presentation. Ken is the Director of Research at the Saban Center at Brookings. He previously worked as an analyst at the CIA on Iraq and Iran issues, then went to the National Defense University. He was Director for Persian Gulf Affairs at the National Security Council. HE is of course the author of the New York Times best seller, The Threatening Storm: The Case for Invading Iraq which was published just a few months ago by Random House.

Finally, we're very glad to have Mike O'Hanlon speak to us this morning. He is a Senior Fellow in the Foreign Policies Studies department of the Brookings Institution. He formerly worked in the National Security Division of the Congressional Budget Office. He works here on everything under the sun, but particularly on defense strategy and budgeting, space and security issues, and the military issues related to the coming war with Iraq.

So we're very grateful to have all three speakers this morning. They'll speak directly and then we'll take your questions. Thank you very much.

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