UNITED NATIONS, Feb 5 (IslamOnline & News Agencies) – U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell Wednesday, February 5, presented a much-anticipated report on Iraq to the Security Council, but no clear-cut evidence was available in the passionate hour-long presentation, that included vague “intercepted” phone calls, space images and video-clips.

Trying to conclude that Iraq was in “material breach” of U.N. disarmament demands, Powell warned the world body that it risked irrelevance if it did not now consider the “serious consequences” contemplated for noncompliance, Agence France-Presse (AFP) reported.

“Iraq has now placed itself in danger of the serious consequences called for in U.N. Resolution 1441,” he told a special meeting of the U.N. Security Council.

“And this body places itself in danger of irrelevance if it allows Iraq to continue to defy its will without responding effectively and immediately,” Powell said.

“The issue before us is not how much time we are willing to give the inspectors to be frustrated by Iraqi obstruction,” he said. “How much longer are we willing to put up with Iraq’s noncompliance before we, as a council, we, as the United Nations, say: ‘Enough is enough.’”

“The gravity of this moment is matched by the gravity of the threat that Iraq's weapons of mass destruction pose to the world,” he added.

Powell's Presentation

Colin Powell started his presentation by saying: “The burden was on Iraq to comply and disarm. Inspectors were inspectors, not detectives”.

He said the facts and Iraqi behavior indicate that Iraq is making no effort to disarm.

He presented a communication intercept of a conversation between an Iraqi colonel and a general. In the intercept, Powell says, one of the officers says: “We evacuated everything. We don’t have anything left.”

Powell said efforts to hide things from the inspectors were not isolated. They were part of a policy set at the highest levels of the Iraqi regime. He went on to name a number of senior Iraqi officials he said were involved in trying to deceive the weapons inspectors.

Powell also showed pictures of what he said was a ballistic missile facility two days before the inspectors arrived, with vehicles outside including a crane for moving missiles.

Iraqi officials hid correspondence on military industrialization, ordered the removal of banned weapons from key sites and hid prohibited items in their homes, Powell said.

Powell presented a satellite image of a weapons munitions facility, which is known to have held chemical weapons.

Powell said orders had been given by the Iraqi authorities to hide all communications with the government body in charge of its weapons program. He also alleged that senior members of the Iraqi regime had hidden wanted documents in their homes and put material in cars and driven them around the country to avoid detection.

Powell said scientists were taught how to mislead the inspectors. One scientist had been sent into hiding by the Iraqi regime, after a false death certificate was issued for him so that he could avoid being interviewed by the inspectors, he said.

Powell told the council that Iraqi scientists had been told by Saddam Hussein that they were not to agree to be interviewed outside Iraq - in contravention of the U.N. resolution. Anyone agreeing to be interviewed outside Iraq was told they would be treated as a spy, he said.

He warned the United Nations that it risked irrelevance if it did not now consider the “serious consequences” required by U.N. resolution if Iraq did not comply.

Powell insisted that Iraq was in “active and systematic” effort to defy U.N.

Saddam Hussein had threatened Iraqi scientists with death if they divulged information to U.N. weapons inspectors, Powell said.

He said reconnaissance flights by American U-2 flights would have revealed changes around suspect sites and the refusal of Iraq to allow such flights was in direct violation of the security councils resolution.

Terrorist Links

He said Iraq maintained active links with Osama bin Laden’s Al-Qaeda network, using its embassy in Pakistan as a “liaison office”.

Iraqis visited Osama Bin Laden in Afghanistan and provided training to Al-Qaeda members. “Ambition and hatred are enough to bring Iraq and Al-Qaeda together,” Powell said.

Abu Musab Al-Zarqawi remains at large to come and go in north-eastern Iraq, Powell said. His colleagues have been active in the Pankisi Gorge, Georgia and in Chechnya.

Powell said detained Al-Qaeda members had said Saddam was more willing to assist al-Qaeda after being impressed by the 1998 embassy bombings Africa.

Powell said some Al-Qaeda groups were operating in northern areas of Iraq. Although they were in Kurdish areas outside the direct control of Baghdad, he said Iraqi agents were working with the groups. He showed photographs of a number of Al-Qaeda members linked to a network operating through North Africa, Europe, and in the former Soviet Union, including Georgia and Chechnya. He said close ties had been forged between Al-Qaeda and Iraqi intelligence sources since the early 1990s.

Powell said Baghdad funneled money to the families of “Palestinian suicide bombers”.

He said Zarqawi was teaching operatives how to produce ricin and other poisons. He said Baghdad has an agent in the senior ranks of Ansar al-Islam, the group holding an enclave in north-east Iraq.

Powell said Iraq “harbors” a terrorist network headed by Zarqawi. This network helped establish another poison and explosives training camp in north-east Iraq. Powell showed a picture he said was of this camp.

Powell said his concern was not just about illicit weapons, but about the way they could be used by terrorists around the world. Iraq and terrorism go back decades, he said. It was no secret, he said, the Saddam’s intelligence agents were involved in assassination attempts in the 1990s. Iraq today, he said harbored a terrorist group associated with Al-Qaeda.

Powell said Iraq has programs to produce ballistic missiles which can fly more than 1,200 kilometers. He said such missiles were not intended for self-defense, but to deliver chemical, biological and - if we let him - nuclear warheads.

The United States estimates that Iraq has 100 to 500 tons of chemical weapons agents.

Saddam Hussein was focused on putting together the missing piece he needed. “I don’t give Iraq the benefit of the doubt. I don’t think you will either,” Powell said.

He said Iraq already possessed two of the three components needed to produce a nuclear bomb, and was now focusing on acquiring sufficient fissile material needed for an explosion. “Saddam Hussein is determined to acquire a nuclear bomb,” he said.

He said there is more than a decade of proof that “Saddam Hussein is determined to get his hands on a nuclear bomb.”

Powell also alleged that the Iraqi authorities had conducted experiments on people, with one source reporting that 1,600 convicted prisoners had been transferred to special units where such experiments were carried out. Autopsies were later conducted to check the results, he said.

He said these were evidence that the Iraqis had removed the entire crust of earth in the area so there would be no evidence of the years of chemical weapons work there.

Powell also showed pictures of what he said was a chemical weapons facility, with arrows pointing to areas of disturbed earth.

He said these were evidence that the Iraqis had removed the entire crust of earth in the area so there would be no evidence of the years of chemical weapons work there.

He also alleged that the Iraqi authorities had conducted experiments on people, with one source reporting that 1,600 convicted prisoners had been transferred to special units where such experiments were carried out. Autopsies were later conducted to check the results, he said.

Powell played a communications intercept in which one officer appeared to tell another to remove the expression “nerve agents” from all wireless instructions.

Powell said there were big quantities of missing chemicals. “We have evidence these weapons existed, but no evidence that they’ve been destroyed or where they are now.”

He said the facilities were sophisticated, and could produce items such as anthrax.

He showed diagrams of these alleged mobile factories, which he said could produce biological agents. He said the mobile facilities could be easily moved around Iraq’s roads and railways.

Powell said Iraq was in possession what he called mobile research laboratories.

Iraq has the ability to produce the smallpox virus for use in biological weapons, Powell said.

Powell said the U.S. has intelligence from eyewitnesses of Iraq’s biological weapons program.

Powell said the Iraqis had failed to account for any of the biological and chemical warfare materials they were known to possess as a result of earlier inspections which ended in 1995.