Richard Butler Quotations

The only reason it's taken so long, ... is that from day one, Iraq dragged its feet, sought to conceal and obfuscate and keep us away from the things we have the legal right to find.

We've got a professional job to do; we do it on the basis of evidence. You really want that light at the end of the tunnel to get larger, to get out of sanctions? There is only one way down that tunnel and that is on the track of disarmament.

What there is now is evidence that Saddam has reinvigorated his nuclear weapons program.

We did not make the progress I have hoped for.

She's doing OK. She's a fighter, like I said, she's a fighter, and I really believe she's gonna pull through.

Silly to think we could have serious conversations in our office.

Maybe with respect to those (eight) buildings there will be some special arrangements made where our professional team will be accompanied by diplomatic observers,

My job is to return to New York to report this stage of affairs to the Security Council. I can't go into details until I do that.

My duty is to report what has happened to the Security Council and the United Nations. I'm going to New York to do that.

Obviously there was no movement and obviously the best and most constructive thing for me to do is to take this back to those who really run the show, namely the (U.N.) Security Council, and see where we go from there.

I am deeply concerned about the whole process. I have a message to convey from the Security Council to the Iraqis. I hope that they will commit themselves to the past cooperation with U.N. inspection teams.

But, as I understand it, the core (of the inspection team) would still be the technicians and professionals from UNSCOM whose job it is to identify anything relevant to weapons of mass destruction. If that's the way this thing comes out by way of a solution, fine, because the core is still our technical work and our task of disarmament.

I have always insisted that any assistance offered to us by member states be for our purposes, our legal purposes alone and not for theirs.

If (Iraqi officials) cooperate with this, if they break the habit of a lifetime and tell us the whole truth, then we will be able to verify that and deal with those results within about six months.

If Iraqi disarmament were a five-lap race, we would be three quarters of the way around the fifth and final lap.

Given the last 22 months, given today's circumstances of crumbling sanctions, given the fact that he is back in the arms business, Mister Chairman, it follows as the night follows the day for me to say what I am saying: These sanctions are not working.

I earnestly believe that those documents exist and they're in the possession of the government of Iraq, and they can choose to give them to us.

He was very respected among us. I don't know why he did what he did, but I cannot condemn what he did -- nor do I condone it.

He is now misleading the world's public, and I find that sad, wrong and frankly, a touch dangerous,

He mentioned in particular his wish for me to hear their report on chemical and biological weapons. That seemed to me to be a positive development and I took it in good spirit.

What we've got to be certain about above all is whether it came from a country supporting these terrorists as a matter of policy, such as Iraq, which we know has made this stuff, ... And there's a credible report not fully verified that they may indeed have given anthrax to exactly the group that did the World Trade Center.

I think we're getting hot, ... I think we were getting closer and closer.

I think we're set fair to bring these things to conclusion in not too many months.

I think we are set for now to have a good clear and specific focus this weekend on what needs to be done in the months ahead.

I went up for a header and got sandwiched between two defenders,

I think there is a good basis for conversation between the two sides aimed at ironing out those difficulties and seeing that we don't get into crisis again.

Like the Security Council, I take at face value their promise to offer full cooperation.

I think I can feel a new spirit and good cooperation from the Iraqi side.

It is essential that Iraq is brought into conformity with the law.

We can't work that way...We'll be talking about getting access in a way which shows respect for Iraqi security.

We'll need to do the whole spectrum of our work. Documents are part of that, ... We also need to do our inspections, and they're off and running again. It will be a little while yet before we have the whole spectrum of our work done.

The proposal for national missile defense, as articulated now, is the wrong answer to the right question. The right question is: what do we do about rogue states like Saddam's Iraq?

Butler knows very well that Iraq cannot rebuild its arsenal of mass destruction weapons because the means to make these weapons have been destroyed.

what weapons do they have and where are they now.

We don't want our system misused in that way.

We should be able to go anywhere, any time.

Biology is a black hole. Biological agents are an area where they have never told us the truth.

And what's different? We'll have some diplomatic observers with us to make sure that both sides -- not just UNSCOM, but Iraq, too -- behave in an appropriate manner in these special sites,

These are very practical things, very important things.

the right to secure full and free access at any time to material and other items, which, in its judgment, may be necessary for its monitoring and verification activities.

I've said in public that it's simply untrue.

Quite frankly it would be utterly foolish not to think not to assume, absent us, that they are doing it again,

After I said that to him, Aziz replied: 'then we can't talk any further.'

Now, come on, it would be foolish for me to comment on it.

a very considerable distortion of what took place.

As long as it exists it points to the possible existence of clandestine Scuds. Maybe they didn't destroy the fuel because they've got some plan to (deploy) Scuds.

This is nothing. We have planted seeds. Most of north Idaho now is filled with the people who escaped multiculturalism or diversity or whatever you want to call it.

This is nothing, ... We have planted seeds. Most of north Idaho now is filled with the people who escaped multiculturalism or diversity or whatever you want to call it.

They dusted off a proposal that was three and a half years old that they put to me in 1998, which was a joke. They were told then it was a joke, and they're doing it again. I'm sorry. This is not serious.

As we were being thrown out, one of the last conversations I had with them (the Iraqi officials) was about their illegal work to extend their missile program,

I told him that I cannot fulfill your demand because I don't have the evidence,

It is with great sadness that I take this decision, ... I have always acted with the best interests of the state at heart and, consistent with that, I felt bound to make this decision.

It may be that we won't ever get 100 percent verification where physical parts have been torn apart and dispersed.

Considering the circumstances, they have done remarkably well. It was a tough couple of weeks that's for sure.

then it will be up to the (Security) Council to decide what other actions will be taken.

Talk about their shortfall in the last few days on documents leading automatically to some kind of enforcement is a bit exaggerated. We need the whole picture,

No member of the council, including the United States, has purported to give me instructions. They all recognize that their job is policy, my job is operation.

It was a banding together. I got to know a tremendous amount of people just from repairing these trails, and I'm looking forward to sharing a trail with them. These are people I'll probably ride with the rest of my life.

They've turned the lights off and it's pretty hard to take pictures when you've got no lights, ... In other places, they've simply obstructed the cameras, put bags over the lenses. It looks a little bit like, 'the cat's away, the video mice will play.'

They've got to tell us the whole truth about their weapons -- they've got to let us into the sites that we need to inspect to verify those facts and then destroy the weapons involved. That's the way out of this one.

that same game they played with my team.

The inspectors will need to be able to go below the ground, ... At the end of my time, we were starting to use ground-penetrating radar. They're going to need that, they're going to need to be able to literally look underground.

I intend to pursue this matter in a very determined way.

In light of this experience, that is, the absence of full cooperation by Iraq, it must regrettably be recorded again that the commission is not able to conduct the substantive disarmament work mandated to it by the Security Council and, thus, to give the council the assurances it requires with respect to Iraq's prohibited weapons programs.

In a more ideal world Saddam should be on trial in The Hague next to Slobodan Milosevic for crimes against humanity.

I like the idea of going out and doing something more personal and intimate, with maybe just one or two other musicians. I've never done that, and it's great to have that challenge, instead of having a loud rock band to take the pressure off me.

I regret that I had to report the facts yesterday, which is that (unfettered access) had not been given, and we can't adequately do our jobs under these circumstances.

In those presidential sites, we determined there were 1,100 buildings, some of them as large as Giants or Yankee stadium, really big warehouses,

If there was no prospect of this, the government of Iraq had no intention of continuing to work with the (U.N. Special) Commission.

Iraq's conduct ensured that no progress was able to be made in either the fields of disarmament or accounting for Iraq's prohibited weapons program.

(Iraqi Deputy Prime Minister) Tariq Aziz said to me on the telephone today he will be in a position to give me a fuller report on the biological area tonight,

I quite frankly don't think I'll be seeking an extension.

clear evidence that Iraq had taken advance actions at certain of the locations planned for inspection in order to defeat the purposes of inspection.

I don't think there's any doubt at all -- the man is thoroughly back in business making weapons of mass destruction.

I could have been in a position to report to the (U.N.) Security Council the end or very near end of the missile and chemical weapons files.

This is a good opportunity for us to measure where we are during the early stage of the season.

The chemical and biological (weapons), there is no ambiguity. They are able to produce those weapons.

The game is only just afoot. And there is yet more to come and there have been some hints of both good cooperation but also some inconsistencies that demonstrate, I think, that the road ahead is somewhat bumpy.