Rumsfeld says Iraq has chemical arms ready New York Times
June 11, 2002
By THOM SHANKERMANAMA, Bahrain, June 10 — Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld said today that Iraq had already prepared chemical weapons for attack and was developing nuclear and biological arms. He rejected President Saddam Hussein's denials by telling hundreds of cheering American sailors and marines tonight that Mr. Hussein is "a world-class liar."
On the second stop of his tour of Persian Gulf states, Mr. Rumsfeld met with Bahrain's senior leaders to discuss fighting terror, including threats from Iraq, Defense Department officials said.
The Iraqi Foreign Ministry, in a statement timed with Mr. Rumsfeld's visit to the Persian Gulf, said on Sunday that Mr. Hussein's government had not possessed weapons of mass destruction since 1991, and was not now developing biological, chemical or nuclear arms.
"If you want to know a world-class liar, it's Saddam Hussein," Mr. Rumsfeld told the crowd of sailors and marines assigned to the United States Fifth Fleet who gathered at an outdoor pavilion near the harbor here. "He's lying. It's not complicated."
Before Mr. Rumsfeld's talks this morning in Kuwait, this afternoon here in Bahrain and Tuesday in Qatar, the official agenda included a range of military-to-military issues, but Mr. Hussein has been a constant presence.
In Kuwait this morning, Mr. Rumsfeld described the American assessment of Iraq's program for weapons of mass destruction.
"They have them, and they continue to develop them, and they have weaponized chemical weapons," he declared, adding that Iraq used chemical weapons in the 1980's against its own Kurdish population. "They've had an active program to develop nuclear weapons. It's also clear that they are actively developing biological weapons. I don't know what other kinds of weapons would fall under the rubric of weapons of mass destruction, but if there are more, I suspect they're working on them, as well."
No specific military operations were discussed during the talks in Kuwait with the emir, Sheik Jaber al-Ahmad al-Sabah, the crown prince and senior military officers, Defense Department officials said.
Mr. Rumsfeld and his hosts agreed today that Kuwait may send representatives to meet with about a dozen Kuwaitis captured during the war in Afghanistan and now held at the United States naval base at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba.
"The purpose of the visit clearly would be to assist in intelligence gathering and, second, to determine the extent to which there may be any law-enforcement interest with respect to those individuals," he said.
Mr. Rumsfeld was asked several times to assess the public reconciliation struck between Kuwait and Iraq at an Arab League summit meeting in March, and whether it caused the Bush administration worries about Kuwait, which was rescued from Mr. Hussein's forces in the Persian Gulf war in 1991.
Mr. Rumsfeld said the issue "is for Kuwait to make a judgment about."
"If I were asked for my advice," he added, "it would be like the lion inviting the chicken into the embrace. What good in the past have Iraqi representations of good will to their neighbors been? Precious little."
After arriving here, Mr. Rumsfeld met with Bahrain's king, Sheik Hamad Isa bin Sulman al-Khalifa, the crown prince and military officials.
He then visited some of the 4,225 American sailors and marines stationed here when he toured a mine-sweeper and a destroyer assigned to naval forces of the Central Command, which patrols waters from the Indian Ocean to the Red Sea.