18 February 1998
[EXCERPTS] TRANSCRIPT: WHITE HOUSE DAILY BRIEFING, FEBRUARY 18, 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 18, 1998 PRESS BRIEFING BY MIKE MCCURRY The Briefing Room ................... Q: Mike, on Iraq for just a moment -- would the United States accept in principle the idea of diplomatic observers accompanying UNSCOM teams? MCCURRY: What we would accept is a solution that allows the U.N. Special Commission to have access to the sites it has not been allowed to visit; that allows them to continue to do the work that they must do; and that maintains the integrity of the U.N. inspections process in Iraq. How that might work, what the parameters and modalities of any solution like that might be is exactly the work that the Secretary General will now address as he makes his trip to Baghdad. Q: -- does not exclude people. Q: There's no particular objection to that scheme? MCCURRY: There's only our firm view, and now the firm view of the Security Council, that relevant Security Council resolutions must be adhered to, that there must be a process by which UNSCOM can do its work in Iraq, and that the integrity of that process which has worked so well over the last seven years must be maintained. Q: But as long as that's preserved, it doesn't matter whether other people accompany the inspectors, does it? MCCURRY: This may be the perfect and the good, if you can get access to those sites that have been declared off limits, and there are dozens and dozens of them, that would be important to the fulfillment of the U.N. mandate in Iraq. But at this point, that has not been available to the United Nations and the Secretary General is now going to make an urgent consultation with the government of Iraq to see if there is some prospect that a diplomatic solution can be found. Q: Can I follow up on that? How does that work timetable-wise, since Saddam Hussein has broken his word so many times, if he says yes, and then the U.N. inspectors go in, but after a while they're not allowed in, does the U.S. keep its troop presence there? MCCURRY: The timetable at this point is only the one that the Secretary General himself has articulated. Q: Mike, are you optimistic that Annan will be able to achieve a breakthrough while he's there? MCCURRY: No. But at the same point it is important to make this effort. We believe he will do so in the fashion that he has conducted himself generally as Secretary General. He is a man of very high principle, high integrity, and he has very clear instructions from the Secretary Council, unanimously given, that set out the parameters of his trip. Q: -- the purpose of the President's phone call to Kofi Annan yesterday? MCCURRY: To review with him the situation as the Security Council deliberated the utility of a mission, to discuss the parameters, and to assure that we would have the kind of unanimous support in the Security Council that we have now received. Q: -- such a negative impression of the U.S. toward the possibility of a peace? MCCURRY: No. We want every effort to be made to achieve a peaceful diplomatic solution to this crisis, and we hope that the Secretary General can find one. Q: Why would you not be optimistic? MCCURRY: There has been no indication from the government of Iraq that would lend anyone to be optimistic. There has been only obstinacy, concealment, deliberate lies about past practices, no indication of a willingness to do the necessary, which is to live up to their international obligations. Q: -- dozens and dozens of sites that need to be inspected. Could you explain these eight presidential sites versus the dozens and dozens? MCCURRY: "Eight presidential sites" is something that the government of Iraq likes to say. There are some 60-odd so-called presidential sites, and they range in nature. There are dozens and dozens of other sensitive sites, or so-called declared sensitive sites. In one instance I think the government of Iraq declared a road somewhere a sensitive site. But they are equally important to the work that that U.N. inspectors have attempted to do there. So we're talking about dozens, if not hundreds, of sites that are currently off limits that the U.N. Special Commission needs access to. Q: Once the Secretary General returns from Baghdad, if he does not have a diplomatic solution, what would that signify in terms of where we are? MCCURRY: That would be a very grave matter. Q: Do you consider this the last diplomatic effort? MCCURRY: I don't want to foresee what future possibilities diplomacy might have at that point, but they're quickly running out. Q: That's pretty much how Richardson described it, though. MCCURRY: That's correct. Ambassador Richardson has addressed all this and spoke authoritatively. Q: Did the President send a message through Kofi to Saddam even verbally? MCCURRY: He joins in the message that the Secretary General will express on behalf of the Security Council. Q: He has not written a letter or anything like that. MCCURRY: Not to my knowledge is he carrying any separate bilateral communication, but he is expressing the determined view of the Security Council. Q: No Bibles, no cakes? Q: I just have a question about the town meeting. I'm wondering just in light of the interest that was expressed by other networks in carrying this live if you have resolved that in the future you wouldn't agree to do something where one network has exclusive rights -- MCCURRY: I think in the happy circumstance in the future of having one of our events with that much interest, we'll find a way to get expanded coverage. And we're delighted that CNN has made a number of accommodations so people can cover the story. Q: But, Mike, if it had involved the President, himself, would it have been handled differently? MCCURRY: It's hard to know without knowing what the specifics might be. ............... Q: Mike, going back to Iraq for a second. If you do launch these military strikes, and you fail, as you admitted yourself you probably would, to remove Saddam Hussein from power, as everybody admits is quite likely -- MCCURRY: I believe I said more accurately that the purpose of a military strike, if one is needed, would be to do those things that the President has articulated. Q: Right, and everybody would probably admit you're unlikely to remove him from power. Therefore, your domestic audience or international audience, and certainly every Republican, is going to see it as a failure. How much of a worry is that for the White House? MCCURRY: I think you're taking great liberties with a large number of people who might have their own individual interpretations of what happened. I don't accept the premise of the question. Q: Mike, could you clarify for me the development of this town meeting? Did you go to CNN, propose it, and they then said, only if we have it exclusively? Did they come to you and propose it? MCCURRY: We went through the whole thing yesterday and I made it clear that we came up with the idea and we went to them. ................... Q: Mike, who has the President talked to on the matter of Iraq in the last 24 hours? And do you anticipate more calls as the day wears on? MCCURRY: I didn't check and see. I'm not aware of any foreign calls today. He has obviously had a lot of internal deliberations in the last 24 hours. He talked to King Hussein late yesterday. King Hussein and he had one other -- we'll double-check that. But he has continued -- as I told you yesterday, he has had I think probably a dozen or so calls that he's made to others around the world on this subject. Q: Mike, I don't think you answered that at the gaggle this morning. You kind of laughed it off. MCCURRY: I just couldn't have been clearer yesterday in saying that this was not strategy, this was just me making a mistake. .................. Q: Mike, does the President feel that with today's event and the speech yesterday and Sandy Berger's comments the that administration's case to the American people for air strikes in Iraq has been made, or would you anticipate that there's going to be a lot more or there's going to be further events -- MCCURRY: I think the President will continue to address the matter publicly because most Americans will hear in the course of the next several hours that there's an effort underway now by the Secretary General to resolve this diplomatically, and the President will need to continue to discuss with the American people what the realities are of the course of action we'll have to pursue if that's not a successful effort. Q: An Oval Office address? MCCURRY: There are a number of ways in which the President might do that. I don't have anything I can share with you on his immediate plans on that right now. Q: Mike, presumably UNSCOM will be out of the country if bombing begins. How will the United States know when it's accomplished its mission? MCCURRY: When we have significantly diminished Saddam Hussein's capacity to advance programs in biological and chemical weapons, and we think we'll be in reasonably good position to make those judgments, and also when we have limited his ability to threaten and intimidate his neighbors. And again, we'll have a pretty good idea on how to measure the effectiveness of that. Q: And how do you measure that? MCCURRY: We have a number of different ways that we can do that, a number of different ways we make assessments. And I normally don't discuss here intelligence-gathering operations. Q: Are those methods -- the President said, if Iraq tries to build it up again he'll use all methods at our disposal to monitor it. Are those methods less effective than the UNSCOM monitors? MCCURRY: Well, they are varying degrees of effectiveness, but the most effective is to be not only in a permanent regime or in a regime in which you can do the work that's required by U.N. Security Council resolutions with on-site inspections, but also continue the kind of effort to monitor any prospective activity as well. It's better to be in a position to do that. Q: So UNSCOM inspectors are better? MCCURRY: It's better for on-site inspectors to be in an environment in which they're getting cooperation from the government that is required to lend them cooperation. That's not the situation that's presenting itself unfortunately. Q: Just to clarify, are you saying the President will make an address if and when the bombing has already begun? MCCURRY: I answered that and made it clear that I didn't rule that out. But I didn't say that it's decided in any way, shape, or form. Okay, see you tomorrow. (end transcript)
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