16 October 2001
Excerpts: White House Spokesman's Comments on South Asia, Oct 16
(post-Taliban era; anthrax investigation)(2800)
White House Spokesman Ari Fleischer told reporters October 16 that
President Bush will not negotiate with Taliban representatives at this
point in the campaign against terrorist networks based in Afghanistan.
"The president has given the Taliban government ample time to respond.
The president made it perfectly plain about what actions the Taliban
needed to take in order to avoid the fate that they have chosen for
themselves. They had plenty of time; they chose not to act," he said.
Asked if the Bush administration could foresee a role for the Taliban
in a post-war Afghanistan, the White House spokesman said, "the United
States will work with those who would seek a peaceful, economically
developing Afghanistan that is free from terrorism, and that will be a
broad-based group.... That's going to be something the president has
indicated he wants to work with the United Nations as a part of."
The spokesman also noted that President Bush may have the opportunity
to discuss Afghanistan during the APEC leaders meeting October 20-21
in Shanghai.
Questioned about President Bush's reaction to anti-American
demonstrations in Pakistan, the Middle East and other parts of the
world, Fleischer noted the president "understands people throughout
the world have the right to demonstrate and to have their voices
heard." Viewed in perspective, however, "with each day, it seems that
there are less people in the streets, not more," Fleischer told
reporters.
Asked about possible links between a global terrorist network and
current cases of anthrax contamination in the United States, Fleischer
said the possibility is "being actively looked at," but "there is no
hard evidence" at this point.
Following are excerpts from Fleischer's October 16 briefing:
(begin excerpts)
Q: Ari, there is a dispatch from Islamabad that says that a so-called
moderate Taliban member, official, has asked for a bombing pause of
two days so that they can persuade -- the moderates can persuade the
hard-line Omar to turn over bin Laden. Now, what is -- is there such a
thing in the works? Have they talked to Powell? Have you heard
anything at the White House?
MR. FLEISCHER: I think the President addressed that in its entirety
when he returned from Camp David on Sunday, when he said there will be
no negotiations. The military campaign remains underway, the financial
campaign remains underway, the diplomatic, the political, and --
Q: Why not any negotiations? Everything is negotiated eventually And
why not a cease-fire for a couple days?
MR. FLEISCHER: Because that's not what the President announced to the
American people in his speech to the Congress. The President is not
pursuing such a course, because he does not think it would be
constructive.
The President has given the Taliban government ample time to respond.
The President made it perfectly plain about what actions the Taliban
needed to take in order to avoid the fate that they have chosen for
themselves. They had plenty of time; they chose not to act.
Q: It isn't a question of time. This is a possible opening.
MR. FLEISCHER: The President does not view it as such.
(further on Taliban)
Q: Ari, do you foresee a role for the Taliban in a postwar
Afghanistan? Apparently, Secretary Powell has been saying that over
there in Pakistan.
MR. FLEISCHER: I think that's a little bit of an overcharacterization,
what the Secretary said, and I've read the transcript of the news
conference that he had with President Musharraf. But the President has
made it very plain in the Afghanistan Declaratory Policy that the
United States will work with those who would seek a peaceful,
economically developing Afghanistan that is free from terrorism, and
that will be a broad-based group.
I think beyond that, it's too early to say exactly who will be in, who
will not be. That's going to be something the President has indicated
he wants to work with the United Nations as a part of. Suffice it to
say, it will be broad-based.
Q: Ari, given that the President is speaking at the Red Cross this
afternoon, is he going to have any reaction to the bombing of the Red
Cross warehouse in Kabul?
MR. FLEISCHER: That's a matter that the Department of Defense is
taking a look at right now and has not yet been confirmed.
Q: But, Ari, the International Red Cross says that it happened. And
how do you square that confirmation from the Red Cross with the
President's very personal plea to the children of America to help buy
supplies, the very same supplies destroyed over in Kabul?
MR. FLEISCHER: As I indicated, the Department of Defense is taking a
look at this right now to determine what, if the source could have
been. And as I remind you, that in a case like this, until information
comes in that is determinative or final, it's hard to say whether
something was a result of anti-aircraft weaponry that was shot from
the ground, other weapons that were shot from the ground, that it came
back down, or whether or not it was coalition efforts. And that's why
the Department of Defense reviews these matters carefully and takes it
seriously.
Q: Ari, Bob Graham, who is the Chairman of the Senate Intelligence
Committee, has said that he has information that the United States is
very close to getting bin Laden, either killing him or capturing him.
Is this a view that is shared in the White House?
MR. FLEISCHER: Well, again that gets into operational areas. And I'm
not going to discuss operational areas.
Q: Ari, going back to Secretary Powell's statement from Pakistan
today. From your remarks from the podium, are you trying to distance
the White House and the President from what Powell said today? And
secondly, isn't it irregular for a United States Cabinet officer,
particular a Secretary of State, to talk about including an
organization, and any kind of government, that we are now at war with?
MR. FLEISCHER: Well again, let me just cite to you what the Secretary
said in his remarks in Pakistan this morning. In our discussions,
there was no doubt that both are common goals, seeing that the
post-Taliban government in Kabul would be one that represented all the
people of Afghanistan, would be a regime that obviously would be
friendly to all its neighbors, would include -- including Pakistan. So
that's what the Secretary said, and that's perfectly consistent with
the President's Afghanistan Declaratory Policy, of course.
Q: Except that the organization that -- the Pashtun, which is the
largest ethnic organization, is the Taliban.
MR. FLEISCHER: Well, there are elements of the Pashtun that are in the
Taliban, but I don't think it's accurate to say -- I know it's not
accurate to say that all the Pashtun are Taliban.
Q: What are you objecting to?
Q: Ari, in addition to the APEC agenda you've spoken to earlier, the
President has a chance in Shanghai obviously to meet with a lot of his
coalition partners. Can you say something about what he can do in that
face to face diplomacy that he's not been able to do in Washington in
five weeks?
And second, the President has been talking for weeks about his vision
of a post-Taliban Afghanistan. Will that be on the table when he meets
with these folks? Will he be asking for some specific commitments or
some ideas from these people on how to knit together a post-Taliban
Afghanistan?
MR. FLEISCHER: Well, I think you can anticipate two broad areas of
topics
-- of conversation at the APEC meetings, beginning in Shanghai. And
they are one, on the trade front, the stated purpose of APEC, as is
traditional. It is an economic council. Its purpose is to create an
environment to have economic development that benefits all the
entities that belong. So that, number one, the trade matter.
Two, I think you can expect some type of statement about
anti-terrorism that will unite all those who are there. And the exact
language will be available at the time. Then in the bilateral meetings
which the President will be holding, I think it just depends. There
will be different conversations with different nations about what they
think, about the future of Afghanistan, about their efforts in the
coalition, their financial efforts, for example, in seizing assets or
shutting down banks or entities that fund the al Qaeda organization.
So it really depends, nation to nation, what those nations want to
talk about, as well.
(Anthrax)
Q: Ari, given that three of the letters now have been traced to
Trenton, New Jersey as its place of origin, has the government been
able to establish a link beyond those letters to each other, but to
any of the hijackers or anyone associated with Osama bin Laden?
MR. FLEISCHER: Federal investigators are poring through all of the
evidence that they have at their disposal about all these incidents of
anthrax, whether it's in Boca Raton or New York City or elsewhere. And
there is nothing definitive to report at this time. The investigation
is well underway, the federal resources are committed to it, but there
is no indication of anything I can point to at this time.
Q: The major focus of the investigation now is establishing links
between bin Laden or others who are operating here?
MR. FLEISCHER: The investigators will be on the lookout for the source
of the anthrax that was put in the mail, and they will make any
determinations they can about who was behind that, where it came from,
whether there are any links among the various incidents, and whether
or not there is any foreign involvement. All of that is being actively
looked at.
Q: Ari, if I follow-up on David's question. Given that there are
anthrax attacks confirmed now in Florida, New York, Washington, D.C.,
post offices in New Jersey and Florida where al Qaeda cells that
committed the hijacking were known to operate, given the scale of
this, isn't the administration leaning toward, at all, the notion that
this is not some kind of lone American crazy, but that there would be
foreign involvement, connected to September 11th?
MR. FLEISCHER: The administration is suspicious. The administration is
suspicious about whether or not there are or are not any such links.
And that is being actively reviewed and looked at. But again, there is
no hard evidence. But there remains the issue that the administration
is taking a good hard look at.
Q: Is there a policy in place perhaps before September 11th about any
nation or group which would cross the line of using biological
weapons? Was there any policy of what the U.S. response would be in
that regard?
MR. FLEISCHER: Terry, I'm not going to speculate about what our
reaction would be to a foreign nation that did this, because we don't
have any such evidence at this time. Suffice it to say, the President
has taken action to defend our country and will continue to do so.
Q: Ari, the anthrax found at the personal office of Tom Daschle has
been described as, quote, "not amateurish," a suggestion that it is of
a particularly pure, powerful nature. Given that and other attacks, is
it now clear that the United States is subject to bioterrorism, that
you were reluctant to describe that yesterday; will you now confirm it
to the American public now, assume, is bioterrorism happening within
the United States?
MR. FLEISCHER: That's a determination that will be made by the
appropriate law enforcement officials. The line between whether this
is merely criminal or terrorist is something that often involves
whether or not a foreign nation is involved or whether or not cells of
any type of foreign nation or terrorist group operating in this
country. All that is under investigation right now, and I don't want
to get ahead of that story.
Q: How does it not reach the threshold, based on what you know so far?
What's missing? What could possibly be missing from that equation?
MR. FLEISCHER: The determination of who was behind it; and that has
not been determined at this time.
Q: Ari, on the anthrax itself that was contained in these letters, is
there anything to suggest it might have been a type of anthrax stores
that a laboratory might hold for research that got booted out the back
door? Or is there any evidence that this was the sort of anthrax that
had been worked up into a weapon of bioterror?
MR. FLEISCHER: The source of the anthrax is being investigated right
now where it possibly could have come from. So, that's the only answer
I can give you. They're trying to determine where it is. Helen asked
me this morning earlier a question about whether it came from any
government stockpiles such of that nature. I just want to remind you
that the United States has no anthrax for offensive purposes as such;
it was all destroyed as a part of the Biological Weapons Convention,
to which the United States is a signatory. So any other supplies that
may be available for biodefense purposes are all accounted for.
(anti-American demonstrations)
Q: Does the President have any reaction to the violent demonstrations,
anti-American demonstrations in Indonesia, Pakistan, other parts of
the world? And is that likely to change his policy in any way?
MR. FLEISCHER: Well, as you have heard the President say before, he
understands people throughout the world have the right to demonstrate
and to have their voices heard. But I think it's worth keeping these
protests in context. Pakistan is a nation of 150 million people. And
the protests have numbered in the thousands. With each day, it seems
that there are less people in the streets, not more.
I remind you that when the President has traveled around Europe, for
example, after he left Goteborg, where there was an EU summit, the
President was already in Poland, and there were more protesters at
that EU meeting than there were in some of these protests that we've
seen in the Middle East. So I don't think that was an indication that
the European governments, for example, had a majority of their
populations against them
-- to say that.
Similarly, in a nation of 150 million people, when the protests do
number in the thousands, I think it's also fair to say, and to ask, is
there a majority that is silent on this matter? So you do have
pictures, of course, that I've seen on the air, of these protests.
Pictures often get on the air easier than the broader context does.
Q: Ari, can you talk about the volume of mail response is to the White
House, to the President's request that children send in dollars for
the children in Afghanistan? And also, is there any concern at the
White House that the President solicited this mass mailing right
before we have all these concerns about what's in the mail?
(America's Fund for Afghan Children)
MR. FLEISCHER: On the answer to the numbers, this morning when I was
briefed on this, after yesterday afternoon, the White House had
received some 8,000 pieces of correspondence addressed to the children
of Afghanistan. And then by 9:15 a.m. this morning, it had been up to
18,000. So obviously it's coming in, and the President is very pleased
to note that. We'll have updated numbers, of course, throughout the
process.
Q: What about the Afghan situation --
MR. FLEISCHER: To compare the plight of the children of Afghanistan to
people who are blessed to live in this country, even those whose lives
have been affected by the attack on our country really is not equal.
The children of Afghanistan have no food, or they have barely any
food. It's been taken away from them by the Taliban. Children of
Afghanistan don't have access to medicine, they often don't have
access to blankets and to clothing, and that's what this is aimed at.
The families of those who have been affected by the attacks in New
York have suffered a tragedy in human terms and in family terms, that
has touched everybody in this country. But you can't compare the
resources available to help those families to the resources available
to help the children of Afghanistan. Help is available for both, in
different measures. And the President thinks it's entirely fitting, in
the traditions of our country, to have the children of America help
the children of Afghanistan. We'll also help our home here as well.
(end transcript)
(Distributed by the Office of International Information Programs, U.S.
Department of State. Web site: http://usinfo.state.gov)
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