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Saturday, March 08, 2003 |
About time…
…Josh Marshall acknowledged what so many of us have been pointing out for so long. You can agree that removing Saddam Hussein would be a good thing but disagree – strongly – with just about everything the Bushies have done and plan to do.
These folks are not only incompetent – their ideas (pre-emptive war?!?) are just plain dangerous for us and everyone else on earth.
The pros and cons of handling Iraq have never been separable from how you do it, the costs you rack up in the doing of it, calculated against the gains you'll get in having accomplished it. At this point, we have truly the worst case scenario on the international stage. And I think the those costs now outweigh those gains.
-- Josh Marshall
5:28:57 PM 
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The Lives of the Rich and Arrogant…
They truly are different from us… no worries about school (Yale, Harvard Business), work (oil frontman, baseball frontman, political party frontman) or even public addresses.
(Thanks to Atrios at Eschaton)
5:18:27 PM
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Bad News Saturday
And that is because the Bush regime makes sure to issue the bad news late on Friday, knowing full well that most folks don’t see the paper or the TV news on Saturday.
Yup, just slip some more depression-like numbers by folks and the won’t even notice – right?
And those tax “cuts” passed two years ago are really doing the trick!
What is Bush trying to do, turn us into Argentina?
308,000 Jobs Lost in February
By DANIEL ALTMAN
The nation suffered job losses in February that were the worst since the two months after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, the government reported yesterday. Bad weather and war fears combined to prolong the economy's malaise, and the unemployment rate nudged up to 5.8 percent from 5.7 percent in January.
The numbers from the Labor Department showed the disappearance of 308,000 jobs from the nation's payrolls. The Bush administration called the figures disappointing but said they showed the need for quick action on the president's plan to cut taxes.
"Today's news underscores the need for us to act now," said John W. Snow, the Treasury secretary. He contended that carrying out President Bush's proposal would soon lead to the creation of jobs. But the White House's economic policy came under a barrage of criticism from many prominent Democrats.
"The Bush economic plan has left this country unprepared for the economy of the future and without a strategy to spur meaningful economic growth," Representative Richard A. Gephardt, the Missouri Democrat who is running for president, said in a statement. Tom Daschle, the Senate minority leader, released a statement accusing President Bush of having "turned our economy into a job-destroying machine."
The latest reading on the labor market was potentially the most important in three months, free of statistical quirks related to the holiday season, which distorted earlier measurements. The figures, which are all adjusted in an effort to take account of seasonal variations, were almost uniformly negative. Payrolls shrank in virtually every goods-producing industry and edged down or remained flat across the service sector. Only government payrolls managed a broad-based increase.
"It's uniform, across the board — you couldn't find a good sector in there," said David Wyss, chief economist at Standard & Poor's.
The manufacturing sector had shown some promising signs during December and January, but the Labor Department's report suggested that the lift was short-lived. Since November, 140,000 jobs have vanished from manufacturing industries. The service sector lost an estimated 204,000 jobs in February.
Some forecasters, who had been expecting, at worst, a shallow drop in payrolls, said that the effect of winter storms might have hurt the credibility of the February figures.
"I am tempted to reserve judgment," said Ram Bhagavatula, chief economist of Royal Bank of Scotland Financial Markets in North America. "It was such a terrible month weather-wise, it is difficult to draw any clean reading of what the underlying trend is."
Despite the confounding effects of the weather, at least one trend remained unmistakable: the manufacturing sector continued to lose jobs. In February, the number of jobs in manufacturing dropped below 11 million, in seasonally adjusted terms, for the first time since February 1946.
The Labor Department's report could signal the end of a recent bright spot for the sector. The Commerce Department reported on Thursday that orders to factories increased by 2.1 percent in January — the best performance since July 2002. Members of the Conference Board, a corporate executives' group, also reported solid production during the winter months.
A pullback in auto manufacturing could spell more trouble, though. Last week, General Motors and Ford Motor announced plans to cut output in the second quarter. At General Motors, production in North America will fall more than 10 percent, to 1.39 million units, compared with figures in the period a year earlier.
Some help could be on the way because the Bush administration has taken up the cause of manufacturers, which some economists view more as part of the nation's past than its future.
"We don't think the best days for manufacturing are behind them," said Trevor Francis, a spokesman for the Commerce Department. "We're going to continue to look for avenues for them to succeed and return to the economic dominance that they had in the past."
Jobs in construction also dipped, by 48,000, to 6.5 million. Though the weather may have constrained contractors somewhat in February, the surprising strength of the sector during the economic slowdown could be starting to dissipate.
"Autos and housing one has to be careful about," Mr. Bhagavatula said. In most recessions, he said, sales plunge in both industries and demand begins to accumulate, setting the stage for a strong recovery. Over the last two years, however, the Federal Reserve's cuts in interest rates have spurred consumers to buy both houses and cars.
"This time there is no pent-up demand," Mr. Bhagavatula said. "My expectation is you're going to see some slowdown in both."
The service sector, which usually remains fairly stable during economic slowdowns, also suffered a decline in February. Jobs returned to their level of September, about 107 million, after rising slightly in the intervening months. Some of the worst losses came in restaurants and bars, which have shed jobs almost continuously since July 2001.
Several factors have diminished the demand for labor, said Hudson Riehle, senior vice president for research at the National Restaurant Association. Sales have improved in real terms over the last two years — the first time ever in a recessionary period — but most of the growth has come in take-out, delivery and drive-through business. In addition, productivity increases in food-and-beverage establishments have outpaced those in other industries.
The potential for a war in Iraq has also affected the industry. "Many of the operators are hesitant to staff up even though they see sales gains, due to the uncertainty of the geopolitical events," Mr. Riehle said.
The Labor Department's survey of households, which relies on a smaller sample than its payroll survey, showed a slight increase in employment in February. Mr. Wyss said that people working on contract and reservists called up to active duty might not show up in the payrolls survey. The Labor Department did not quantify these effects. But even in the survey of households, the number of workers who had given up on finding a job and left the labor force rose in February, to 450,000, a total unmatched since March 1996.
Even if the White House's economic agenda moves forward rapidly, which may be unlikely in light of intensifying political jousting, help for job hunters may be several months away.
"Moving up the tax cuts, if you really got it on the fast track through Congress and got it signed, would have an impact beginning in the summer," Mr. Wyss said. As for the proposal to abolish taxes on dividends, "even if you got it passed, you wouldn't see any cash until next April; there's no quick fix."
The relatively disappointing report also caused some forecasters to wonder whether the Federal Reserve would lower interest rates again. "My expectation is that on March 18 they'll probably do another insurance cut of 25 basis points," Mr. Bhagavatula said. Merrill Lynch yesterday revised its prediction for the meeting, from no change to a quarter-point rate cut.
4:59:38 PM
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Would a “Conservative” Pass the Deficit Buck?
How in the heck can Bush pass himself off as a conservative?
And what kind of “conservative” buys it?
This guy burns money for his tax plan like he’s shoveling coal into a furnace.
He trashes the Constitution (habeus corpus anyone?).
He willfully undermines one of the founding principles of our form of government, the wall between church and state.
What is so “conservative” in all of this?
I used to think “conservative” meant conserving our political heritage of limited government, but now it seems that “conservative” means whatever the party donors and media owners (read: wealthy plutocrats and tax-exempt fundamentalists) want it to mean.
Nowadays the term “conservative” seems to cover for the cheesiest form of “identity politics” around. That is, the kind of politics is held together solely by unthinking fear others, in this case the incoherent pastiche that is served up by the media as “godless, lesbian, feminazi, vegan, bow-tied, bespectacled, criminal-coddling, islamicist, treasonous liberals.” (Hence the booming market for media “celebs” that disseminate divisive, hateful attacks upon their fellow Americans; folks like Ann Coulter, Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, Bernie Goldberg, Michael Savage nee Weiner etc.)
The GOP has tried to substitute hobbies (hunting, bingo), snack-foods (pork rinds, beer) and the politics of personal destruction (Clinton, Gore, Kerry) for reasoned argument. And due in part to their large advantages in the media they have succeeded.
What would a real conservative say to that?
No doubt their disgust at the whoring of principle on behalf of the enemies of democracy would result in him or her being labeled a “treasonous liberal.”
Chronic Budget Deficits Forecast
CBO Bases Estimate on Cost of President's Budget Plan
By Jonathan Weisman
Washington Post Staff Writer
Saturday, March 8, 2003; Page A01
The federal government, burdened by war costs, falling tax receipts and the likelihood of explosive growth in health care spending, faces chronic deficits that only dramatic policy shifts can reverse, according to lawmakers, budget analysts and business leaders.
The deterioration of the government's fiscal position was underscored yesterday when the Congressional Budget Office released a new estimate of the cost of President Bush's budget plan. Without any of the president's spending or tax proposals or a war with Iraq, the government would run a 2003 deficit of $246 billion, a figure that is $47 billion -- or 24 percent -- higher than the deficit that the CBO projected just two months ago.
If Bush's proposals were enacted, the CBO said, the deficit would rise to $287 billion this year and $338 billion in 2004, and the government would remain in deficit through 2013, just as the vanguard of the baby boom generation begins to retire. Altogether, the CBO concluded, the president's policies would leave the government with $2.7 trillion in debt through 2013, which the government would not realize if Bush's proposals were rejected.
Those figures do not include the cost of a war with Iraq or its aftermath. Like the deficit figures, such cost estimates have also escalated sharply in recent weeks, to as much as $95 billion.
Moreover, the administration has scaled back efforts to rein in the growth of Medicare spending. Health and Human Services Secretary Tommy G. Thompson acknowledged this week that Bush's $400 billion proposal to overhaul Medicare and add a prescription drug benefit would hasten the program's slide toward insolvency.
"There's a massive deterioration of the budget going on," warned Edward McKelvey, an economist at Goldman Sachs.
The drumbeat of bad fiscal news is beginning to lead to alarm that goes beyond partisan finger-pointing in Washington. Neutral budget experts, Wall Street analysts and even some business leaders are beginning to implore policymakers to pay attention to a worsening budget picture that threatens to spiral out of control.
"We should not be going blithely down the path of this [Bush budget] plan without thinking about the demographic challenges ahead, without thinking about the costs that states are facing in these trying times, without thinking sufficiently deeply about how much this new role we're playing in the world is going to cost us," said Landon H. Rowland, chairman of the mutual fund giant Janus Capital Group, who contributed to Bush's 2000 presidential campaign. "It's my job as a citizen to look at this and say, 'Hey, this isn't going to cut it.' "
In the short term, Bush administration officials and most economists believe that the current deficit projections are acceptable as the economy struggles to regain its footing and the nation prepares for possible war.
But the CBO's newest forecast indicates that current and proposed policies will saddle future presidents and Congresses with intractable, long-term deficits just as the retiring baby boom generation places even higher demands on government resources. And some analysts say Bush's pursuit of additional tax cuts is bound to make matters worse. Bush's 2004 budget calls for tax cuts estimated to cost the Treasury nearly $1.6 trillion through 2013, and the cost of some of those provisions would escalate steeply from there.
"The magnitude of this is now so great as to be inescapable," said Everett M. Ehrlich, director of research at the Committee for Economic Development, a business and civic organization that has been around for 56 years. "Washington will only address this issue when it's forced to do so, and the business community has to begin paying attention."
Administration officials remain sanguine about fiscal issues, both in the short term and the longer term. Treasury Secretary John W. Snow dismissed the cost of an Iraq war and its aftermath on Thursday as "a one-time sort of thing." He said: "We don't have a revenue problem. We have plenty of revenue growth."
White House budget director Mitchell E. Daniels Jr. acknowledged the clamor for a shift in fiscal direction. In the face of the White House's own worsening deficit projections, the president considered dropping the plans for an economic stimulus package altogether, Daniels said. But Bush decided that only by giving the economy a boost could the government expect tax revenue to revive.
"We hear the noise, but the logic for the president is still the same," Daniels said. "You could bet the ranch on the economy we've got, or knowingly take on more deficit to create the jobs and growth that will create a stronger economy. He opted for action."
But the pressure for a reversal of course is mounting. The Committee for Economic Development broke this week with a publicly united business community to release a report, on the rapidly deteriorating fiscal situation, that "strongly opposes" Bush's $726 billion "economic growth" package.
Even before the report was released, moderate Republicans in the Senate had begun a series of meetings with Democrats and Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist (R-Tenn.) to raise their concerns over the burgeoning budget deficit and the tax proposal's potential impact on it.
"Does this indicate a sea change?" a senior Senate Republican aide asked after reading the report. "Well, listen, the tides have been going out ever since the president introduced the proposal."
House Republicans are considering an attack on the deficit from the spending side, openly complaining that the president has done too little to control government growth.
"The rate of growth in the president's budget is higher than advertised," said House Budget Committee Chairman Jim Nussle (R-Iowa), who hopes to unveil a budget blueprint on Wednesday that would bring the government back into balance within a decade.
Congressional Democrats are pressing their case daily that the White House's push for a new round of tax cuts proves that the administration has lost touch with reality.
"We're at war on terrorism. We're apparently about to go to war on a second front. We have a major problem on the horizon with North Korea. And yet the budget debates all seem to be around a supply-side tax cut that will reduce the revenues of this country at exactly the wrong time," said Rep. Charles W. Stenholm (Tex.), a conservative Democrat often on Bush's side. "It's out of control."
The deterioration of the government's fiscal health appears to be worse than indicated by the official forecasts of the CBO and the White House. Even with the continued deterioration, the CBO still foresees a slow recovery that would push the government back into surplus in 2008. Under that "baseline" forecast, the government would be running surpluses exceeding $405 billion by 2012.
But that positive trajectory assumes spending and tax policies that even the administration says are unrealistic: no war with Iraq, no more tax cuts, no prescription drug benefit for Medicare, spending growth that only keeps up with inflation, and the earlier tax cuts are would be allowed to vanish by 2011.
If the 2001 tax cuts are phased in immediately and are made permanent instead of being allowed to expire in 2011, a balanced budget would be pushed off to at least 2009. The government has also pledged to fix the alternative minimum tax, a parallel tax system designed to ensure that the affluent pay taxes but which increasingly ensnares the middle class. If politicians make good on that promise, the government would remain in deficit in 2013.
If Bush's proposals were enacted, including his relatively tight spending plan, the 2013 deficit would be $102 billion, according to yesterday's CBO forecast. If government spending at the annual discretion of Congress grows with the economy, as has historically happened, deficits would still be greater that $300 billion a year a decade from now, just as the baby boom generation begins to make its retirement felt.
By 2013, the CBO projects that spending on Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid -- the largest programs for the elderly -- will have reached $1.7 trillion, or 53 percent of the budget, up from this year's 42 percent.
"If we're going to go into the period of 2012 on without a surplus, you have a real structural problem," McKelvey said.
Even those numbers do not factor in war and reconstruction in Iraq and the rapid rise in defense spending that CBO economists fear are now inevitable. By locking the military into a variety of new weapons programs, such as a ballistic missile defense system, the administration's defense plan would push defense spending from about $349 billion last year to $408 billion in 2007, according to a recent CBO report.
Then, in inflation-adjusted dollars, defense costs would average $428 billion a year between 2008 and 2020, higher for 12 years than they were at the peak of President Ronald Reagan's Cold War defense buildup.
Daniels, director of the Office of Management and Budget, said he is not worried about "the dimension of today's deficits, and tomorrow's for that matter."
"They didn't produce disaster before," he said. "They won't this time, either."
4:39:52 PM
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Firefighters, Police Stiffed While GOP Shifts Blame
Call it what you want: “passing the buck,” the “blame-game,” “kicking the can down the road” – it’s what the Bushies excel at and now even their fellow GOPers in Congress are finding out that who they blame is less important to the Bushies than shifting the blame in the first place.
After all, it is so much easier to do politically than showing actual leadership on issues vitally important to national security…
GOP Leader Challenges Bush Statements
House Republicans Sensitive to Criticism They Underfunded Homeland Security
By Dana Milbank
Washington Post Staff Writer
Saturday, March 8, 2003; Page A04
A senior Republican lawmaker, firing back at President Bush for recent statements blaming Congress for underfunding emergency workers, accused the White House of factual inaccuracy and inadequate communication.
In an extraordinary departure from the public unity that has characterized White House relations with congressional Republicans, House Appropriations Committee Chairman C.W. Bill Young (R-Fla.) wrote to urge White House Chief of Staff Andrew H. Card Jr. to "be responsible" and "move on from this pointless and harmful debate" over legislation passed last month that included money for "first responders" involved in homeland security.
A copy of the letter, dated March 6, was provided to The Washington Post.
Though lawmakers, even those in Bush's party, often chafe at the administration's hard-nosed tactics, the letter underscored the unusually raw feelings that have developed among House Republicans since Bush began blaming them for inadequate homeland security funds. Democrats have long criticized Bush for inaccurate statements on spending and other matters, but this is the most prominent case of a Republican accusing Bush of falsehoods.
"I believe White House statements that Congress only provided $1.3 billion for first responders are factually inaccurate because you have narrowly chosen programs that only you believe will support the first-responder community," Young wrote in the three-page letter accusing the White House of various contradictions and inconsistencies.
"You can choose to continue the debate on this issue in this fashion, or we can be responsible and address the real issues facing first responders," Young wrote following a six-point critique. "It would be helpful to have a periodic exchange of information on this issue and other issues of importance to our country, instead of one-way directives from the Office of Management and Budget."
Bush, accused by Democrats of shortchanging homeland security, last month said the GOP-controlled Congress "did not respond to the $3.5 billion we asked for -- they not only reduced the budget that we asked for, they earmarked a lot of the money" for unrelated programs. Bush said he was "disappointed," and White House officials said Congress provided only $1.3 billion to local governments to combat terrorism, rather than $3.5 billion.
In his letter to Card, Young wrote that the spending bill passed by Congress for fiscal 2003 "includes $3.465 billion in funding to support the first-responder community." That figure includes "$900 million in law enforcement grants the administration sought to eliminate."
Young also complained that White House explanation of the first-responder initiative was just one paragraph. "The committee repeatedly sought additional information," he wrote. Attaching the one-paragraph justification, Young wrote: "You do not have to be an expert to know that this is inadequate."
Young noted that he and his staff had "direct conversations" with Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge about the funding levels "in advance of the final bill," and they agreed to work to "communicate a unified message."
White House spokesman Scott McClellan said Card had received Young's letter and has been in ongoing discussions with the chairman through yesterday. "The White House is working closely with Chairman Young and other congressional leaders on our shared commitment to make sure front-line responders in states and localities have the resources they need," McClellan said.
The issue highlights the difficulty Republicans face in controlling the White House and both chambers of Congress. Young and other Republicans on the spending committee, while reluctant to take on the president, are smarting from his criticism.
Congressional aides said Young is particularly irritated because he fought for more homeland security money in an emergency spending bill in late 2001 but was turned down by the White House.
Also, they said, he was angered by Bush's move last year to impound $5.1 billion that had been included in the emergency measure, about $2.6 billion of which was for homeland security and $500 million for first responders. In addition, aides said, Young pleaded with Bush in December to allow the committee to spend more, but Bush refused. To keep the spending within Bush's requirements, GOP lawmakers fought amendments to increase spending on security -- and then felt that Bush betrayed their loyalty.
A Young aide said the letter "was not a game of gotcha. He was trying to be helpful."
Staff writers Juliet Eilperin and Dan Morgan contributed to this report.
4:05:14 PM
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More fun from Fiore
3:50:55 PM
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This article is sure to raise hackles…
…particularly among those who (contrary to the evidence) view the Clintons as the epicenter of evil.
Sure, it’s a sweetheart deal, in which Chelsea undoubtedly benefited from her “extracurricular” ties.
What I want to know is: why is it only news when it involves a Democrat and not a GOPer?
For example, ask your “conservative” friends: how did the current Resident got through school, business, politics…?
March 8, 2003 | NEW YORK (AP) --
Chelsea Clinton will start a six-figure consulting job after she receives a master's degree from Oxford University later this year, Newsweek magazine reports on its Web site.
The daughter of former President Clinton will work in the New York office of London-based McKinsey & Company, newsweek.com reported Friday.
Clinton, 23, accepted the position Friday after she reportedly turned down McKinsey's offer of $100,000 a year to work at its London headquarters, according to the Web site.
A spokesman for McKinsey did not immediately return a call for comment Saturday, nor did Bill Clinton's office.
Clinton, who is studying international relations at Oxford, will be one of 5,000 McKinsey consultants worldwide who research topics ranging from health care to corporate finance.
3:24:32 PM
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How many have to die…
…before the damn bureaucrats put a halt to the stupid practice of racing vehicles across the beach?
It just goes to show how the bureaucrats – in this case in the police bureaucracy – oftentimes just don’t view folks as important when posed with a question of choosing between citizen safety and filling their quotas.
(The dame could be said for the school bureaucracies currently cutting teachers, custodians, librarians, schools – everything but the high-paid administrators who never even see a kid.)
People have been run over for a decade now and it is still not only permitted but encouraged in certain circumstances? Madness!
March 7, 2003 | MIAMI (AP) --
A French tourist whose sister was killed when a police vehicle ran them over as they sunbathed said Friday that such vehicles should be banned from beaches.
"Too many people have been injured. Too many people have died. And too many people have suffered. This must never happen again," said Sandrine Tunc, 26, who was critically injured in the accident.
Dressed in black with her hair pulled back tightly and walking with the aid of a cane, Tunc spoke publicly Friday for the first time since the Feb. 22 accident.
Tunc said she was disappointed that the officer driving the Ford Explorer hasn't apologized to the family, and added she thinks he should go jail.
"I want to see him," Tunc said, her cheeks reddened by tears. "I want him in front of me. I want him to remember my face for the rest of his life. I want him to suffer the way I am going to suffer for the rest of my life."
The sisters were sunbathing on a crowded oceanfront beach when Officer George Varon, chasing suspected muggers, ran over them with his sport utility vehicle, killing 27-year-old Stephanie Tunc. The suspects got away.
Varon is on administrative leave while the incident is being investigated.
"He's obviously very upset," said police spokesman Bobby Hernandez. "He wants to apologize ... but it's not proper right now."
After the accident, the city adopted a policy requiring officers to use overhead flashing lights when they drive on the beach. Varon wasn't using his lights or his siren at the time of the accident.
It was at least the third such incident in the last decade on Miami Beach. In April 1999, a city vehicle ran over a pregnant woman near where the sisters were hit. A Peruvian tourist was run over in November 1993 by a beach patrol vehicle while sunbathing. Both survived.
2:48:12 PM
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Who Planted False Evidence?
And why aren’t the mediots asking this question?
Oh, yeah, I forgot – Kerry’s heritage, and other people’s mistaken impressions about it, is far more important than any ole war.
Ah, that “librul” press, always looking to let the Bushies off the hook…
Imagine forging documents to not only fool the UN and other nations but also to alter the political debate over war at home…
(Never mind the use of spying technology at the UN…)
Thank god Gore – that pathological liar - isn’t Prez, huh?
U.N. Inspectors: U.S. used forged reports
- - - - - - - - - - - -
By WILLIAM J. KOLE
March 8, 2003 | UNITED NATIONS (AP) -- U.N. weapons inspectors cast doubts on U.S. assertions about Iraq's weapons programs, saying Baghdad is cooperating with inspections and that some documents presented as evidence were forged.
Mohamed ElBaradei, director general of the International Atomic Energy Agency, told the U.N. Security Council on Friday that experts had dismissed as counterfeit documents that allegedly showed Iraqi officials shopping for uranium in Africa two years ago.
ElBaradei, who made his strongest statement yet in support of Iraqi cooperation, also rejected a Bush administration claim that Iraq had tried to purchase high-strength aluminum tubes to use in centrifuges for uranium enrichment.
"There is no indication of resumed nuclear activities," he said.
Chief weapons inspector Hans Blix welcomed Iraq's "proactive" cooperation with his teams but didn't declare Iraq free of weapons of mass destruction.
Blix noted that Iraq is now providing inspectors with proactive cooperation, something he had asked for repeatedly through the winter.
However, Secretary of State Colin Powell said the United States was still convinced Iraq was hiding banned weapons.
"I think I have better information than the inspectors," Powell said in an interview with ABC anchor Peter Jennings. "I think I have more assets available to me than the inspectors do."
However, CIA Director George Tenet has said all relevant intelligence had been passed to the inspectors.
Blix said that even with continued cooperation from Iraq, it will take some time to ensure that Iraq has carried out key remaining disarmament tasks which he intends to present to the Security Council later this month.
"It will not take years, nor weeks, but months," he said, stressing that even after this is completed, Iraq should be subject to ongoing inspections and monitoring of its facilities.
Iraq's destruction of its Al Samoud 2 missiles constitutes a "substantial measure of disarmament," Blix said.
"The destruction undertaken constitutes a substantial measure of disarmament. We are not watching the destruction of toothpicks. Lethal weapons are being destroyed," he said.
The chief inspector, whose teams are responsible for the hunt for biological, chemical and missile programs, said Iraq had recently provided additional documentation on anthrax and the VX nerve agent.
"Many have been found to restate what Iraq has already declared."
In a veiled jab at the United States, he said inspectors had been unable to verify some claims about hidden Iraqi weapons and asked again for more information about suspect sites.
ElBaradei told the council that the IAEA found no evidence to support reports that Iraq tried to buy uranium from Niger.
"Based on thorough analysis, the IAEA has concluded, with the concurrence of outside experts, that documents which formed the basis for the reports of recent uranium transactions between Iraq and Niger are in fact not authentic," he said. "We have therefore concluded that these specific allegations are unfounded."
"In the past three weeks, possibly as a result of ever-increasing pressure by the international community, Iraq has been forthcoming in its cooperation," ElBaradei said. "I do hope that Iraq will continue to expand the scope and accelerate the pace of its cooperation."
He reported again that in the area of nuclear weapons, inspections were moving forward.
"After three months of intrusive inspections, we have to date found no evidence or plausible indication of the revival of a nuclear weapons program in Iraq."
2:38:09 PM
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