Military

MR. MCCORMACK: Good afternoon, everybody. No opening statements, so we can get right to your questions.

QUESTION: I understand there are -- there been a change in the Secretary's plans -- the trip that was announced this week; can you elaborate?

MR. MCCORMACK: We have no public announcements regarding change to our itinerary. When and if we have any public announcements, we'll let you guys know.

QUESTION: Iraq, Sean?

MR. MCCORMACK: Yeah.

QUESTION: There seems to be a bipartisan consensus building in -- on the Hill that Prime Minister Maliki is not getting the job done and he is not, obviously, bringing about the political changes that you guys have wanted. Do you still support Prime Minister Maliki?

MR. MCCORMACK: Yes. The President has made that clear, Secretary Rice has made that clear. He is an elected representative of the Iraqi people, working on behalf of all the Iraqi people, and he's doing so under extraordinarily difficult circumstances. He -- the Iraqi Government is trying to overcome years and years of political division that was really sown by Saddam Hussein and that now, in the current environment, has been exacerbated by attempts by al-Qaida to spread division among the Iraqi people, among sectarian lines.

And there are also -- it's also a relatively new government, so they're trying to make some fundamental decisions about the future of their people and the future of their country under extraordinarily difficult circumstances. Now that doesn't mean that we don't encourage them to act, to push forward, and to move with all possible speed to pass laws that will form the foundation for Iraq's future. They've made some progress in that regard and I think we're going to hear about, here in the next couple of days, from the White House when they issue their report about where we stand right now, about the areas where there has been progress, not only on the security front and the economic front, but also on the political front, and areas where there hasn't been as much progress. So we'll all -- we will all hear the U.S. Government sober assessment of that tomorrow.

Now I would point out to you that this is an interim report, if you will, mandated by the Congress, and that the first real milepost as to the progress the Iraqi Government has made under the umbrella of the surge, is going to be coming out in September. We're going to get a report from Ambassador Crocker. We're going to get a report from General Petraeus about where we are, where the Iraqis are, and what has worked, what has worked less well.

So we will all see in the coming months exactly what the positive and neutral and negative effects have been that have come out of our effort to give the Iraqis some space in which to work and to make some of the tough decisions that they need to make about their future of their country.

QUESTION: Even if they are given that political space, do you think Maliki has the ability to bring together the different parties in Iraq? I mean, he hasn't shown that to date.

MR. MCCORMACK: I think certainly Prime Minister Maliki is going to play an important role in that. But there are also other important figures within the Iraqi political system -- you know, President Talibani, Vice President Tariq al-Hashemi. You have a number of other figures that are playing key roles in the presidency council and who represent major political parties within the Iraqi political system and that represent major blocks of population. And it's going to be up to them to come together to make the tough political compromises.

Not everybody's going to get everything that want out of these political compromises, but that's the nature of a democratic system. So it's going to be up to all of them, including Prime Minister Maliki, to lead the way for the Iraqi people and overcome the divisions of the past, overcome the divisions of the present day, to try to build a better future for their country.

QUESTION: You know there -- I know there are some calls from member* from Congress for the Administration to get more involved in the political side of this; to try to push something through and to try to make more progress. What more can you do to push this along?

MR. MCCORMACK: We can keep doing what we're -- what we have been doing. And we're very much involved with the Iraqi Government on the ground -- encouraging them, pushing, prodding, cajoling, advising, counseling -- doing everything we can to help them establish the foundations for their political system. And they've made a lot of progress in terms of setting up the basic institutions of the democracy.

Now they have to -- the task for them, one of the tasks for them is to make those institutions actually function on behalf of the Iraqi people. Now that's a hard thing to do, especially with new institutions. You have to build up trust among the people in those institutions. You have to set up systems whereby from the top to the bottom you have coordinated effort. That takes -- that takes some time. And doing all of that in an environment with the security challenges that we know -- all know exist in Iraq is very tough to do.

I'm not trying to make excuses for the Iraqis. I'm just trying to explain for you -- give a little context to the environment in which they're working. None of that is to say that we're not pushing as hard as we can with the Iraqis to get things done because that's what the American people expect. That's what fathers and mothers and families who send their sons and daughters over to Iraq would expect from us. And that's what Secretary Rice expects from our people on the ground: to do everything that we can to move this process forward.

Ultimately, though, it is going to have to be the Iraqis that make these political compromises, that make these tough decisions. We can't make them for the Iraqis. But that is not to say that we aren't going to push as hard as we can.

Yeah.

QUESTION: Has Rice talked to the -- to Prime Minister Maliki recently or --

MR. MCCORMACK: Not recently.

QUESTION: -- or within the context of this July 15th --

MR. MCCORMACK: Not recently. No, she hasn't. But Ryan Crocker is in constant touch with any given member of the senior leadership of the Iraqi Government at any given point during the day.

QUESTION: Can you give us the update on the calls and meetings she has had here in conjunction with this Iraq report and on the general subject this week?

MR. MCCORMACK: Meaning with her staff and interagency?

QUESTION: Well, I mean, there have been some calls to the Hill and so forth. I mean --

MR. MCCORMACK: She's talked to -- you know, several members of Congress. Just yesterday, she spoke with several of them. I don't have any updates to the list I gave you all this morning. And I expect that she's going to continue doing this. She really views it as an important part of her job to maintain those contacts with senators and representatives on issues related to foreign policy or whatever happens to be on their mind. It's important. It's important not only to talk to members of her committees and go up there and testify, but also to engage members of Congress on topics of interest and she does that on a regular basis and -- including on Iraq.

QUESTION: So that -- those five are the only senators with whom she spoke?

MR. MCCORMACK: Yeah.

QUESTION: And just -- I know you addressed this this morning in the gaggle, but can you just simply state what is her message to them? "Please give us more time," you know, "Give us till September," or what is the message?

MR. MCCORMACK: I don't have a full readout of all the conversations, but very -- its most basic elements are what you've heard from the White House and it's a little bit of what you've heard from me today, and that is that this is a waypoint. It is not meant as the first important assessment of the effects of the surge, what the Iraqis have done with this time. It is -- I think you'll hear from General Petraeus and Ryan that the assets have only been in place for a couple of weeks now. All the assets have been in place for the military as well as the civilian part of the surge.

And so it's early. It's very, very early on to try to make any determinations about the strategic direction here. We'll have a better sense in a couple of months. Once you have had all of these assets in place and you've had some time to regularize the operations, you get a better sense for which direction we're heading in and at that point, what needs to be done the same, what needs to be done differently. But that's several months from now.

QUESTION: Back in January, shortly after the President gave his speech, Secretary Gates, among others, said "We will know very quickly how the Iraqis are responding to the surge." He seemed to suggest at the time that an assessment could be made relatively soon. And I know it's only been about a month or so that the full -- you know, troop capacity has been there.

MR. MCCORMACK: Right.

QUESTION: But to go back to your point about, it's up to the Iraqis to make the tough political decisions, do you have any reason, given their past performance, to believe that they will do so?

MR. MCCORMACK: They're going to have to. And it's in -- it's more important for the Iraqi people and for them than anybody else. Certainly, it's important to us as well as others who are contributing to the multinational force, yes. But these are, most importantly, fundamental decisions for the Iraqi people and the future of Iraq. So it's -- they understand the stakes and they're working not only to establish their political system, but to make that political system work on behalf of the Iraqi people.

Now just to get back to Secretary Gates, again, he can speak for himself and the Pentagon can speak to it. But what I think he was referring to is not the affects of the surge, but whether the inputs were being lined up by the Iraqis, meaning are they producing the brigades in the numbers and the strength and the capabilities that they said they would; would they remove political decision-making from the military operations.

And when he was referring, "We'll know very quickly whether or not that is happening," he was talking about how are the inputs going. And again, I'll let him speak for himself, but I think the -- and you can talk to the military commanders on the ground about their assessment, but what I understand is the Iraqis have actually done quite well in that regard. There have been some blips on the screen in that regard, but for the most part, they have -- and this is a very general assessment, please talk to the military on the ground about a more detailed assessment -- but they have, in fact, produced the brigades in, on average, the strengths that they had promised and in terms of the capabilities, that they have been capable units.

QUESTION: Sean, just to be clear, is your view that the surge is really just starting, even though it's been six months?

MR. MCCORMACK: No. Well --

QUESTION: I'm just trying to get a sense, were they --

MR. MCCORMACK: Well, there's the beginning when you set the --

QUESTION: Right.

MR. MCCORMACK: -- set the flow through. The --

QUESTION: You know that everybody's there, that's what I mean. You're saying--

MR. MCCORMACK: Exactly. The assets are in place. I think if you talk to General Petraeus and Ryan, they'll -- on the military and the civilian sides, they'll tell you that it's only been a few weeks, like two to three weeks that all the assets have actually been in place.

QUESTION: So why shouldn't people see this as just furthering the timeline, giving you more time now?

MR. MCCORMACK: It's not. It's the timeline that Congress set out for itself. July was always been as just -- as an interim assessment on the way to September, at which they would make some -- Congress would have some further inputs and decisions to make, regarding funding and authorization. So it's not the timeline that we had made up. This is the timeline that has been written into the law.

QUESTION: Can we expect -- sorry, I was just going to ask him, can we expect any kind of briefing from Crocker on the civilian side of things? Will he be previewing the report? Will he be available to us in the coming days?

MR. MCCORMACK: We'll try to make him, as well as others who have had a hand in writing the report, available to you. I would expect that the report will initially come out of the White House since it's a U.S. Government-wide operation, if you will, or U.S.-Government-wide document, which a number of different cabinet agencies have had input. So we'll, of course, make our folks available. And I can't tell you how available Ryan will be. We'll try to see if he will, but we'll also make others available who have worked on the report.

QUESTION: Going to something we discussed yesterday, which is Ambassador Crocker's remarks that were quoted in the Times, particularly about the benchmarks and how you could, you know, miss all of them and still be heading in the right direction and conversely, make all of them and still be heading in the wrong direction -- why shouldn't we regard that as an effort by the Administration to play down the significance of benchmarks, which this President himself enunciated back in January, because the Iraqi Government simply hasn't made as much progress as you want to see on them?

MR. MCCORMACK: No, look, I guess the -- I would point to Ryan Crocker himself. I think everybody knows that Ryan's a straight shooter, and that he is just giving his thoughts; his most direct, honest assessment of where things are. It's not -- there's no concerted effort to walk away from the benchmarks that the Iraqis the President and the Congress have said are important. We're not saying that they're not important. I think all he was doing was pointing out that there are other measures which could indicate some positive change on the ground in Iraq; that there are indeed some other measures, not saying the others aren't important.

And you can judge for yourself by -- take a look at the report when it comes out over the next couple of days, and you can see -- you'll see for yourself what the balance is and what the considered opinion of our experts is.

QUESTION: Can you give us any examples of benchmarks that, in your opinion, have been reached before the report comes out in the civilian side? Can you give us any --

MR. MCCORMACK: You've been talking to Matt Lee.

QUESTION: No. (Laughter.)

MR. MCCORMACK: He did this to me yesterday. Again, I'll give you the same answer I gave you yesterday. You can't -- I can't remove myself from the process. There is a -- I owe it to the people, who wrote and drafted this report, put a lot of time and effort into it, considering what, in fact, has been accomplished, what still needs to be accomplished, to have you take a look at it.

I think it's obvious, if you look at several -- look at the public information, they have made progress on the hydrocarbon law. They have made progress on the revenue-sharing law. They haven't been passed yet. On de-Baathification, there has been less progress than the previous two. I'll let the report speak to exactly how much progress they have made in that regard and where -- and how quickly we think they're going to get to their destination.

QUESTION: There's been some -- sorry -- there's been some talk also of bringing back some of the suggestions of the Iraq Study Group. Is that -- is it fair to say it's under review again?

MR. MCCORMACK: The --

QUESTION: The Iraq Study Group suggestions.

MR. MCCORMACK: I think you can take a look at a lot of the things that we have done, and you'll see a lot of similarities between some of the things that we have done, particularly here at the State Department, vis-à-vis the regional effort and the Sharm el-Sheik conference. I can't tell you exactly whether or not at some point people are going to take a look -- take a look again at the Baker-Hamilton recommendations and make any changes to policy. I can't tell you.

QUESTION: So it's not under any formal review again?

MR. MCCORMACK: Not that I'm aware of. I know that there is some discussion up on the Hill, various amendments that refer back to Baker-Hamilton. Look, I think everybody thinks that it was an important piece of work by this commission. They had a number of good suggestions in there and I think that you'll -- our response to it has been to, in our own way, mirror many of the suggestions and recommendations that you found in Baker-Hamilton; not all of them, but there were -- there was a lot of good work that was done in that report.

Yeah.

QUESTION: Yeah, I just want to make I got -- and maybe I missed it because I was late, but you're not willing to say what, if any, benchmarks have been met; is that correct?

MR. MCCORMACK: It's the same answer as I gave you yesterday, Matt. I think what --

QUESTION: I just wanted to make sure that I didn't miss it.

MR. MCCORMACK: Well, in a formal way -- look, I can repeat to you or repeat for you the facts as we know them about -- regarding the hydrocarbon law and go down the list of all the benchmarks. And there are more than the three that I just talked about. But -- again, I can't remove myself from the process of the formal assessment that the Administration is producing. I can repeat for you what the reality on the ground is.

QUESTION: On Iraq?

MR. MCCORMACK: Sure.

QUESTION: Turkish Ambassador Mr. Sensoy visited Secretary Rice this morning. Do you have anything --

MR. MCCORMACK: Who did?

QUESTION: Turkish Ambassador Mr. Sensoy visited Secretary Rice this morning. Do you have anything about that, especially what -- stated about Iraq and PKK?

MR. MCCORMACK: Yeah, I don't have any readout of the meeting for you.

Yeah, Joel.

QUESTION: Sean, today is World Population Day and simultaneously, there's the U.S. Committee for Refugees and Immigration, which is -- or Immigrants, which is giving a report. Undoubtedly, the numbers go up. And a while ago, you had said, for instance, with the Iraqis, that you would allow 7,000 into the United States for settlement here and the numbers --

MR. MCCORMACK: That's not quite --

QUESTION: -- are slightly --

MR. MCCORMACK: That's not quite what I said, Joel.

QUESTION: Not -- no?

MR. MCCORMACK: No. What I said was that UNHCR had referred 7,000 to us and that we are in the process of reviewing -- interviewing those people. Now it's going to be up to the Department of Homeland Security as well as other agencies that have a role in that process as to how many are actually recommended for resettlement to the United States. Thus far, I think there have been 163. DHS has interviewed on the order of 2,000 or so and there are many more thousands that they are working through right now. So just to --

QUESTION: All right. That's some clarification.

MR. MCCORMACK: -- set the record straight on that.

QUESTION: Well, in addition, the survey is pointing out other areas: refugees, of course, from Darfur, refugees in other sections of Africa, and also in Southeast Asia. Is there anything that USAID is going to do in regard to this particular survey? And of course, you've also had surveys and reports.

MR. MCCORMACK: Right. Joel, I haven't had a chance to take a look at it.

QUESTION: All right.

MR. MCCORMACK: Yeah. Yeah, in the back.

QUESTION: Thank you. On Colombia, the Justice Department is offering leniency to Simon Trinidad, the FARC member that has extradited here to America and was convicted this week of hostage-taking. I wonder, what's your position on that proposal. The proposal was if the FARC released the three Americans that are hostages in Colombia, they will have some reduction in the penalty.

MR. MCCORMACK: Right. Well, I think that the Department of Justice would take some issue with the -- your characterization of what they have said. First of all, let me be very clear. There is no change to our policy with respect to negotiating regarding hostages. The Justice Department, and you can take a look at what they have said, has talked about the fact that they will make a sentencing recommendation to the judge. But ultimately, it is going to be for a judge to decide the sentence that this individual has been convicted.

Yeah.

QUESTION: Will the State Department reconsider or modify its travel advisory for U.S. citizens visiting Mexico in the wake of what now seems to be a series of attacks against oil and gas infrastructure in central Mexico?

MR. MCCORMACK: The way that this process works is it happens in a separate channel, where various people have input, our security people, our people from the Consular Affairs bureau, as well as the regional bureau. And that takes place outside of channels related to Public Affairs. I usually see these announcements, you know, only shortly before you see them, and that we would -- we release them. And that way, we can maintain in the integrity of the process in which it is only the facts on the ground, facts as we see them, that play the major role in whether or not we issue one of these releases, free from Public Affair's considerations.

QUESTION: But are you worried about attacks against all infrastructure and gas infrastructure in Mexico?

MR. MCCORMACK: I would have to talk to our folks to see what our level of concern is. I can't offer you anything right now.

QUESTION: Thank you.

MR. MCCORMACK: Okay.

QUESTION: There is a (inaudible) report saying that the United Nations has come to the conclusion that their Shabbat Farms are in fact Lebanese territory and not Israeli territory and that they proposed to the Israeli Government that it hand it over to the Lebanese and that it be patrolled by UNIFIL forces. Do you have anything on that? If that were to be their conclusion, would you expect Israel to hand the territory --

MR. MCCORMACK: I'll have to take a look. I'll have to take a look to see if the UN has come to that conclusion and if so, how would we react to it. I'll check for you.

QUESTION: And one other small one for me. The -- I had asked you the other day about the Russian tennis coach who's trying to get a visa. You know where that stands today?

MR. MCCORMACK: I'll check today. I'm not sure that there's been any change, but I'll check for you.

QUESTION: There's a little bit of a change because the Russian Foreign Ministry is again complaining about it.

MR. MCCORMACK: Of course, we take on board any input from the Russian Government. But visa matters are decided on the merits of the application. And as far as I know, and I will check into this, the application is still under consideration.

QUESTION: Can you also check into whether the United States Government or if the State Department is trying to hurt the Russian's chances of (inaudible) (Laughter.) by perhaps --

MR. MCCORMACK: (Laughter.) We have full confidence in the capabilities of our players.

QUESTION: They don't need any --

MR. MCCORMACK: -- to match up against any team.

QUESTION: Do you have any details on the technical talks on the missile defense that are supposed to start soon between the U.S. and Russia?

MR. MCCORMACK: I checked into it, and what I understand is that we are going to host here in Washington the first meeting of the technical experts at -- some time at the end of this month. We haven't set a date yet. And the object of this exercise is to follow up on some of the proposals that have been made by President Putin at his recent meetings, both in Germany as well as up in Kennebunkport regarding missile defense.

QUESTION: So it would be bilateral?

MR. MCCORMACK: Correct. Yeah, this initial technical assessment will be bilateral. I expect that also at some point, the issue is going to come up before the NATO-Russia Council. I can't tell you that a date has been set for that yet. But I think the first step is for our experts to get together and do a down-in-the-weeds technical assessment of capabilities; matching those capabilities up against the mission.

QUESTION: Thank you.

QUESTION: This is about the 2+2. Is that still September, October? Is that --

MR. MCCORMACK: I think we're still looking in the fall time -- September, October. The date hasn't been finalized yet.

QUESTION: Okay.

MR. MCCORMACK: Oh, here. We have one more here.

QUESTION: There's a report that the North Koreans requested for a light-water reactor when Ambassador Hill went to visit Pyongyang.

MR. MCCORMACK: Right.

QUESTION: Do you have anything --

MR. MCCORMACK: I don't know whether in fact they made the request. But the answer would be the same, as we have given previously.

QUESTION: Can I just -- and the ministerial meeting, I think Ambassador Hill talked to some Japanese press and indicated that doing it at the end of the month, beginning of next month, is becoming more and more difficult. Can you -- do you have anything on that?

MR. MCCORMACK: First of all, what matters here the most is all the parties fulfilling their February 13th obligations. For the North Koreans, that means shutting down and sealing Yongbyon. And from that point, we can start talking about a ministerial meeting, which is something that has been agreed to after the February 13th agreement has been implemented. So that's the first hurdle we need to get over.

Once that has been cleared, I fully expect, within a matter of weeks, shall we say, that there would be a ministerial meeting. But at this point, there has not been a time or place set yet.

Okay, great.

(The briefing was concluded at 1:10 p.m.)

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