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13 February 1998

BERGER ANSWERS QUESTIONS ON IRAQ

(President to determine moment when diplomacy is exhausted) (380)
By Rick Marshall
USIA Staff Writer
Washington -- The United States will know when the possibility of a
diplomatic solution to the Iraq crisis is gone, Sandy Berger,
President Clinton's national security advisor, said February 13.
"We'll know it," Berger said of the moment. "He (Saddam Hussein) may
not."
The United States will judge whether to use military force against
Iraq based on its "national interest"; that is the only standard an
American president can use, Berger told reporters following his speech
at the National Press Club today.
"When he believes that diplomacy is exhausted," President Clinton will
make the call.
Berger repeatedly said that the United States is interested in finding
a diplomatic solution to the crisis, but admitted that he had doubts
it will be possible.
"I am skeptical," he said, "but I am not hopeless about this."
The United States cannot accept a diplomatic solution that does not
maintain the full integrity of the United Nations weapons inspection
regime, Berger stated.
The alternative would be to "turn our back" on U.N. Security Council
resolutions, and permit "safe havens" for Iraqi weapons of mass
production programs.
This "is simply not acceptable," Berger stressed. "UNSCOM needs to
have access to all of the country."
Berger showed an enlarged aerial photograph of the Lake Thartar
palace, a 100 square kilometer compound in downtown Baghdad, which
Saddam Hussein has been trying to keep off limits to UNSCOM
inspectors. This is just one of the sites the size of cities the Iraqi
leader has sought to portray as private palaces.
Berger was asked if Russian objections to a possible U.S. military
strike would harm Washington's relations with Moscow. He expressed
doubt that it would. The United States has had "lots of disagreements"
with Russia since the breakup of the Soviet Union, he said, giving
NATO's decision to add Poland, Hungary and the Czech Republic as an
example.
We have differences, he noted, "but our relationship continues."
Berger made a point of saying that the American people understand the
threat Iraq's chemical and biological weapons could pose if UNSCOM's
inspection regime was in some way limited. Indeed, the public believes
this is "a serious threat that we have to stand up to," he commented.