When Madeleine Albright was told on a television show that a UN study had
found that perhaps 500,000 Iraqi children may have died because of our 10
years of sanctions, she responded, quote, "We believe it was worth it,"
worth it. When did the greatest republic on earth start waging war on
children?
(END VIDEO CLIP)
ZAHN: That was Pat Buchanan two weeks ago on the UN sanctions against Iraq.
Joining me now in the studio is Ambassador Richard Butler, former executive
chairman of the UN Special Commission and author of, "The Greatest Threat,
Iraq, Weapons of Mass Destruction and the Crisis of Global Security."
Good to have you with us here on THE EDGE.
AMB. RICHARD BUTLER, FORMER UNSCOM EXECUTIVE CHAIRMAN: Good to be here,
Paula.
ZAHN: You didn't want to appear with Scott Ritter. Why not?
BUTLER: Because if I were to debate him directly, it would give credence to
some really shockingly wrong things that he's saying. And we heard some of
them tonight.
ZAHN: What wouldn't you say in front of him that you'll say in front of me
tonight?
BUTLER: Look, what would happen - and you know this very well - is that as
we saw with the gun segment a few moments ago, that we could presumably lose
valuable time in a he said-you said kind of debate. And I want to use that
time to a better purpose.
ZAHN: OK, let's quickly refute some of Scott Ritter's charges. One is he
does not think Saddam Hussein has the capacity to create weapons of mass
destruction.
BUTLER: Well, I find Scott's performance truly sad, I must say. He's
completely wrong. Scott himself, when he left UNSCOM almost two years ago,
went to the Congress of the United States and said Iraq is not disarmed. His
words were, "It is an ugly threat to the region and beyond." He was right
then, he's wrong now.
ZAHN: But he said tonight that he is convinced in his words, "qualitative
disarmament has worked."
BUTLER: Qualitative disarmament is a fictional concept that he invented for
the article that you referred to that he wrote for "Arms Control Today."
We're talking about quantity not quality, quantity of specific types of
weapons. And he knows very, very well that we never got rid of all the
chemical weapons, we never got rid of the missiles, all of them. We had a
complete black hole facing us with respect to biological weapons. He
knows...
ZAHN: How do we know that if we never got into some of these key weapons
sites?
BUTLER: Because we had over a million documents. We got into millions of
sites. We could see the tip of the iceberg. Look, take biological weapons,
for example, Paula. I called it a black hole. And Scott Ritter knows this
very well. Iraq had a substantial biological weapons program. They lied to
the world for four years saying they had no program. When we were able to
prove that that was false, they said, "Oh, well, it wasn't a big program."
Now I begged the Iraqis towards the end of my time there to help us get them
out of jail, to give us above all an honest declaration on biology. They
robustly refused. And as I record in my book, Tariq Aziz told me privately
that, "Of course, we had a biological weapons program," and he went on. He
said, "That's because we need to use it on Israel." Now that's what we're
dealing with.
Now Scott Ritter knows that. He knew it then, but he's seeking to deny it
now. I find that tragic.
ZAHN: He's saying he actually used Tariq Aziz as one of the sources in this
"Arms Control Weekly" piece that he just wrote and he's confident...
BUTLER: And so that was the deception. That was a deception, too, because..
ZAHN: Where was the deception in that?
BUTLER: Because the piece in "Arms Control Today" was written before he went
to Baghdad. You quite properly asked him, "Who was these Iraqis that you
cite in your article that you spoke with? What was their names? What was the
seniority? Who were they?" And Scott blurred that. He said the deputy
ambassador in New York. Now I accept that he probably talked to him when he
was preparing his "Arms Control Today" piece, but the meeting that he says
he had with Aziz and Amir Rashid happened afterwards when he went to
Baghdad, weeks or months after he prepared that article. So that was
deceptive to say, "I received those assurances from those people leading to
my concept of qualitative disarmament that he published in that article."
That could not have happened then.
ZAHN: So in closing tonight, give us your opinion on what you think Saddam
Hussein is capable of doing to his enemies today.
BUTLER: You know, well, I welcome that question because already, we've spent
too much time talking about a person in his youth who frankly lost his way
and is misleading people. I'll tell you quite plainly. Saddam Hussein is
back in the business of making long-range missiles. Secondly, he has
recalled his nuclear weapons design team. Thirdly, he's rebuilt his chemical
weapons manufacturing factories, and we believe the same is true of biology.
In other words, he is back in business but that is what I've
