10 February 2003
Official Gives Background Briefing on Rumsfeld Meetings in Munich
(Senior DOD official on Rumsfeld's bilaterals and speech; NATO;
Turkey) (2500)
A senior Defense Department official briefed reporters in Munich
February 8 on Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld's bilateral meetings
during the Conference on European Security Policy.
On Rumsfeld's meeting with Russian Defense Minister Sergei Ivanov, the
official said the discussion included Afghanistan - "in particular
transitioning to stability phases there, and civil implementation and
that sort of thing and how we're cooperating"; North Korea
- "the severity of the situation, the importance of internationalizing
the problem"; and Iraq.
The official also discussed the consultations in NATO on taking steps
to protect Turkey against an attack by Iraq, Rumsfeld's remarks to the
Munich conference earlier in the day, and the secretary's bilaterals
with other ministers, including Germany's defense minister.
Following is a transcript of his remarks:
(begin transcript)
U.S. Department of Defense News Briefing
Senior Defense Official
Saturday, Feb. 8, 2003
(Background briefing in Munich, Germany)
Senior Defense Official: What I thought I would focus on is just some
of the bilateral meetings because I think at least some of you have
been in the proceedings, right?
Question: Well, (inaudible). Yeah.
Senior Defense Official: Okay, good, so I don't need to go over that.
He had some short bilateral discussions with the Norwegian Minister of
Defense, Kristin Devold; with the Georgian Minister of Defense and
National Security Advisor. Tevzadze is Minister of Defense. Japaridze
-- and please don't ask for spellings of me, but we can get them for
you. I can run them down for you. And then with Minister of Defense
Ivanov. They had quite a long session. We had some additional meetings
this afternoon.
The Norwegians, there was a brief meeting, not formal. Mostly
discussing two topics -- follow-on in terms of Iraq and particularly
NATO and Iraq and also talking a little bit about follow-on activities
post-Prague for NATO.
The meetings with Tevzadze focused mostly on our bilateral
relationship including the Georgia Train and Equip Program. The
Minister gave a status report on it. It's going extremely well. We
have heard that, by the way, independently from our own military
people who have been up there.
Q: Do you have a way to characterize extremely well? Numbers or
something?
Senior Defense Official: I guess what I would say is that we are well
satisfied with the professionalism and the enthusiasm, work ethic, and
progress of the troops that are involved. And that we believe those
troops will be able to make a contribution in the war on terrorism as
they're involved in activities in Georgia and along the borders.
Ivanov and the Secretary had a fairly wide-ranging discussion. They
talked Afghanistan, in particular transitioning to stability phases
there, and civil implementation and that sort of thing and how we're
cooperating. We, the U.S. and Russia are going to be cooperating in
terms of the Afghan National Army, the creation of the army.
They talked about North Korea quite extensively. And I think had a
meeting of the minds, if you will, on the severity of the situation,
the importance of internationalizing the problem. They talked a little
bit about some of our bilateral military-to-military cooperation.
Q: On North Korea, did the Russians specifically commit to doing
anything to put pressure on the North?
Senior Defense Official: Well, I wouldn't want to characterize what
the Russians are going to do, but I think we got the indication that
they are engaged with North Korea.
Q: Given the fact that you think they have a relationship with North
Korea that involved in the past assisting North Korea in their weapons
of mass destruction, have you asked them to like give you a full
(inaudible) of all that they know about those programs?
Senior Defense Official: We have shared information over the past.
This back-issue was not a discussion in today's topic. So no, the two
Ministers didn't talk about that. We have discussed that question with
the Russians in the past and there has been an exchange of information
and views on the topic.
Q: What was the (inaudible)?
Senior Defense Official: They're not, I think the focus of the
discussions today were more on how to deal with the diplomatic and, of
the problem. Obviously that has to involve international pressure
including pressure from not just Russia but also PRC, Japan and South
Korea.
Q: Any discussion about how to respond if they do (inaudible)?
Senior Defense Official: No, there was no discussion of that.
Q: Did Ivanov mention the wisdom of sending additional U.S. forces to
the region or lack thereof?
Senior Defense Official: No discussion.
Q: No talk about McCain's calling for sanctions on North Korea?
Senior Defense Official: No, actually the sanctions issue did not come
up. There was a more general discussion about the UN and the role of
the UN. Secretary Rumsfeld made the point that this is a, there will
be an important role not only for the UN but for the other
international agencies as well, like the IAEA.
Q: Could you describe the Secretary's speech to (inaudible) Iraq.
Would you describe any conversations with Minister Ivanov in which he
says the UN is (inaudible) North Korea?
Senior Defense Official: I think they're completely consistent points
of view. We're at a somewhat different stage, obviously, in that
process. We have 17 resolutions out there on Iraq over 12 years. I
think one of the points that the Secretary was trying to drive home in
his remarks was there's a sense when we talk about a second resolution
and when we talk about more time, if you will, for inspectors to
inspect, there's a sense that the lack of historical perspective here.
I think the point he was trying to make was that we have tried
inspections, we've had inspections between 1991 and 1998. We have them
again. We've tried economic and are continuing to use economic tools,
even to have limited military tools that we've been using over the
last few years, and that all of these things combined have not stopped
him from developing weapons of mass destruction.
Q: But if the UN --
Q: Can you tell us more about what the Secretary was talking about
Iran and Iraq and the possibility of a war there? (inaudible) with him
(inaudible)?
Senior Defense Official: No, not a follow-on. Talking about the
situation in NATO now with the help for Turkey.
Q: I thought you said --
Senior Defense Official: I'm glad you asked the question. No, no. I
meant a follow-on from the discussions this morning. Sorry.
Q: Can I take you back to the UN question then?
Q: If you will, was there any discussion of NATO -- of more NATO --
nations participating in a pro-Saddam Iraq? Is Secretary Rumsfeld
getting a briefing on that at all?
Senior Defense Official: No, we haven't had discussions on that. I
think the focus right now is on NATO planning to, in the event that
Turkey is threatened and doing some planning. That's the main focus.
Of course there may be other -- We're not shutting the door on
potentially other roles, but at this point I think it's premature to
talk about these things until NATO makes the right steps in terms of
Turkey. We're pretty confident that that will happen.
Q: You're pretty confident that NATO will approve? You think that will
happen Monday?
Senior Defense Official: I didn't say it would happen Monday. I said I
think NATO will ultimately approve that.
Q: If NATO doesn't approve Monday, though, how quickly would the
United States, would the United States move to unilaterally do what
you think needs to be done for Turkey?
Senior Defense Official: I don't know that the United States would
necessarily even have to do any planning. There may be other allies
who would....
Q: Outside the bounds of NATO?
Senior Defense Official: I think that we're obviously working with
Turkey right now, and one of the things that was very clear from the
Secretary's remarks this morning, we feel, we the United States feel
very strongly that if Turkey feels threatened we ought to be part of
protecting Turkey. So I don't think it's a matter of how quickly we'll
move. In some ways we're already moving in that direction in terms of
our discussions with the Turks and working on the possibility of
planning for having U.S. forces involved in Turkey.
Q: Can I take you back to the UN question?
Senior Defense Official: Which UN question?
Q: Tom Shanker's. Mr. Rumsfeld went beyond projecting that the United
Nations was in danger of losing its credibility and indeed said it's
already lost it in his mind, and there's a quote in there about how it
needs to move out of being this object of ridicule and reclaim its
role.
So how, given that I think fairly clear attitude towards the UN, how
does the Administration look to the UN being useful in resolving the
North Korean crisis? Clearly Rumsfeld indicated he felt the UN had
already lost its credibility with the Iraq disarmament commission and
the human rights commission and the sort of foot-dragging on --
Senior Defense Official: I really can't speculate on exactly what the
measures would be. But first of all the IAEA [International Atomic
Energy Agency] is in effect, it's a separate organization but it's
certainly recognized among the UN auspices. The IAEA needs to take
action I think on this and send a strong statement to the UN on the
actions that the North Korean government has taken. Then it really is
for the Security Council to respond to that.
But I think the main point he was trying to make in terms of the UN as
well as individual countries is that this is an international problem.
This is not an issue that's a bilateral problem between the United
States and North Korea. Many other countries are affected by this --
South Korea is affected by it, Japan is affected by it, China is
affected by it -- and if fissile material were to end up in the hands
of other weapons of mass diffusing states, many countries could be
affected by it. So it's a problem that everybody needs to take
extremely seriously. I think that was the main point.
Q: How about NATO? The Secretary's speech sounded as if the French and
Germans don't shape up, the Defense rests by Monday, that NATO would
(inaudible). Is the time running out for NATO?
Senior Defense Official: The number of times that NATO has been
declared almost dead is, we don't have time to go into that. I don't
think that is the case. But I do think it's important that, like I
said, there have been a number of important turning points in alliance
before and we're clearly coming up to one of those. I think it's very
important, particularly given the fact that Turkey may well or may yet
invoke its Article 4 rights under the treaty, and if it does so, I
think that NATO has to act. And I think that, as I said earlier, I
think NATO will act.
Q: (inaudible) protest by (inaudible) on Monday (inaudible)?
Senior Defense Official: I'm not exactly sure what the time is, but
yes, there's something called a "silence procedure." So somebody has
to break silence for it not to be approved.
And by the way, that is a --
Q: Even though it's being blocked?
Senior Defense Official: They could have just agreed to it. They
didn't have a consensus. But to show you the depth of feeling in favor
of doing this, the Secretary General was confident enough and
comfortable enough to put it under a silence procedure by Monday. And
that shows to me that there's a lot of support within NATO.
Q: Can you explain, you were talking earlier about planning for
helping Turkey (inaudible). Is this different from actually sending
them on?
Senior Defense Official: Absolutely. We're talking about --
Q: (inaudible)
Senior Defense Official: What this effectively would be would be a
directive to the Supreme Allied Commander Europe to plan for how
Turkey could be protected against a number of threats including the
possible introduction of air and missile defense systems like the
Patriot, CBW protection and the like. And so it's a planning
operation.
As you know in our system as well as in the NATO system we begin by
planning. A deployment would require a separate decision so I think
that's one of the reasons why you saw on the floor today a certain
amount of astonishment from a number of people that NATO wasn't even
allowed to plan to do this.
Q: Hasn't the question been the deployment of Patriots and AWACS and
other offensive type equipment?
Q: Or did they request a different planning for that?
Senior Defense Official: I'm not quite following you.
Q: Wasn't there a request to NATO to deploy Patriots and AWACS and
things of that nature --
Senior Defense Official: The request at this point is to begin the
planning. It's a two-stage process. It really ultimately will I think
depend on what Turkey wants to do in terms of when Turkey would feel
it needed those capabilities. But at this point our view is that it is
only prudent to have all the planning done so that in the event those
capabilities are needed the planning has already been accomplished,
and if the North Atlantic Council were to decide and Turkey desired
it, that the deployment could occur expeditiously.
One more question.
Q: Why didn't Turkey request that in the beginning, rather than
(inaudible)?
Senior Defense Official: I think that it's a fairly major step for a
country to invoke the treaty, and I think there was a desire to move
this forward quickly and without the invocation of the treaty. That's
one of the reasons why. The other thing is that the U.S. was also
interested in looking at how we might be able to involve NATO in this
process and as you know there were a number of proposals that were
made by the United States, and among those proposals was the role that
NATO could play in protecting allies who are geographically located
near the theater of operations.
Q: Secretary Rumsfeld's main message? Is this (inaudible)?
Senior Defense Official: I think that he and the Minister, by the way,
have already had a brief conversation prior to the lunch and I think
they're going to probably touch on a somewhat broader range of issues
including the involvement of Germany in Afghanistan, the takeover of
the German and Dutch lead around the (inaudible) as well as the help
that the German government is providing in Germany on force protection
as well as the issue in Brussels. I think there will be a number of
topics.
Thank you very much.
(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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