12 February 1998
[EXCERPTS] TRANSCRIPT: WHITE HOUSE DAILY BRIEFING, FEBRUARY 12, 1998
White House Press Secretary Mike McCurry briefed. Following is the White House transcript: (begin transcript) THE WHITE HOUSE Office of the Press Secretary February 12, 1998 PRESS BRIEFING BY MIKE MCCURRY The Briefing Room MCCURRY: Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen. The President's National Security Advisor, the Honorable Samuel R. Berger, will address the National Press Club on U.S. policy towards Iraq on Friday, February 13th. That would be tomorrow at noon. Q: But the President is going to be in Philadelphia. MCCURRY: The President will be in Philadelphia. Q: We're going to be in Philadelphia. MCCURRY: I'll be here with Mr. Berger. No, Sandy wants to take an opportunity to review where we are. We've got extensive work going on diplomatically and review the growing list of nations that are lending their support to the efforts we are making to achieve compliance by Saddam Hussein with the mandates that face him as ordered by the U.N. Security Council. And it's a good opportunity for the President's National Security Advisor to review the state of diplomacy. Q: What extensive work is going on diplomatically? MCCURRY: Secretary Cohen has been in Moscow; Ambassador Richardson is on his way to Asia; there have been extensive consultations in other capitals. The Arab ministers that represent the Gulf nations had a very powerful statement made yesterday that we hope Saddam Hussein heard loud and clear. There's a variety of things. Many things. Q: What's the reading here of the treatment that the Secretary received from his counterpart in Moscow? MCCURRY: Well, I've spoken earlier today to Mr. Bacon and he's no doubt talked to some of your colleagues in Moscow, but he's -- the meeting itself was very cordial. They had a great deal of work to do and they did it. They clearly had a disagreement about the tactics that the international community ought to consider as we bring pressure to bear on Iraq, but there's no disagreement that Saddam Hussein and Iraq need to be in full compliance. And they spent a great deal of time talking about how they can go about achieving that end. Q: Was there a meeting of the minds at all? MCCURRY: I think there was a lot of agreement on things that we could do in pursuit of the diplomatic path, but the Russian Federation clearly has a different view on the utility of use of force. And we've known that and there's nothing new about that. Q: Are they still concerned that there could be another world war resulting from a U.S.-led attack against Iraq? MCCURRY: I didn't hear in my report from there that Minister Sergeyev had expressed those thoughts. But I refer you to the readout that is now being given to the traveling party with our Secretary of Defense. Q: Did they discuss the subject matter in The Washington Post - Q: Mike, has that disagreement, the tactical disagreement been affected by the published reports about Russia possibly selling germ warfare materials to Iraq at all? MCCURRY: No, to my knowledge, the state of view of the Russian Federation was well-known prior to that report. Q: But did they discuss that? MCCURRY: They discussed that and that has been reported to your colleagues in Moscow. Q: Any update on it? MCCURRY: No update. The Russian Federation has been very clear in denouncing both the report and indicating that their own view of the matter -- our view is very simple, which is that the purpose of the U.N. Special Commission that looks into the nature of the biological and chemical weapon programs in Iraq is to determine exactly what facilities they have, what equipment they have, what capacity they have to constitute those programs. And that's the place where we can learn the truth and it's important -- obviously very important for the government of Iraq to cooperate with UNSCOM; so, too, the government of the Russian Federation. Q: But what's the administration's view on the accuracy of the underlying allegations? MCCURRY: We don't have any independent information to either confirm or dispute that account. Q: What's the level of trust between the United States and Russia on security issues now in light of that report? MCCURRY: Well, we have a full range of working relationships at a variety of levels between our two governments on security issues concerning proliferation, concerning Bosnia, concerning technology matters, the Nunn-Lugar program which the Secretary of Defense will be looking into tomorrow. It's a very extensive and broad-based cooperation program. And we've had specific dialogue on matters related to proliferation, technologies, and dual-use technologies as it affects the Gulf region in the Middle East. So I'd say a high degree of confidence that we've got a working mechanism to address any concerns we have. .............. MCCURRY: Mike, the Secretary of State is up on the Hill talking about a long-term U.S. goal being the removal of Saddam Hussein and looking forward to dealing with a post-Saddam regime. What now is the White House thinking on the ability of the United States to help the removal of Saddam and get to that - MCCURRY: Well, other than stating that we believe a change of leadership would be in the best interests of the Iraqi people who have suffered because of the tragic decisions that Saddam Hussein has made, our ability to achieve that kind of change depends on decisions that are made in Iraq by the Iraqi people. We have long said that full compliance with all aspects of U.N. Security Council resolutions, in our view, would be inconsistent with Saddam Hussein's continued tenure in office because it requires him to acknowledge the legitimate political and individual rights of Iraqi people he has long repressed. And if they were granted that type of freedom to exercise their free will, we have long viewed that his continued tenure in his current position would be unlikely. Q: So would you hope that outlining this goal at this point would help win congressional approval of a resolution to support the operation? MCCURRY: Say again. Q: -- outlining this goal at this point will help your efforts to persuade Congress to give your support -- MCCURRY: I think there is strong support for doing everything we can to encourage legitimate sources of dissent within Iraq. We have done work in the past with the Iraqi National Congress, other sources of bona fide opposition to the Saddam Hussein regime, and those efforts are, I think, widely praised on Capitol Hill. There are some who say they have not been sufficient and there should be more attention to that, and we have explored ways from time to time that we can maintain a variety of contacts with those in exile who are part of the legitimate opposition to Saddam Hussein's regime. Q: Would you hope that a byproduct of a U.S.-led military strike would be a chain of events that would lead to Saddam Hussein's removal? MCCURRY: Well, though desirable, that would not be the stated purpose of any military action, if and when the President has to exercise those options. ................. Q: Mike, what about the suggestion that Democrats, especially, but many Republicans are confused about the President's policies towards Iraq, namely what he's trying to achieve? And as a result, they're lukewarm in supporting his potential use of military force. MCCURRY: Well, we have worked very hard through this testimony that the Secretary of State's been giving on the Hill; I just advised you of a speech the National Security Advisor will give; the President has addressed this in a variety of settings, including the State of the Union Address and other public opportunities he's had, and will continue to do so as we help Americans understand the stakes that we're dealing with and the precise objectives of the diplomatic efforts we have underway, our ultimate goals and objectives if we have to consider other measures. And I think it will be very clear to the American people, both what the President seeks as an objective, what the United Nations has assisted upon through the Security Council resolutions in play, and I think as they pay more attention to the elected leaders that they have in Congress, would be satisfied that both American support and what we need to do, and will understand why it is important to do. Q: In the Gulf War, the clear objective was the liberation of Kuwait. What would the clear objective be of another U.S.-led air strike? MCCURRY: What has been the same goal and objective we are pursuing through our diplomacy, to substantially diminish his capacity to use or threaten to use weapons of mass destruction, specifically biological and chemical weapons, and to limit his ability to threaten aggression on his neighbors, as it has been throughout all of the efforts that we have pursued. Q: I thought the goal was to eliminate his ability to use those weapons, not substantially diminish it. MCCURRY: That's been addressed by others more senior than I in our government, but as a practical matter it would be hard to set that as a goal because you wouldn't have a high degree of confidence that you would completely eliminate it. I think it's accurate to say you could substantially diminish the capacity, but I don't know that you could say that you total eliminate it. And you have to be aware, as Secretary Albright was suggesting yesterday on Capitol Hill, that even subsequent to any military action there might be some effort by Saddam Hussein to attempt to reconstitute programs, in which case you had to leave open the option of additional military action if it was needed. Q: How close is the United States getting to the end of the diplomatic stage of this? MCCURRY: Close. Q: Is that a matter of days, or weeks? MCCURRY: The Secretary of Defense has said, even earlier today, that certainly not a matter of months - Q: That's days or weeks? MCCURRY: It could be weeks or days. Q: -- the wording that you're trying to diminish his ability to threaten his neighbors, does that put Saddam's conventional forces, Republican Guard forces, folks like that, at risk in any military operation? MCCURRY: I'm not going to answer anything that would suggest or imply that we were debating an open discussion like this -- target sets. Q: Is there a division between the military and the political factions on this? Is the military - MCCURRY: Absolutely none. There have been a great deal of work that the President's national security advisors have been doing. General Shelton and others from the Pentagon have been full participants and they're all working very closely together. Q: Mike, when Prime Minister Blair was here, the British put out a very interesting paper on what UNSCOM had discovered. Is the U.S. planning to do anything similar or to that effect? MCCURRY: You'll recall back in November last year we did do a release of material that came from the work that UNSCOM has done, plus some of our own assessments. The President found that document that the Foreign Commonwealth Office put out to be very helpful, and I think that we are looking at the possibility of summarizing some of what we had put on the public record before at the end of last year, and perhaps do some more education of that nature. ................ Q: How high a degree of risk is there that Western aggression against Iraq just serves to strengthen Saddam and his regime in the end? MCCURRY: Well, there has been some analysis that suggested that was a possible outcome. I think that's why the statement made by the Gulf Council ministers yesterday was so significant, because it demonstrates that within the Arab world now, increasingly people are saying the consequences of any actions in the future rest solely on Saddam Hussein. And that's been said to him now very clearly by his brothers in the Arab world. And I think that that message will resonate, and I think that it will be matched by others who will suggest that he alone is going to bear the consequences for any future actions. Q: Any sense he's beginning to get the message? MCCURRY: If one interprets these concocted proposals to allow more access to sites as perhaps evidence that he's getting the message, you might suggest he has. But certainly he has not correctly learned the message yet, which is that he's going to have to comply with the requirements that have been placed upon him by the world. Q: How would the U.S. feel if another nation such as Israel or Iran or if the Kurds toppled Saddam Hussein? Would we give our blessing? MCCURRY: That's so highly speculative I don't think I will take that question. .................. (end transcript)
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