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17 February 1998

TRANSCRIPT: CLINTON REMARKS ON IRAQ AT THE PENTAGON FEB. 17

(Wants no "diminishment" of U.N. weapons inspections) (3220)
Washington -- President Clinton says for there to be "a genuine
solution," a diplomatic solution, to Iraq's current showdown with the
United States and the United Nations, Iraq must allow, and soon,
"free, full, unfettered access" by U.N. weapons inspectors to any
sites they wish to inspect anywhere in that country.
There can be "no dilution or diminishment of the integrity of the
inspection system" that the United Nations Special Commission in Iraq
(UNSCOM) has put in place, Clinton said in February 17 remarks at the
Pentagon.
The inspection system, said the President, "has worked in the face of
lies, stonewalling, obstacle after obstacle after obstacle."
All the United States wants, he said, is for the inspection system to
keep working.
Should the United States have to use force, Clinton said, "our purpose
is clear: We want to seriously diminish the threat posed by Iraq's
weapons of mass destruction program. We want to seriously reduce his
capacity to threaten his neighbors.
"I am quite confident from the briefing I have just received from our
military leaders that we can achieve the objectives and secure our
vital strategic interests," he said.
Following is the White House transcript:
(begin transcript)
THE WHITE HOUSE
Office of the Press Secretary
February 17, 1998
REMARKS BY THE PRESIDENT
ON IRAQ TO PENTAGON PERSONNEL
The Pentagon
THE PRESIDENT: Thank you very much, Mr. Vice President, for your
remarks and your leadership. Thank you, Secretary Cohen, for the
superb job you have done here at the Pentagon and on this most recent,
very difficult problem. Thank you, General Shelton, for being the
right person at the right time. Thank you, General Ralston, and the
members of the Joint Chiefs, General Zinni, Secretary Albright,
Secretary Slater, DCI Tenet, Mr. Bowles, Mr. Berger. Senator Robb,
thank you for being here; and Congressman Skelton, thank you very
much, and for your years of service to America and your passionate
patriotism, both of you; and to the members of our Armed Forces and
others who work here to protect our national security.
I have just received a very fine briefing from our military leadership
on the status of our forces in the Persian Gulf. Before I left the
Pentagon I wanted to talk to you, and all those whom you represent --
the men and women of our military. You, your friends and your
colleagues are on the front lines of this crisis in Iraq. I want to
you and I want the American people to hear directly from me what is at
stake for America and the Persian Gulf; what we are doing to protect
the peace, the security, the freedom we cherish; why we have taken the
position we have taken.
I was thinking as I sat up here on the platform of the slogan that the
First Lady gave me for her project on the millennium, which was:
Remembering the past and imagining the future. Now, for that project,
that means preserving the Star-Spangled Banner and the Declaration of
Independence and the Constitution and the Bill of Rights, and it means
making an unprecedented commitment to medical research and to get the
best of the new technology. But that's not a bad slogan for us when we
deal with more sober, more difficult, more dangerous matters.
Those who have questioned the United States in this moment, I would
argue, are living only in the moment. They have neither remembered the
past, nor imagined the future. So, first, let's just take a step back
and consider why meeting the threat posed by Saddam Hussein is
important to our security in the new era we are entering.
This is a time of tremendous promise for America. The superpower
confrontation has ended on every continent; democracy is securing for
more and more people the basic freedoms we Americans have come to take
for granted. Bit by bit, the Information Age is chipping away at the
barriers -- economic, political and social -- that once kept people
locked in and freedom and prosperity locked out.
But for all our promise, all our opportunity, people in this room know
very well that this is not a time free from peril -- especially as a
result of reckless acts of outlaw nations and an unholy axis of
terrorists, drug traffickers and organized international criminals. We
have to defend our future from these predators of the 21st century.
They feed on the free flow of information and technology. They
actually take advantage of the freer movement of people, information,
and ideas. And they will be all the more lethal if we allow them to
build arsenals of nuclear, chemical, and biological weapons, and the
missiles to deliver them. We simply cannot allow that to happen.
There is no more clear example of this threat than Saddam Hussein's
Iraq. His regime threatens the safety of his people, the stability of
his region, and the security of all the rest of us.
I want the American people to understand, first, the past: How did
this crisis come about. And I want them to understand what we must do
to protect the national interest and, indeed, the interest of all
freedom-loving people in the world.
Remember, as a condition of the cease-fire after the Gulf War, the
United Nations demanded -- not the United States, the United Nations
demanded -- and Saddam Hussein agreed to declare within 15 days --
this is way back in 1991 -- within 15 days his nuclear, chemical, and
biological weapons and the missiles to deliver them; to make a total
declaration. That's what he promised to do.
The United Nations set up a special commission of highly trained
international experts, called UNSCOM, to make sure that Iraq made good
on that commitment. We had every good reason to insist that Iraq
disarm. Saddam had built up a terrible arsenal and he had used it --
not once, but many times, in a decade-long war with Iran, he used
chemical weapons -- against combatants, against civilians, against a
foreign adversary, and even against his own people. And during the
Gulf War, Saddam launched Scuds against Saudi Arabia, Israel, and
Bahrain.
Now, instead of playing by the very rules he agreed to at the end of
the Gulf War, Saddam has spent the better part of the past decade
trying to cheat on this solemn commitment. Consider just some of the
facts. Iraq repeatedly made false declarations about the weapons that
it had left in its possession after the Gulf War. When UNSCOM would
then uncover evidence that gave lie to those declarations, Iraq would
simply amend the reports. For example, Iraq revised its nuclear
declarations four times within just 14 months, and it has submitted
six different biological warfare declarations, each of which has been
rejected by UNSCOM.
In 1995, Hussein Kamel, Saddam's son-in-law and the chief organizer of
Iraq's weapons of mass destruction program, defected to Jordan. He
revealed that Iraq was continuing to conceal weapons and missiles and
the capacity to build many more. Then, and only then, did Iraq admit
to developing numbers of weapons in significant quantities, and weapon
stocks. Previously it had vehemently denied the very thing it just
simply admitted once Saddam Hussein's son-in-law defected to Jordan
and told the truth.
Now, listen to this. What did it admit? It admitted, among other
things, an offensive biological warfare capability, notably 5,000
gallons of botulinum, which causes botulism; 2,000 gallons of anthrax;
25 biological-filled Scud warheads; and 157 aerial bombs. And I might
say, UNSCOM inspectors believe that Iraq has actually greatly
understated its production. As if we needed further confirmation, you
all know what happened to its son-in-law when he made the untimely
decision to go back to Iraq.
Next, throughout this entire process, Iraqi agents have undermined and
undercut UNSCOM. They've harassed the inspectors, lied to them,
disabled monitoring cameras, literally spirited evidence out of the
back doors of suspect facilities as inspectors walked through the
front door -- and our people were there observing it and have the
pictures to prove it.
Despite Iraq's deceptions UNSCOM has, nevertheless, done a remarkable
job. Its inspectors, the eyes and ears of the civilized world, have
uncovered and destroyed more weapons of mass destruction capacity than
was destroyed during the Gulf War. This includes nearly 40,000
chemical weapons, more than 100,000 gallons of chemical weapons
agents, 48 operational missiles, 30 warheads specifically fitted for
chemical and biological weapons, and a massive biological weapons
facility at Al-Hakim, equipped to produce anthrax and other deadly
agents.
Over the past few months, as they have come closer and closer to
rooting out Iraq's remaining nuclear capacity, Saddam has undertaken
yet another gambit to thwart their ambition by imposing debilitating
conditions on the inspectors and declaring key sites which have still
not been inspected off limits -- including, I might add, one palace in
Baghdad more than 26 acres large.
By comparison, when you hear all this business about presidential
sites reflect our sovereignty, why do you want to come into a
residence, the White House complex is 18 acres, so you'll have some
feel for this. One of these presidential sites is about the size of
Washington, D.C. That's about -- how many acres did you tell me it was
-- 40,000 acres. We're not talking about a few rooms here with
delicate personal matters involved.
It is obvious that there is an attempt here, based on the whole
history of this operation, since 1991, to protect whatever remains of
his capacity to produce weapons of mass destruction, the missiles to
deliver them, and the feedstocks necessary to produce them. The UNSCOM
inspectors believe that Iraq still has stockpiles of chemical and
biological munitions, a small force of Scud-type missiles, and the
capacity to restart quickly its production program and build many,
many more weapons.
Now, against that background, let us remember the past, here. It is
against that background that we have repeatedly and unambiguously made
clear our preference for a diplomatic solution. The inspection system
works. The inspection system has worked in the face of lies,
stonewalling, obstacle after obstacle after obstacle. The people who
have done that work deserve the thanks of civilized people throughout
the world. It has worked.
That is all we want. And if we can find a diplomatic way to do what
has to be done, to do what he promised to do at the end of the Gulf
War, to do what should have been done within 15 days -- within 15 days
of the agreement at the end of the Gulf War -- if we can find a
diplomatic way to do that, that is by far our preference. But to be a
genuine solution, and not simply one that glosses over the remaining
problem, a diplomatic solution must include or meet a clear,
immutable, reasonable, simple standard: Iraq must agree, and soon, to
free, full, unfettered access to these sites, anywhere in the country.
There can be no dilution or diminishment of the integrity of the
inspection system that UNSCOM has put in place. Now, those terms are
nothing more or less than the essence of what he agreed to at the end
of the Gulf War.
The Security Council many times since has reiterated this standard. If
he accepts them, force will not be necessary. If he refuses or
continues to evade his obligation through more tactics of delay and
deception, he, and he alone, will be to blame for the consequences.
I ask all of you to remember the record here: what he promised to do
within 15 days of the end of the Gulf War, what he repeatedly refused
to do, what we found out in '95, what the inspectors have done against
all odds.
We have no business agreeing to any resolution of this that does not
include free, unfettered access to the remaining sites by people who
have integrity and proven competence in the inspection business. That
should be our standard. That's what UNSCOM has done, and that's why I
have been fighting for it so hard. That's why the United States should
insist upon it.
Now, let's imagine the future. What if he fails to comply and we fail
to act, or we take some ambiguous third route which gives him yet more
opportunities to develop this program of weapons of mass destruction
and continue to press for the release of the sanctions and continue to
ignore the solemn commitments that he made? Well, he will conclude
that the international community has lost its will. He will then
conclude that he can go right on and do more to rebuild an arsenal of
devastating destruction. And some day, some way, I guarantee you,
he'll use the arsenal. And I think every one of you who has really
worked on this for any length of time believes that, too.
Now, we have spent several weeks building up our forces in the Gulf,
and building a coalition of like-minded nations. Our force posture
would not be possible without the support of Saudi Arabia, of Kuwait,
Bahrain, the GCC states and Turkey. Other friends and allies have
agreed to provide forces, bases or logistical support, including the
United Kingdom, Germany, Spain and Portugal, Denmark and the
Netherlands, Hungary and Poland and the Czech Republic, Argentina,
Iceland, Australia, New Zealand and our friends and neighbors in
Canada. That list is growing -- not because anyone wants military
action, but because there are people in this world who believe the
United Nations resolution should mean something, because they
understand what UNSCOM has achieved, because they remember the past
and because they can imagine what the future will be depending on what
we do now.
If Saddam rejects peace and we have to use force, our purpose is
clear: We want to seriously diminish the threat posed by Iraq's
weapons of mass destruction program. We want to seriously reduce his
capacity to threaten his neighbors. I am quite confident from the
briefing I have just received from our military leaders that we can
achieve the objectives and secure our vital strategic interests.
Let me be clear: A military operation cannot destroy all the weapons
of mass destruction capacity. But it can, and will, leave him
significantly worse off than he is now in terms of the ability to
threaten the world with these weapons, or to attack his neighbors. And
he will know that the international community continues to have the
will to act if and when he threatens again.
Following any strike, we will carefully monitor Iraq's activities with
all the means at our disposal. If he seeks to rebuild his weapons of
mass destruction we will be prepared to strike him again. The economic
sanctions will remain in place until Saddam complies fully with all
U.N. resolutions.
Consider this: Already these sanctions have denied him $110 billion.
Imagine how much stronger his armed forces would be today, how many
more weapons of mass destruction operations he would have hidden
around the country if he had been able to spend even a small fraction
of that amount for a military rebuilding.
We will continue to enforce a no-fly zone from the southern suburbs of
Baghdad to the Kuwait border, and in Northern Iraq, making it more
difficult for Iraq to walk over Kuwait again or threaten the Kurds in
the North.
Now, let me say to all of you here, as all of you know, the weightiest
decision any President ever has to make is to send our troops into
harm's way. And force can never be the first answer. But sometimes
it's the only answer .
You are the best-prepared, best-equipped, best-trained fighting force
in the world. And should it prove necessary for me to exercise the
option of force, your commanders will do everything they can to
protect the safety of all the men and women under their command. No
military action, however, is risk free. I know that the people we may
call upon in uniform are ready. The American people have to be ready
as well.
Dealing with Saddam Hussein requires constant vigilance. We have seen
that constant vigilance pays off, but it requires constant vigilance.
Since the Gulf War we have pushed back every time Saddam has posed a
threat. When Baghdad plotted to assassinate former President Bush, we
struck hard at Iraq's intelligence headquarters. When Saddam
threatened another invasion by massing his troops in Kuwait, along the
Kuwaiti border in 1994, we immediately deployed our troops, our ships,
our planes, and Saddam backed down. When Saddam forcefully occupied
Irbil in Northern Iraq, we broadened our control over Iraq's skies by
extending the no-fly zone.
But there is no better example, again I say, then the U.N. weapons
inspections system itself. Yes, he has tried to thwart it in every
conceivable way. But the discipline, determination, the year in-year
out effort of these weapon inspectors is doing the job. And we seek to
finish the job.
Let there be no doubt, we are prepared to act. But Saddam Hussein
could end this crisis tomorrow, simply by letting the weapons
inspectors complete their mission. He made a solemn commitment to the
international community to do that and to give up his weapons of mass
destruction a long time ago, now. One way or the other, we are
determined to see that he makes good on his own promise.
Saddam Hussein's Iraq reminds us of what we learned in the 20th
century and warns us of what we must know about the 21st. In this
century we learned through harsh experience that the only answer to
aggression and illegal behavior is firmness, determination, and, when
necessary, action.
In the next century, the community of nations may see more and more
the very kind of threat Iraq poses now: a rogue state with weapons of
mass destruction, ready to use them or provide them to terrorists,
drug traffickers, or organized criminals, who travel the world among
us unnoticed. If we fail to respond today, Saddam and all those who
would follow in his footsteps will be emboldened tomorrow by the
knowledge that they can act with impunity -- even in the face of a
clear message from the United Nations Security Council and clear
evidence of a weapons of mass destruction program.
But if we act as one, we can safeguard our interests and send a clear
message to every would-be tyrant and terrorist that the international
community does have the wisdom and the will and the way to protect
peace and security in a new era.
That is the future I ask you all to imagine. That is the future I ask
our allies to imagine. If we look at the past and imagine that future,
we will act as one together. And we still have, God willing, a chance
to find a diplomatic resolution to this, and if not, God willing, the
chance to do the right thing for our children and grandchildren.
Thank you very much.
(end transcript)