Dossier Desert Fox

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Earlier today, I gave authority for U.K. forces to be deployed against Iraq.

Operation Desert Fox was launched at 10 p.m. London time.

There can be no greater responsibility upon a prime minister than to ask British servicemen to risk their lives for the sake of peace and stability in another part of the world and I feel that responsibility, tonight, profoundly.

I spoke earlier today to Group Capt. Rich Jones, commander of British Forces in the Gulf.

British involvement will be significant, and I thanked them for their bravery and their professionalism, and I wished them well in what we would be asking of them.

This action could have been avoided. Since the Gulf War, the entire international community has worked to stop Saddam Hussein from keeping and developing nuclear, chemical and biological weapons and from continuing to threaten his neighbors.

For the safety and stability of the region and the wider world, he cannot be allowed to do so. If he will not, through reason and diplomacy, abandon his weapons of mass destruction program, it must be degraded and diminished by military force.

Over the past few years, we have engaged in endless diplomacy at every level and of every kind.

But we must face facts. Saddam Hussein has no intention of abiding by the agreements he has made.

U.N. resolution 687 bringing to an end the Gulf War made it a condition of the cease-fire both that Iraq destroy its weapons of mass destruction and agree to the monitoring of its obligation to destroy such weapons.

Despite constant lies, prevarication and breaching of the agreed conditions, the weapons inspectors carried out their task, uncovering in the process vast evidence of weapons of mass destruction capability.

In October last year, Saddam Hussein started to impede their work even more seriously than before. Months of negotiation followed. Finally faced with the threat of force, Saddam Hussein averted military action by entering into a binding memorandum of understanding with Kofi Annan, the U.N. Secretary General.

He continued to obstruct. In August, he suspended cooperation with the U.N. inspectors. On October 30, he ended cooperation totally.

He resisted all appeals to come back into compliance with the agreements he made. Quite the contrary. He used the time for both further prevarication and for the dispersal of his military capability.

As you know, on November 14, I issued the authority to strike against Iraq as part of a joint U.S.-U.K. operation.

At the last moment, aware that he was about to be attacked, Saddam offered full, unconditional unrestricted cooperation with UNSCOM.

We called off the attack. We made that last extra effort to avert force.

The inspectors went back to work. We said at the time that we would hold Saddam to his word and that should he break his word once more there would be no warnings, no wranglings, no last-minute negotiations.

Richard Butler, the head of the U.N. Special Commission, promised his report on Iraqi cooperation within a month. It came out last night, on time, as scheduled. It is damning. It is a catalog of obstruction. It shows quite clearly, one more time, that Saddam has no intention whatsoever of keeping his word. He is a serial breaker of promises.

And the reason for his obstruction is also clear: It is his desire to develop these weapons of mass destruction.

He has not for one instant yielded up to that malign intent. The threat is now, and it is threat to his neighbors, to his people and to the security of the world.

If he is not stopped now, the consequences to our future peace are real and fundamental. We cannot responsibly allow that to happen.

Let me remind you: Since 1991, the inspectors destroyed or rendered harmless 48 Scud missiles, 40,000 chemical munitions, 690 tons of chemical weapons agents, 3,000 tons of precursor chemicals and the Al Hakam biological weapons factory destroyed in 1996.

However, over 30,000 chemical weapons warheads and 4,000 ton of precursor chemicals remain unaccounted for.

The U.N. and the world community has shown by the resolution which has passed calling for unconditional cooperation with the weapons inspectors that it fully knows the seriousness of the threat he poses. Following the Butler report, after more than a year of obstruction and a catalog of obstruction, we have no option but to act.

Our objectives in this military action are clear: To degrade his capability to build and use weapons of mass destruction. To diminish the military threat he poses to his neighbors.

The targets chosen, therefore, are targets connected with his military capability, his weapons of mass destruction capacity and his ability to threaten his neighbors.

We are taking every possible care to avoid civilian casualties.

I cannot, for obvious reasons, go into operational details, but I do want to say one further thing.

Our quarrel is not with the Iraqi people. It never has been. The whole world should know we have allowed Saddam to sell oil to buy as much food and medicine for the Iraqi people as necessary.

It is a lie for him to say otherwise. He could have fed and cared for his people, but he has chosen not to. Our quarrel is with him alone and the evil regime he represents.

There is no realistic alternative to military force. We are taking military action with real regret, but also with real determination. We have exhausted all other avenues. We act because we must.