10 February 1998
CANADA, AUSTRALIA TO JOIN U.S. IN POTENTIAL STRIKE ON IRAQ
(Clinton says decision up to Saddam) (890) By Wendy S. Ross USIA White House Correspondent Washington -- The governments of Canada and Australia are prepared to join the United States and Britain and other allies in a military operation on Iraq, should one prove necessary, President Clinton announced February 10 at a morning event in the Rose Garden. "I hope we can avoid the use of force," Clinton said. "The choice is up to Saddam Hussein. Let the weapons inspectors back on the job with free and unfettered access (to suspected weapons sites). "But if Saddam will not comply with the will of the international community," Clinton said, "we must be prepared to act. And I am very grateful that others are prepared to stand with America." Friends and allies from around the world, he added, "share our conviction that Saddam must not be allowed to develop nuclear, chemical and biological weapons or the ability to develop them." Press Secretary Mike McCurry told reporters at a morning briefing immediately after the President's remarks that "we have not seen any distinct move" by Iraq to give the United Nations "unfettered, unencumbered access" to the sites it wants to visit. "We expect in the days ahead, probably an almost daily set of meetings here (at the White House) involving the President's national security advisers, and from time to time they will include the President." Asked what Canada and Australia will contribute to the military effort, McCurry said "as we did with Britain's Prime Minister (Tony) Blair the other day when he talked about the additional Tornado aircraft that he is sending to the Gulf, we will leave it to individual governments to describe their efforts, although that will be done in close coordination" with the United States. McCurry said the 3,000 additional U.S. soldiers the United States is sending to the region is "a prudent and necessary addition to a significant force that we have in the region." But McCurry stressed that Clinton has made no decision yet to use force, and noted that U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations, Bill Richardson is leaving February 13 for Tokyo and then to Beijing to continue his extensive series of consultations on how to deal with Iraq's refusal to obey U.N. Security Council edicts. In the preceding week, Cohen visited seven nations that are Security Council members, McCurry said. "We are pushing very hard for a diplomatic resolution to the standoff. But the diplomatic string is running out," he said later in the day, at his afternoon session with reporters. Asked to comment on efforts by the French and members of the Arab League, led by the Egyptians, to push through in the Security Council some form of compromise resolution in exchange for setting a date for lifting the U.N. economic sanctions against Iraq, McCurry said: "The United States believes that the purpose of all diplomatic efforts ought to be to ensure total access by the U.N. Special Commission inspectors, as they do their business in Iraq ... That's what the purpose of any diplomacy ought to be on this at this moment." He added that U.N. "sanctions are going to remain in place until the world community is satisfied" that Saddam "has no capacity to reconstitute weapons of mass destruction programs." Asked how he would answer the allegations that President Clinton is simply using Iraq as a way to seek distraction from his own problems, McCurry said that "dealing with the provocations of Saddam Hussein has been a constant for six years, and dealing specifically with the question of whether or not the United Nations will be able to do its work to assure the world that he is in no position to reconstitute his programs in weapons of mass destruction has been ongoing over the course of the last six months, long before the world had ever heard the name Monica Lewinsky. So that is obviously a fallacious and ill-begotten charge." Regarding reports that Saudi Arabia has been reticent to have the United States use its territory from which to launch offensive strikes against Iraq, McCurry said that the United States has had "very good consultations" with Saudi Arabia's King Fahd, and "we have got commitments in place which will provide all the support we need within the region, should military action be required." The United States is "confident that should we need to move to use of military force we will have the support we need to accomplish the mission assigned. And we have commitments in place that we think are satisfactory to be confident when we say we will be successful," McCurry said. United States force presence in the Gulf, McCurry pointed out, would not be possible "without the support of Saudi Arabia and, for that matter, Kuwait, Bahrain, the Gulf states, the government of Turkey, and others who have been supportive and who have provided bases, use of airspace, other logistical support, that give our sanctions that are in place teeth and make possible the forward deployment of resources in that region that allow us to be confident that we can deal with whatever threat exists." (For more information, check the special USIA Iraq website at: http://www.usia.gov/regional/nea/gulfsec/iraqpage.htm)
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