Tracking Number: 239568
Title: "International Consensus Emerging on Iraq Intervention." Deputy Assistant Secretary of State David Mack says that an international consensus is emerging that certain
measures may be necessary to protect the Shiite community in southern Iraq. (920818)
Translated Title: Surge consenso internacional sobre intervencion en Irak.; Un consensus se degage sur une intervention en Irak. (920818)
Author: HOLMES, NORMA (USIA STAFF WRITER)
Date: 19920818
Text:
INTERNATIONAL CONSENSUS EMERGING ON IRAQ INTERVENTION
(Mack says Shia Muslims may need protection) (840) By Norma Holmes USIA Staff Writer Washington -- An international consensus is emerging that certain measures may be necessary to protect the Shia community in southern Iraq, says Deputy Assistant Secretary of State David Mack.
Briefing foreign correspondents at the U.S. Information Agency's Foreign Press Center in Washington August 17, Mack said discussions have included U.N. Security Council members and other governments in the region, but he declined to discuss the "views of other governments or individuals."
"Those discussions are continuing...and there is a general consensus of concern with the steps that the Iraqis have taken, and a view that some measures may very well be necessary to deal with them," he said.
Mack's press conference followed reports that the Iraqi government has sharply escalated its campaign against the Shia Muslims in southern Iraq. There have been "significant movements of Iraqi ground forces, increased air activity by both fixed-wing and helicopter...over a period of weeks," Mack said.
"I'm not going to discuss options for dealing with it, only to say that this is an indicator of the problems that exist, and that my government, together with other concerned governments, is in the process of discussing how best to deal with it," he said.
Characterizing New York Times allegations that the U.S. response has been driven by considerations of U.S. election politics as "goofy...ludicrous or silly," Mack pointed out that timing of the inspections by the U.N. Special Commission is determined by its director, Rolf Ekeus.
"He determines the sites that they visit; he determines the personnel to be chosen for the inspection teams, based upon their expertise, whether it's missile or chemical or biological or nuclear," Mack said.
Responding to questions from reporters, Mack emphasized that the U.S. objective "is not the partition of Iraq," but the implementation of U.N. resolutions.
The goal of the United States, "along with other members of the United Nations, other members of the coalition, is to see all U.N. Security Council resolutions respected and implemented," he said. "That includes Resolution 688, which demands that Iraq end repression of its civilian population and allow access to those needing assistance by international humanitarian organizations....That emphatically includes the south."
Mack said the establishment of a protective zone in southern Iraq "is one...of a wide range...of options being considered among the governments that are concerned with this problem."
"We are committed...to the principle of Iraq's unity and territorial integrity, Mack said. "We are not interested in a new capital for Iraq in northern Iraq, or in a new capital for Iraq in southern Iraq. We are interested in a new government in Baghdad for all of Iraq."
Mack said the U.S. position on the growing crisis in Iraq has come in response to the "very convincing and authoritative" report on human rights abuses in Iraq by U.N. Special Rapporteur Max Van der Stoel.
The Van der Stoel interim report to the Security Council cites the "urgent need to send a team of human rights monitors to the region of the southern marshes as a source of reliable information," urges actions "to halt serious violations of human rights" and calls for the establishment of "a credible mechanism to measure (Iraqi) compliance."
Mack said that Van der Stoel's report is "far more authoritative than any information on this situation than we had received up to that point."
The Van der Stoel report, which Mack said draws on a very broad range of sources of information, describes "indiscriminate bombardments," "full scale military attacks on southern marsh villages" and "artillery fire...directed against purely civilian targets in and around the marshes." It also notes the Iraqi government's restriction of basic foodstuffs and medication needed by the inhabitants.
The report states that the government of Iraq is moving rapidly ahead with the so-called "Third River Project" in southern Iraq, where water is being diverted and drained from this area, and that "alleged use of defoliants and the reported burning of reedbeds" are part of a specific policy "to wipe out" specified marsh Arab tribes.
Questioned on other reports of an attempted July coup in Baghdad, Mack said "we do not know a lot about it, but the evidence that something very serious happened is clear and apparent." Declining to offer specific information, Mack added that "there is very convincing evidence that there was a serious internal problem."
Asked to comment on a recent statement by Secretary of Defense Cheney that he felt the days of Saddam Hussein were "numbered," Mack said he agreed with the statement. "That's in the realm of prediction," he added, "but you have only to look at some of the very serious problems that are besetting that regime -- economic, breakdown in law and order, the apparently attempted coup...to realize that...this is a regime that has some serious problems."
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File Identification: 08/18/92, PO-202; 08/18/92, AE-205; 08/18/92, AR-213; 08/18/92, EP-204; 08/18/92, EU-205; 08/18/92, NE-203; 08/19/92, ASF302; 08/19/92, NAA303; 08/20/92, AFF405
Product Name: Wireless
File
Product Code: WF
Languages: Spanish; Arabic; French
Keywords: IRAQ-US RELATIONS; IRAQ/Defense & Military; COMBAT OPERATIONS; TOTALITARIANISM; ATROCITIES; MILITARY INTERVENTION;
MOSLEMS; MACK, DAVID; UNITED NATIONS-SECURITY COUNCIL; EKEUS, ROLF; INSPECTIONS; ARMS CONTROL VERIFICATION; ARM
Thematic Codes: 2HA; 1NE; 1AC; 1UN
Target Areas: AF; AR; EA; EU; NE
PDQ Text Link: 239568; 239929
USIA Notes: *92081802.POL
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