What we said publicly is that we know that Saddam Hussein has chemical weapons, he's used them; we know about his biological weapons programs; and in the nuclear equation, left to his own devices, with no fissile material, by the end of the decade, he'll have a nuclear weapon. But if fissile material is provided to Saddam Hussein, he'll have a nuclear weapon within a year, so I'd say the year is the outside timetable.
Richard ArmitageWell, I think finding the weapons of mass destruction is going to be quite time consuming. I know we've uncovered some documents, we'll have to exploit them, and we're going to have to blanket a country the size of California and search, I think, quite rigorously, but we'll come up with them.
Richard ArmitageIt fills me with dismay sometimes when you look at the scripts that do come to you that are primarily focused on violence. There are so many other things to play around with.
Richard ArmitageThe CIA estimates that Iraq probably has a few hundred metric tons of chemical weapons agents, for mustard gas, sarin, and other deadly concoctions. This is addition to an extensive capacity to produce biological weapons, including anthrax and ricin, which is fatal within 24 to 36 hours of exposure.
Richard ArmitageI think if I had come out of drama school and been an instant Hollywood superstar, I would be taking long, leisurely holidays.
Richard ArmitageYou can have your beliefs, but if you're not devout, you can't quite believe that something which grows out of a story, a book or a piece of literature can rise to dominate and make entire nations go to war with each other. I think that's endlessly fascinating, and it's a human construct. It's something that's constructed to occupy the mind and occupy society, and some people would say to control society.
Richard Armitage