CRG: Dr David Kay's Testimony to the Senate Armed Services Committee
David Kay... US Armed Service Committee Testominy
CORNYN: So that, given time, these programs would have matured and Saddam would have been able to reconstitute his WMD arsenal?
KAY: I hesitate, Senator -- only I think that that's the safe assumption. What I don't know over time, and
I'm more and more struck with, is how corrupt and destructive that society had become. But you can't count on when it would fall apart. And it might fall apart in ways that are far more dangerous. So I think that is a safe assumption.
CORNYN: You said something during your opening statement that intrigues me, and something that I'm afraid may be overlooked in all of this back and forth; and that has to do with proliferation.
You said that there was a risk of a willing seller meeting a willing buyer of such weapons or weapon stockpiles, whether they be large, small or programs, whether it's information that Iraqi scientists might be willing to sell or work in cooperation with rogue organizations or even nations.
But do you consider that to have been a real risk in terms of Saddam's activities and these programs -- the risk of proliferation?
KAY:
Actually, I consider it a bigger risk. And that's why I paused on the preceding questions. I consider that a bigger risk than the restart of his programs being successful.
KAY: I think
the way the society was going, and the number of willing buyers in the market, that that probably was a risk that if we did avoid, we barely avoided.
KAY: Senator Warner, I think the world is far safer with the disappearance and the removal of Saddam Hussein. I have said I actually think this may be one of those cases where it was even more dangerous than we thought.
I think when we have the complete record you're going to discover that after 1998 it became a regime that was totally corrupt. Individuals were out for their own protection.
And in a world where we know others are seeking WMD, the likelihood at some point in the future of a seller and a buyer meeting up would have made that a far more dangerous country than even we anticipated with what may turn out not to be a fully accurate estimate.
In my judgment, based on the work that has been done to this point of the Iraq Survey Group, and in fact, that I reported to you in October, Iraq was in clear violation of the terms of Resolution 1441.
Resolution 1441 required that Iraq report all of its activities: one last chance to come clean about what it had.
We have discovered hundreds of cases, based on both documents, physical evidence and the testimony of Iraqis, of activities that were prohibited under the initial U.N. Resolution 687 and that should have been reported under 1441, with Iraqi testimony that not only did they not tell the U.N. about this, they were instructed not to do it and they hid material.