1. thank you, mr. president. mr. president and mr. secretary general, distinguished colleagues, i would like to begin by expressing my thanks for the special effort that each of you made to be here today. this is an important day for us all as we review the situation with respect to iraq and its disarmament obligations under un security council resolution 1441.
2. last november 8th, this council passed resolution 1441 by a unanimous vote. the purpose of that resolution was to disarm iraq of its weapons of mass destruction. iraq had already been found guilty of material breach of its obligations stretching back over 16 previous resolutions and 12 years.
3. resolution 1441 was not dealing with an innocent party, but a regime this council has repeatedly convicted over the years.
4. resolution 1441 gave iraq one last chance, one last chance to come into compliance or to face serious consequences. no council member present and voting on that day had any illusions about the nature and intent of the resolution or what serious consequences meant if iraq did not comply.
5. and to assist in its disarmament, we called on iraq to cooperate with returning inspectors from unmovic and iaea. we laid down tough standards for iraq to meet to allow the inspectors to do their job.
6. this council placed the burden on iraq to comply and disarm, and not on the inspectors to find that which iraq has gone out of its way to conceal for so long. inspectors are inspectors; they are not detectives.
7. i asked for this session today for two purposes. first, to support the core assessments made by dr. blix and dr. el baradei. as dr. blix reported to this council on january 27th, 'iraq appears not to have come to a genuine acceptance, not even today, of the disarmament which was demanded of it.'