John LeBoutillier
Monday, Oct. 7, 2002

Ladies and Gentlemen, let me please take a few minutes to explain 'where we are' with respect to Iraq and Saddam Hussein.

1) First of all, I am, for the first time ever, releasing previously Top Secret satellite and radio intercept information showing exactly how advanced the Iraqi development of nuclear, chemical and biological weapons actually is.

2) Furthermore, we are also releasing previously secret information about contacts between Iraqi agents and the al-Qaeda cell that carried out the 9/11 attacks. Richard Pearle yesterday on NBC's "Meet the Press" mentioned that we have information that indeed Mohammed Atta met with Iraqi agents - and that others from that cell also had contacts with Iraq. That is true - and we are now going to prove it.

3) I am also announcing the immediate resignation of CIA Director George Tenet and all his top lieutenants.

4) I am today promising you that we will exhaust every possibility before we resort to the war option. If the U.N. can figure out a way to strip this violent and brutal dictator of these weapons of mass destruction then we are ready to listen. But we also know that Saddam is a diabolical psychopath who cannot be predicted. The safest thing is to keep these weapons out of his grasp.

5) As for al-Qaeda, I am now going to do what we should have done a year ago. I am ordering 200,000 U.S. military personnel to the region to conduct a house-to-house search in eastern Afghanistan and western Pakistan for Osama bin Laden and his chief henchmen. It is clear that the Pakistani military and intelligence operation is hopelessly corrupted and compromised. We can no longer trust them to honestly try to find bin Laden and leading Taliban personnel.

6) I am today appointing former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani to a temporary post. His mission will be to ride herd over the CIA while we search for a new Director. Rudy has been told he has one mission: catch Osama within 30 days. Period.

7) In light of recent German behavior, I am recalling all U.S. military personnel from Germany and closing our bases there. We hope to relocate those vital supply and hospital facilities in another European country - perhaps Spain or the Czech Republic.

Let it be clear: the pain from 9/11 is still as fresh as it was that morning. We are still outraged over terror attacks - and we seek to punish all those involved, including Iraq.