Mike Levin: “As we begin the 108th Congress, I want to talk about the situation in Iraq and our response to it, because I believe…”

“As we begin the 108th Congress, I want to talk about the situation in Iraq and our response to it, because I believe there may be a fundamental misunderstanding as to the process that is underway to bring about Iraq's disarmament. Pursuant to U.N. resolution 1441, the U.N. Inspection Commission and the International Atomic Energy Agency are to provide updates to the U.N. on the results of their inspections to date. These updates are intended to be interim reports, not final conclusions. I think we all, particularly the administration and the press, need to be very aware of that fact. The January 27 report will only be one of a number of such reports that will be presented to the Security Council over the weeks and months to come. It is not a determining date on the issue of whether or not Iraq has materially breached U.N. resolution 1441, or whether we will use force against Iraq. We are not in the fourth quarter of some football game. In fact, we have just begun to share a small quantity of the large amount of information that we have relative to Iraqi suspect sites.”