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03 March 1998

CONGRESSIONAL REPORT, TUESDAY, MARCH 3

(Saddam Hussein/war criminal; Grey/ambassador) (450)
SENATE PANEL CALLS FOR TRIBUNAL TO PROSECUTE SADDAM HUSSEIN
The Senate Foreign Relations Committee March 3 urged President Clinton
to call on the United Nations to create an international criminal
tribunal to indict, prosecute, and imprison Iraqi leader Saddam
Hussein and other Iraqi officials responsible for "crimes against
humanity, genocide, and other violations of international law."
The committee unanimously approved a resolution, introduced just the
day before by Republican Senator Arlen Specter, requesting the
president to call for the creation of a commission, under U.N.
auspices, to establish an international record of the criminal
culpability of Saddam Hussein and other Iraqi officials.
The resolution also stipulates that, upon creation of such an
international criminal tribunal, the president should "seek the
reprogramming of necessary funds to support the efforts of the
tribunal, including the gathering of evidence necessary to indict,
prosecute and imprison Saddam Hussein and other Iraqi officials."
U.S. REPRESENTATIVE TO DISARMAMENT CONFERENCE TO BE AMBASSADOR
The Senate Foreign Relations Committee March 3 unanimously approved
Robert Grey to hold the rank of ambassador during his service as U.S.
Representative to the Conference on Disarmament (CD).
At his nomination hearing February 25, Grey, who is a career foreign
service officer, reviewed the two key U.S. objectives in the
Geneva-based CD: to begin negotiations on a Fissile Material Cutoff
Treaty (FMCT) and negotiate a ban on exports of anti-personnel
landmines (APL).
The FMCT would cap the amount of fissile material available for
nuclear weapons in the five nuclear weapons states and the three
threshold states of India, Pakistan and Israel. It would also subject
all fissile material production to international verification.
Grey said the United States will continue to reject efforts by some
countries to link cutoff negotiations "to their own nuclear
disarmament agenda, including the idea of the Conference negotiating
or discussing a time-bound framework for the elimination of nuclear
weapons." He said the U.S. rejects arguments that progress on any
issue, even anti-personnel landmines, be linked to nuclear
disarmament.
The CD, he asserted, cannot "become a forum for negotiating nuclear
arms reductions." U.S. negotiations with Russia "must remain our first
priority in the nuclear reductions area for the foreseeable future,"
he said.
Although efforts to negotiate on APL in the Conference on Disarmament
were boosted by a December U.N. General Assembly resolution
encouraging the CD to intensify its APL efforts, Grey said the
negotiating effort "will be affected by different agendas."
He noted that progress on both U.S. objectives "may well be
difficult," but added that achieving each would advance U.S. national
security interests.