Destroying Iraqi weapons with bombs is difficult because Baghdad hides its weapons, moves them and knows U.S. secrets for detecting them, Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld stated.
Rumsfeld was asked at a news conference Monday why the United States doesn't strike Iraqi chemical and biological weapons sites rather than waiting any longer. "The Iraqis have a great deal of what they do deeply buried," he answered.
Additionally, he said American spies defecting to Russia passed on intelligence that the Russians then spread "as to how we do things ... how another country can best achieve denial and deception and avoid having the location ... of things known." Rumsfeld said biological labs could be in trailers, making them mobile. "So the idea that it's easy to simply go do what you suggested ought to be done from the air ... is a misunderstanding of the situation," he aired.
Rumsfeld made the comments while visiting the U.S. Joint Forces Command in Virginia, where he was briefed on a military experiment aimed at planning for warfighting of the future.
This exercise will test the forces and equipment that will help us judge and define both near-term and future capabilities," he said during a press conference. "It will not only test the effectiveness of the force, but also the progress we have made thus far in transforming (the military) to produce the combat capability necessary to meet the threats and the challenges of the 21st century."
Aziz
For his part, Iraq's Deputy Prime Minister Tareq Aziz said United Nations weapons inspectors could only return to Iraq under an overall plan for the settlement of the Iraqi conflict. In an interview with the Tuesday's edition of The Neue Zurcher Zeitung newspaper, he said it was unacceptable that all Iraqi concerns were being ignored.
"The return of UN weapons inspectors must be part of a plan that would embrace the settlement of the conflict over Iraq, as laid out under United Nations resolution 687," Aziz told the Swiss daily.
"That includes on one hand the work of the weapons inspectors, on the other hand also the easing and ultimately the lifting of sanctions, respect of Iraq's national sovereignty and its indivisibility," he added. (Albawaba.com)
© 2002 Al Bawaba (www.albawaba.com)
