Gregg Comments on Hans Blix Report

GREGG COMMENTS ON HANS BLIX REPORT

WASHINGTON- U.S. Senator Judd Gregg today made the following statement in reaction to the report by Hans Blix, Chief United Nation's weapons inspector, to the U.N. Security Council.

Senator Gregg stated, "The report made today by Hans Blix is not surprising. The report from the inspectors tells us that they were given technical and procedural information and support from Iraq, more window dressing in form, and were not given the real substance they need which was specifically to be able to talk to some of these scientists who were working on weapons of mass destruction programs. We know there are about 3,500 of these scientists and only 600 of their names remain available to the inspectors. Until you can to talk to those people and find out what they were working on and what happened to the products that they produced you are not going where those weapons of mass destruction are.

"The big fear is that those weapons may fall into the hands of people who will use them against us here in the United States. That's what this is all about. This is keeping America from being attacked by Al-Qaeda or other operatives who may have gotten weapons of mass destruction, biological and chemical weapons from Iraq and from Saddam Hussein. We need to make sure that in Iraq we do not have a regime that is producing those weapons and passing them on to people who want to cause us hard here in the United States. So this remains a very serious issue that has not been resolved. Iraq is not complying on the substantive side, and we need to do something to bring them into compliance."