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Daily Press Briefing

Tom Casey, Deputy Spokesman
Washington, DC
September 27, 2007

INDEX:

12:57 p.m. EDT

MR. CASEY: Okay. Afternoon, everybody. Sorry I was a little late getting down here. Don't have anything to start you out with, so -- Sue?

QUESTION: A couple of things on Blackwater. There were some interesting reports today, indicating that Blackwater has had the highest number of incidents where they've had to open fire. And I just wondered, do you have or -- and if you don't know this information, if you could please find it out -- did you have a list of all the incidents in which people were killed because of Blackwater's actions after they, you know, shot off their weaponry?

MR. CASEY: Well, Sue, first of all, again just let me reiterate sort of where we are in a lot of this. Anytime there's an incident involving any of our convoys, that includes whether it's fired upon or whether there is use of force by the contractors or by our security forces, there's a report made of that back to the RSO's office. So certainly I think everyone is aware of the incidents that are there. I don't have it. I'll try and see at some point if I can get for you statistics on sort of total number of movements and total number of incidents in which there had been any discharge of weapons by our folks. I think the Deputy Secretary spoke a little bit about this in his testimony and you might want to look at some of the things that he said.

But again, the bottom line is you've had with -- in terms of Blackwater, over 1,800 movements or 1,800 convoys carried out since January of this year. And very, very few of those have involved incidents of the use of force on the part of our contractors. So I don't have a specific number for you, but no, it's not particularly high.

QUESTION: So, could you please find out then the number of Iraqis who've been killed in incidents involving Blackwater? How many Blackwater employees have been killed? I know there were the four in Fallujah and I think there were one or two others. Any information that you have on that.

MR. CASEY: Sue, in terms of the number of Blackwater employees that may have been killed over time, I frankly think you'd have to ask the company. The State Department isn't the only agency of the U.S. Government that employs Blackwater. And I don't think we keep comprehensive statistics on that. I'm sure the company could offer that out for you.

Again, in terms of incidents involving Iraqis, I think we've made it quite clear what our policies are on this. I don't think I have anything to detail for you in terms of specifics in which loss of life was involved. But yeah, if there's anything I can offer you, I'll let you know.

QUESTION: Okay.

MR. CASEY: I would certainly expect, of course, that any instances that are of concern to the Iraqi Government would be instances that would be discussed and addressed fully in the context of the joint commission that we've established. I know the Embassy in Baghdad just put out a joint statement by General Petraeus and Ambassador Crocker noting that that commission is scheduled to have its first full meeting very soon, although the chairman of both sides, our Deputy Chief of Mission Ambassador Butenis and the Iraqi Minister of Defense, have already met on this. So certainly, if there are questions or concerns or issues where people feel there has not been sufficient understanding or accountability for any events, whether they involve loss of life or not, we'd expect that that would come up in the context of this meeting.

QUESTION: Okay. And then just one more thing. Representative Waxman's oversight committee today released a new report on Blackwater in which they detailed the 2004 Fallujah incident in which the four Blackwater employees were killed. In the report, they said that Blackwater was woefully, sort of, badly prepared to go into this particular war zone. They didn't have the right equipment. They didn't have the right weaponry. They were a couple of people short. They didn't have the right vehicles in the back. Have you done your own investigation into the Fallujah incident? Were they employed by the State Department at the time?

MR. CASEY: To the best of my knowledge, they were employed by the Department of Defense, but you might want to check with them. As far as I know, since I believe that incident occurred early in the year in 2004, did it not?

QUESTION: March.

MR. CASEY: Well, that would be before the U.S. Embassy was established in Baghdad, so I can pretty much assure you that they weren't State Department contractors. So I'd leave it to whoever their employers were at the time as well as to Blackwater itself to address that. I haven't seen anything he's put out. But again, I'd leave it to them to talk about it.

QUESTION: Okay.

MR. CASEY: Yeah.

QUESTION: Just to follow-up on that -- there's a new Brookings Institution report out saying that the use of PSDs, and specifically Blackwater, hurts the U.S. efforts in Iraq by fueling anti-American sentiment among civilians. Do you happen to share that sentiment?

MR. CASEY: (Laughter.) Oh, well, Kirit. Gee, I guess everyone needs to get in on the act on this, huh? Look, I think Ambassador Crocker made it clear in his testimony before Congress as well as in the statement that I think you just saw released by the Deputy Secretary, which was a response to a question he had asked at his hearings yesterday on this subject, that we believe that these contractors are an essential part of our ability to provide for the protection of our diplomats in Iraq, as well as in other parts of the world, and that this is something where it is not practical or possible for Diplomatic Security agents or the U.S. military to provide that. So it is a vital function. It's one that's important to us.

That said, obviously, as you know, we have now started a process of a formal review here within the Department, led by Pat Kennedy, on how we go about providing this kind of protection and using these kinds of Personal Security Details to see not only based on this incident, but in a broader way, whether there are any adjustments or changes that we need to make.

And certainly with regard to the specific questions that are here, as I said yesterday, the Secretary's made it quite clear that she wants to see full cooperation with any of the investigations that are going on on this and she also wants to make sure that Pat and his team have full access and cooperation to anything they need to be able to conduct this broader review. So certainly we're going to continue to look at this question. It's an important one. It's important again not only in the context of Iraq, but the broader context of how we operate and provide protection for our diplomats, again, not only in Iraq, but in other parts of the world.

One thing I mentioned to some of you yesterday as well is, whether it is in a very unique and difficult situation, like Iraq or in other parts of the world, contractors play a very vital role in providing a variety of security services for us overseas and that includes everything from the individuals doing external perimeter guard service in front of most U.S. embassies overseas, on up to the much more specific and much more difficult kinds of jobs associated with providing protective service details to people in the kind of hostile environment that Baghdad represents.

So we do have a lot of experience working with a variety of kinds of contractors -- American, foreign nationals, and otherwise -- in this. But it's something where we need to very specifically look at the unique challenges that are presented to us by the environment in Baghdad and to look at where we are after three years of operation of that embassy to see what kind of changes we might need to make, because we want to do this in a way that assures that we have protection for our diplomats, that we have an ability to help them do their job, which is fundamentally what this protection is about, but that we do so in a way that ensures the safety and security of everyone in Iraq and anyplace else we operate. And that's a lot of what this review's looking at.

QUESTION: What would you have to say, though, about the central tenet of this report, which says that these -- the operations and the actions of these contractors, particularly Blackwater, have hurt the U.S. in the standing and in the eyes of the Iraqi people?

MR. CASEY: Look, I think that most Iraqis understand that the United States, whether it's our military forces, our diplomats or otherwise, are there to support them in achieving their ambitions, of achieving a secure, peaceful and stable country. Obviously any time there are tragic incidents, like what occurred on September 16th, it engenders some difficulties and it causes a lot of concern. I would hope that most Iraqis -- in fact, all Iraqis -- certainly understand that the United States' role in Iraq is, again, there to help them. I'm not sure what they're basing their specific contention on. Certainly, I think any incidents, whether it involves a loss of civilian life anywhere in the world and whether that involves our military forces or anyone else, is not a good thing. It's certainly a tragic incident. It certainly causes concerns. But I think it would be rather overstated to claim that any individual incident or any particular practice that we've employed has a serious negative effect on our ability to work with the Iraqi Government and to help them achieve their policy goals.

Samir.

QUESTION: On Iraq. What's your reaction to the Senate vote yesterday that called for the partitioning of Iraq?

MR. CASEY: I think my colleagues at the White House have spoken to that. I think certainly the most important thing to us is that the language on the resolution that was passed -- and I understand this was a Sense of the Senate resolution so it does not have particularly binding or legal effect -- is that it does acknowledge that any choices that would be made would be made by the Iraqi people. And it is obviously up to them to determine what kind of structure they wish to have for their government.

Yeah.

QUESTION: Still on Blackwater. What is the ceiling amount of this contract that Blackwater has with the State Department? And is there a time period that Blackwater serves at the pleasure of the State Department?

MR. CASEY: Well, there's no yes or no answer to any of that, Sue. As we've said previously, there is a worldwide protective services contract. That contract is, I believe -- covers several years and has a ceiling of several billion dollars. There is no Blackwater contract within that. There are individual tenders provided for specific services at specific times. My understanding is that the usual length of most of those contracts is something in the neighborhood of a year, though there are shorter ones depending on the specific nature of services being provided. So at any given time, you have different companies of the three that were awarded the overall contract -- Blackwater, TripleCanopy and DynCorp -- providing different services in different locations. It just depends on who wins the tender -- the individual tender under this contract. And again, each of those tenders is competed among those three companies. And the overall worldwide services contract was competed generally as would any standard U.S. Government contract.

QUESTION: So does this particular tender that they won within the overall contract --

MR. CASEY: Yeah.

QUESTION: -- the worldwide services or protective contract -- how long is that for, this particular tender that they bid on?

MR. CASEY: I would assume it's a year. Like I said, that's the standard amount.

QUESTION: But you don't know when that expires and when they have to re-bid on another tender?

MR. CASEY: I have not had anyone give me a briefing on the ins and outs of contracting and various tenders under it. No, sorry.

QUESTION: And are you reconsidering the Blackwater contract, maybe suspending their services while you're investigating?

MR. CASEY: Sue, again, I think we've made clear where we are on this. First of all, before -- one would assume that you'd suspend a contract because you'd found evidence of wrongdoing by the contractor. We have an ongoing investigation into a specific incident, as you know. We have the commission, which is looking at the broader question of how we and the Iraqis can come to some common understandings about these issues and make sure that we are, again, doing whatever we can to ensure the safety and security of all people who are dealing with our convoys and our diplomatic folks as they move about Baghdad and elsewhere in Iraq. And then we're conducting a senior policy review to look at the overall question of how we use contractors generally for these kinds of personal security services.

Depending on the outcome of those reviews and those investigations, I'm sure people will take into account what if any kinds of other actions might move forward. But I think it's really premature at this point to start talking about prescriptive actions in response to investigations and reviews that are still underway.

QUESTION: And how -- sorry, just one more question. How long will these reviews take and will they be -- will their results be open to the public or at least portions of them be open to the public?

MR. CASEY: Well, again, let's talk about the three things I just mentioned. In terms of the specific investigation into the September 16th event, that's being conducted by Diplomatic Security. The joint commission is going to receive a full briefing on that. They will be able to include its findings and any recommendations and any reviews that they make. The joint commission, which of course still has yet to have a first full session, will be making joint policy recommendations to both governments. I would certainly assume that those recommendations and those findings of that group would be made public in one form or another, though I'd leave it to them to determine, after they meet, how they would intend to do that and what form that would take.

In terms of the overall policy review that Pat Kennedy's doing, again, I think the Secretary's made clear that she wants there to be a full and thorough review of these issues. She wants it to be done transparently and openly. And I am sure that in one form or another, we will be able to have Pat or members of his team, including some of the outside experts that he is going to be bringing into this process, will be able to speak with you and other members of the public and I'm sure members of Congress and many other folks directly about what they've determined and what we understand of it.

So I expect, as any of you who've been here for the last few days know that there'll be a lot of opportunity for everyone involved in all of these issues to explain what their understanding is and what they think the recommendations are for there. And then, of course, an opportunity for us as well to explain, based on whatever recommendations are made, how we're implementing them and how we're moving forward. And again, this is an important question and it's one that we acknowledge needs to be addressed and needs to be addressed in a serious fashion.

And again, this is something that's got the personal commitment of the Secretary of State behind it. And I can promise you that she's going to make sure that we get the answers we need to be able to effectively do our job.

QUESTION: So the DS one won't be released or will be released? Sorry, I got lost within the three --

MR. CASEY: No, Sue, normally those -- the specific investigations, just like a specific police investigation, are not necessarily released to the public. So I would doubt that you would see the raw investigative data providing that way.

I am sure, however, that we will have ample opportunity to discuss its findings in one form or another. Again, the commission will have a brief on it. They will have access to the material involved. So I certainly expect that there will be a public discussion of this. What I cannot promise you at this point, in any ongoing investigations, commissions that are just getting underway, or reviews that are just getting underway, how the specific individuals in charge of each of those might intend to publicly present that information. But again, I can promise you it will get publicly presented.

Yeah, Anne.

QUESTION: A readout on the Japanese meeting and specifically can you address what they discussed about overnight incidents in Burma and the death of a Japanese national?

MR. CASEY: I wasn't there, so I can't. And unfortunately, I have not yet talked to anyone who was, so I will get you a readout of it.

Certainly, what this first and foremost was was an opportunity for the Secretary to meet with the new Japanese Foreign Minister. We welcome the opportunity to work with the new Foreign Minister as well as the new Japanese Government on a wide variety of issues. Burma is certainly one of the concerns that we all have going forward immediately. As you know from our joint statement with the EU yesterday, we wish to see other countries, including those members of ASEAN -- India and China, specifically -- do what they can to put pressure on the Burmese regime.

I am pretty confident in telling you that this subject came up. But I can't give you readout on it simply because I don't have one yet. I apologize. We'll try and get one for you later.

QUESTION: Can I just follow up?

MR. CASEY: Yeah.

QUESTION: The Japanese national that was killed -- were there any reports of Americans being involved in the clashes in Myanmar -- or Burma?

MR. CASEY: Not that I'm aware of, no.

Yeah, Kirit.

QUESTION: A couple on Burma, actually.

MR. CASEY: Okay.

QUESTION: First, do you have any names to add to the travel ban and restrictions that the President talked about on Tuesday?

MR. CASEY: You'd have to talk in terms of the -- well, the simple answer, no, I don't have anything to announce for you today. I know that there are ongoing discussions here, the Department of Treasury, and the other agencies that would be involved in expanding that. I expect there'll be some announcements for you in the not-too-distant future, but I don't have anything I can offer you right now. And as you know, we are usually very careful in not putting these things forward until we've got everything finalized and we've actually moved forward and taken some of the actions, particularly on financial measures, since signaling to individuals who might come under them gives them an opportunity perhaps to be able to move assets or do other things that would make our decisions less effective.

QUESTION: Just for a point of clarification, can you explain the reason the U.S. Government uses Burma as opposed to Myanmar?

MR. CASEY: I'm sure that Ken Bailes can enlighten you as to the historical reasons for that. That is, as I understand it, how we have in the past and have consistently over time continued to recognize that country. As Mr. Lambros will tell you, there are -- at times in which the United States Government has changed the name under which it recognizes a country. I believe the decision for that might have something to do with the fact that the decision internally in Burma to change the name of the country was done by the military junta rather than by a democratically elected government. In any event, the official policy of the U.S. Government is to recognize Burma by that name.

Mr. Lambros. As long as I took your name in vein, I figured I'd give you a chance for a question.

QUESTION: Yes, you're right (inaudible).

MR. CASEY: Okay.

QUESTION: On Kosovo. As Department of State, what do you expect from Kosovo Contact Group meeting today at the UN?

MR. CASEY: Well, I'll let the folks involved up there read it out. But certainly we hope to have an opportunity to discuss with the other members of the contact group the progress that has occurred in the negotiations on behalf of the troika, with the Kosovars and the Serbs. We again want to make sure that we're doing everything we can to try and foster that dialogue and foster an agreement. That's certainly what we'd all like to see happen. I'm sure as well people will look ahead towards the end of that negotiating process and start talking about the kinds of steps that we might need to take, either as a result of an agreed upon solution or as a result of previous contact group decisions to then try and move forward with the implementation of a supervised independence for Kosovo under the basis of the Ahtisaari plan.

QUESTION: But despite your efforts for independence, Serbia, however, insists for full autonomy and Russia threatens with a veto. How you are going to overcome those objections?

MR. CASEY: Well, Mr. Lambros, all I can tell you is that certainly for now we're engaged in ongoing discussions, not only in the contact group, but of course among the parties with the troika. Let's see where those discussions take us before we start talking about next steps. I don't think anyone is surprised by the positions that have been maintained by any of the parties in this.

QUESTION: One on Albania, it's related --

MR. CASEY: Well, I'll tell you what, let's let Kirit do his and then we'll go back to Albania.

QUESTION: I just had a question back on Iraq, actually.

MR. CASEY: Sure.

QUESTION: Do you have anything to say about this U.S. Embassy anticorruption report about the Iraqi Government, which says in part that currently Iraq is not capable of even rudimentary enforcement of anticorruption laws?

MR. CASEY: Well, a couple of things. And I don't want to get into semantics here, but there's been a lot of discussion about a, quote, "U.S. Embassy report." There is no U.S. Embassy report in the context of those discussions. What I understand has happened here, and there's been a lot of odd back-and-forth on this, but let me try and walk you through what my investigative efforts have come up with about this.

First of all, there is an organization called the Office of Accountability and Transparency. This is something that is staffed by U.S. Government contractors -- there's goes that word again -- who are in Iraq to help the Commission on Public Integrity. The Commission on Public Integrity was a body that's been established through the efforts of Prime Minister Maliki and others and it sort of combines the functions of the GAO and an IG. It is designed to be a government-wide body that looks at issues of accountability and transparency in terms of the Iraqi Government.

My understanding is at some point in time -- and you guys may know, since some of them may have fallen into your hands -- a number of internal working papers that were developed by the people who work for the Office of Accountability and Transparency were leaked in one form or another. These papers were intended to be internal documents that guided the people in the embassy who work on anticorruption efforts in terms of their internal policy deliberations. So there's no idea that these were government or U.S. embassy reports or that they were intended to be part of a report. They were, again, supposed to be some internal documents to guide the policymakers in Embassy Baghdad in terms of how we would conduct our -- any corruption efforts.

And I'd also point out that if you want to get a review of what some of those efforts are, the SIGIR did do a report on that fairly recently. I think it was in -- yeah, it was in July of this past year on the status of U.S. anticorruption efforts in Iraq. And that'll give you a sense of what we have been doing over time to deal with this issue. So I think that's our basic understanding of the origin of what I understand are documents that have found their way out there in the public.

QUESTION: So would you, would the U.S. Government, then, agree with the findings of these internal documents, which appear to be making recommendations for policymakers that they are unable to enforce any anticorruption laws, have no access to ministries and a bunch of other things?

MR. CASEY: Well, I would hope that you wouldn't expect me to be able to offer you a detailed assessment of anticorruption efforts in Iraq, based on internal documents that were designed for those specialists working on them to proceed. But look, let's be clear here -- why does the U.S. Government have an anticorruption program in Iraq? Why did Prime Minister Maliki help establish the Commission on Public Integrity? And why have we both made this a priority?

We have because Iraq, like many other countries in the world, has an issue that it needs to deal with in terms of corruption, including corruption of public officials. I think if you go back to the early days here, you will find ample numbers of stories written by your colleagues, as well as ample numbers of congressional testimony by people, talking about some of the challenges that that poses.

In terms of the specific issues at hand here, we will certainly address any of the individual questions that might come up based on any of these documents or otherwise. I know -- in fact, I think Larry Butler, one of our Deputy Assistant Secretaries who handles Iraqi issues in the Bureau of Near Eastern Asian Affairs, was actually supposed to provide some testimony today and the committee postponed it. So we're fully prepared to talk about these questions. I don't think anyone's trying to hide the fact that we and the Iraqis understand that corruption is an issue and a problem for Iraq and that's why it's important that the Prime Minister has taken some steps forward in that. And it's also why it's important for us that we have folks in the embassy as well as some of these contractors trying to work with his government to be able to support those efforts.

QUESTION: I guess one final one on that. This report was -- or these documents were apparently classified after they appeared on the web elsewhere. Do you know why that decision was taken to classify them?

MR. CASEY: Well, look, my understanding again is, first of all, these documents deal with a number of issues, most of which are fairly specific internal discussions. They're based on information provided to the individuals that put them together that involves people in some of the ministries or on the Commission on Public Integrity providing information. I think you understand that inspector generals and the GAO, if people come to them and present problems or present concerns -- present things that might even be violations of law and therefore eligible for some kind of criminal prosecution -- those kinds of issues and that kind of information is generally not something that people put out there in the public domain. And part of the reason for it is the same reason why you guys protect your sources. Because if this information gets out, you would potential endanger the people who have provided that information to you. You'd probably make it much harder for anyone to follow through in terms of any investigations or prosecution. And ultimately you do a disservice to U.S. national interests and U.S. national security by tipping your hat to specific individuals or specific cases that might be involved, to make sure that -- to have them understand that they might be under some suspicion.

Sue.

QUESTION: Separate issue on Iran. Do you have any details of the planned meeting, apparently next week, between Mr. Larijani and Mr. Solana in Berlin? Do you have anything on that?

MR. CASEY: No, I don't. I'm not sure that there is a meeting scheduled. I certainly -- Mr. Solana again has the proxy, if you will, from the P5+1 to have discussions with Mr. Larijani. I think Nick said up in New York yesterday that, of course, we've had these discussions before, including over the course of last summer. Unfortunately, while Mr. Solana goes hoping to talk to the Iranians about the positive offer that we have on the table, basically what he continues to hear back is a pretty straightforward and flat-out no.

So certainly I hope that if, in fact, Mr. Solana is meeting with Mr. Larijani that when he does so we'll see a different response from the Iranian side. We'd all very much like to see negotiations go forward between the P5+1 and Iran. It's again, in Iran's interest for this to happen, because if it doesn't, not only will it face the sanctions it's already under, but it's going to face continued sanctions, continued sanctions through the UN Security Council, continued sanctions through the U.S., continued sanctions through a number of European countries, including perhaps the European Union, continued suspicion on the part of private investors and continued reluctance on the part of private investors to engage in business in Iran. All of which is contrary to the interests of the Iranian people and all of which is absolutely 180 degrees opposite of the stated goals of the government to be able to try and provide jobs for a burgeoning population, to deal with the energy needs of a country that currently has to import gasoline to service the cars already on the road, to deal with all of the kinds of basic human issues that you would think the government of President Ahmadi-Nejad might want to move forward with.

So again, we'll see what happens. If, in fact, there is a meeting between Mr. Solana and Mr. Larijani, again, we'd hope to see a change in view on the part of the Iranian Government. But so far the track record on this doesn't make us really optimistic.

QUESTION: So from your tone, it would appear that you think it's a waste of time, then, that Mr. Solana should meet with Mr. Larijani.

MR. CASEY: No, it's never a waste of time to try and once again give people an opportunity to accept a good deal.

As I said yesterday, it seems that President Ahmadi-Nejad never misses an opportunity to miss an opportunity, and he's done so repeatedly with the P5+1. But as Nick said, we're diplomats. We try and be optimistic. We certainly hope and like to see a different response come back from the Iranians and we'll keep trying. We'll keep trying to present these offers in a variety of different ways and a variety of different times, and hopefully we will eventually get to the point where reason prevails and the Iranians will come forward and join us in negotiations.

Kirit.

QUESTION: Another one on --

MR. CASEY: We'll get to Albania in a minute, Mr. Lambros. (Laughter.)

QUESTION: -- On the climate change conference that's going on today.

MR. CASEY: Sure.

QUESTION: Can you outline for us any sort of carrots and sticks that the U.S. is proposing today for countries to cut greenhouse emissions?

MR. CASEY: Well, let's talk a little bit about the conference and what our basic objectives are. You all heard from the Secretary this morning as well as Jim Connaughton and others.

The basic goal here is to try and break through a lot of the issues that have prevented keeping some of the world's major economies -- like China, like India, like Brazil -- to come together with us and work out a real global response to climate change. Part of doing that, though, is by making it a process in which people can still achieve their basic economic development goals and their basic goals for their people, while at the same time taking actions to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and otherwise take action on climate change.

What we're specifically trying to do with this meeting is start a process that will lead, we hope, to a common understanding and a common proposal on the part of these major economies, which represent over 90 percent of the world's greenhouse gas emissions, to take to, then, the UN framework and be the basis for negotiating there. This is in many ways a model that was successfully used during the development of the Montreal Protocol for -- sorry to go off on the history lesson. But for those of you that were around at the time -- and I'm not sure you were, Kirit -- but the -- there was a series of negotiations dealing with that issue. Those negotiations, which first took place in a very broad 100 nation-plus context, didn't really get very far. And at one point there was something of a breakout group of the equivalent of major economies that were able to put forward a common proposal to bring back to the rest of the parties and that was really what helped achieve the breakthrough.

So in a sense, we're looking at trying to repeat history here by trying to come up with a common proposal that will do several things. It will set goals, both global and national, for countries. And it will also accept and understand that the best way for countries to achieve those goals is not always through a uniform application of the same measures. Each country will have its own national means for being able to get to those firm goals that will be established. And we'll have a couple of our officials who are directly involved in this, including the Council on Environmental Quality, Jim Connaughton, here for you guys a little later to discuss it.

But that's the basic idea. We want to be able to have a set of goals agreed to, participation from all the major economies, have national means used to achieve those goals, and in that sense be able to have a proposal that will not only be able to achieve a broad consensus, but will have a real impact in terms of affecting, in a positive way, climate change.

QUESTION: Is this idea of incentives and disincentives something that the U.S. is putting forth today? Or during the conference?

MR. CASEY: I'll let Jim and Paula talk about his a little bit more. But again, you have to have a balance in the equation. You can't tell people you have to reduce greenhouse gas emissions at the expense of your basic economic development goals. And that's why a significant portion of this looks at alternative fuels, looks at alternative energy sources, looks at using technology in some very simple ways as well as in ways that may be a bit further off, in terms of reducing emissions. Because you have to be able to provide people an incentive in terms of saying you are going to be able to continue to grow and build your economy, you are going to be able to continue to provide for needs of a growing population, while at the same time moving back from what everyone agrees is a dangerous rise in greenhouse emissions and one which is going to have -- ultimately, will have a negative effect on global climate.

QUESTION: And one last one. Do you have anything about the arrests outside from the protestors? What happened and how many people were arrested?

MR. CASEY: A little bit. What you might want to do is go talk to the folks at the Federal Protective Service, who are part of Department of Homeland Security, and they are the ones charged with providing protection for U.S. federal buildings and properties here. So they were the ones directly involved in making the arrests.

But my understanding of what happened is, there were 47 people who were arrested. The reason why this happened is that the protestors affected the movement of people into the building. I think that's a bureaucratic way of saying they were blocking the entrance. I know that the Federal Protective Service folks told us that they asked the protestors to move three times, when they didn't, they followed their standard procedures. They arrested these individuals peacefully. And I suspect they can tell you more about where they were processed and what else happened. I think usually in these cases they are taken, processed, and then released. But I'll leave it to the guys in uniforms to tell you that one.

QUESTION: Do you know if they had a protesting -- or a permit for demonstration?

MR. CASEY: Well, I'm not sure what kinds of permits they might or might not have had. And look, as you well know, we have people protesting for all kinds of causes and all kinds of reasons all the time here around this building. That's people's right. I'd hate to see a day where we didn't allow people to do that. I don't know -- I honestly don't know and you'd have to check with D.C. or maybe FPS folks in terms of what permits might even be required. I think if it's under a certain size demonstration you don't actually need one. But you've already well exceeded my knowledge of what the requirements are on that. In any event, the only reason the arrests occurred was because they were blocking access to the building and did not respond to several attempts to ask them to free the access areas so folks could come in.

MR. CASEY: Mr. Lambros.

QUESTION: On Albania.

MR. CASEY: On Albania. Okay.

QUESTION: Albania's intentions today in Northern Epirus, the Albanian tribunals continue to give land and properties to Albanians (inaudible) the Greek minority. And a lot of protests have taken place today in the Greek town of Himara (ph). Since the Albanian Government, Mr. Casey, started a new (inaudible) campaign against the Greeks in Northern Epirus, I'm wondering if you have any comment, in the framework of human rights, for who is the U.S. Government is very concerned.

MR. CASEY: Mr. Lambros, I'm not familiar with the specific incident you're referring to. What I would say is, of course, in any actions that the Government of Albania takes or any government takes, we would expect that those actions would follow the laws of that country, follow established norms and procedures and certainly be in accordance with the constitution. I haven't read the Albanian constitution recently. But as I recall, it does provide a general and good guarantee for basic human rights.

QUESTION: (Inaudible) another question. So it is a matter of our relation of human rights and that's why I'm asking you.

MR. CASEY: Well, again, Mr. Lambros, if your question concerns decisions rendered over the distribution of property in towns in Albania, I don't have anything specific for you on that. But what I would tell you is we would expect that any decisions made, whether by an executive body or by a court system, would follow the rule of law and the established laws of the country.

QUESTION: Thank you, (inaudible) to that specifically, but --

MR. CASEY: If you want, Mr. Lambros, I'm sure our friends in the European Bureau could answer you about that or perhaps the Embassy as well. But I think I would leave it to the Albanian Government to describe their actions. If there was anything -- there are any concerns that are raised by that I'm sure you'll hear from our folks in the appropriate time.

QUESTION: One on Turkey?

MR. CASEY: Yeah.

QUESTION: Fearing a imminent vote on the Armenian Genocide Resolution, HR 116, Turkish multimillion dollar lobbies here in Washington, D.C. have solicited the assistance of eight former Secretaries of State, namely: James Baker, Warren Christopher, Lawrence Eagleburger, Alexander Haig, Henry Kissinger, Colin Powell and George Shultz, also Speaker Nancy Pelosi to, quote, "prevent the resolution from reaching the House," end quote. Any comment? And clarify your position.

MR. CASEY: The U.S. position on the events of the beginning of the last century are unchanged. You can look at our annual statements on that and I would refer you to that language. It's very specifically crafted. And I don't have it in my head right now, so I wouldn't want to mislead anybody. In terms of what former Secretary of States may or may not have done by way of actions on this issue, I'd frankly refer you to them. They are private citizens. And I assume if they made representation to Speaker Pelosi on this, they did so because they believed it was the right thing to do.

QUESTION: And your position?

MR. CASEY: U.S. position on this issue has not changed. Again, I'd refer you back to our previous statements on it.

Okay. Thanks, guys.

(The briefing was concluded at 1:38 p.m.)

DPB #170