03 June 1998
TRANSCRIPT: PICKERING JUNE 2 KUWAIT TV INTERVIEW ON IRAQ
(Saddam Hussein continues to cause serious problems in Gulf) (2790) Kuwait City, Kuwait -- Saddam Hussein is continuing to cause very serious problems in the Gulf region, and "therefore, we must reaffirm and reinforce our strategy of dealing with this particular difficulty through diplomacy backed up by a firm threat of use of force," Thomas Pickering, under secretary of state for political affairs, said June 2. Pickering said in an interview with Kuwait Television (KTV) that the purpose of his visit is to discuss the situation in the region, "with particular focus on Iraq, the problems which Iraq has caused and how we can continue to work strongly together to deal with those issues." He said he had discussions with Jordan's King Hussein and Prince Abudullah of Saudi Arabia about the Middle East peace process and would be discussing Iran and a number of other recent developments on the world scene. Saddam Hussein continues: to oppress his own people by finding ways to deny them food and medicine under the U.N. program, to confront the U.N. Special Commission which is there seeking to discover and eliminate his weapons of mass destruction and to fail to disclose, as he was required to do under original resolutions, what his weapons of mass destruction system is," Pickering asserted. The United States will continue to work with the U.N. on the oil-for-food resolution to make sure that the people of Iraq have the food and medicine they need, "something that Saddam -- not the world community, not the United States, not the Security Council -- has denied them over the years," Pickering stressed. "This is important," he added, "because clearly Saddam has played on the condition of his people, I think to mislead the world continuously, that they, not he, are responsible for the condition of the Iraqi people. And we will work very hard to assure that this doesn't continue to happen." Asked about President Clinton's recent decision to scale down the military presence in the Gulf region, Pickering noted that the reinforced presence in the Gulf was increased as a result of the confrontation between Iraq and UNSCOM last year, but, he said, "We are not planning and have never planned to maintain that high level of deployment." "What we will be doing is creating a higher level baseline force. ... There will be more carrier aircraft in the region, and there will be more missiles in the region than there ever was before. And at the same time we will be maintaining a rapid reinforcement capacity ... so Saddam will have to continue to calculate on the capacity of the U.S. and coalition partners, working closely with Kuwait and others in the area, to be able to deal the kind of devastating blow which we hope will make him think twice before he continues further confrontation, before he threatens Kuwait, before he attempts to use weapons of mass destruction that he may have," Pickering said. Regarding the lifting of sanctions and possible dialogue with Iraq, Pickering stressed that Saddam must fully and completely comply with U.N. Security Council resolutions, particularly the primary requirement that he fully disclose his weapons of mass destruction program. "He hasn't provided the full disclosure and there is much work still to be done. ... As a result, the more he confronts UNSCOM, the more he fails to disclose, the longer he himself will perpetuate the sanctions against himself." Following is the transcript of the interview, provided by USIS Kuwait: (Begin transcript) U.S. UNDER SECRETARY OF STATE FOR POLITICAL AFFAIRS THOMAS R. PICKERING'S INTERVIEW WITH KUWAIT TELEVISION (KTV) AT THE RADISSON SAS HOTEL ON TUESDAY, JUNE 2, 1998 KUWAIT CITY, STATE OF KUWAIT KTV: Your Excellency, welcome to Kuwait. Please tell us what is the purpose of your Gulf tour? PICKERING: The purpose of my trip is to come and discuss with friends the situation in the region, with particular focus on Iraq, the problems which Iraq has caused and how we can continue to work strongly together to deal with those issues. In Amman, I had an opportunity to see both His Majesty King Hussein and Prince Abudullah of Saudi Arabia. We had the opportunity as well to discuss the Middle East peace process, and will be discussing Iran and a number of other recent developments on the world scene. KTV: How would you characterize current U.S.-Kuwait relations? PICKERING: I think they are very good but, obviously, I've come here to listen to senior Kuwaiti officials and, of course, the leaders of Kuwait about their view of our relationship. I have a continued strong feeling that we have been working well together, and there are many things on which we have cooperated, particularly over Iraq. And that's a primary problem for both of us and we need to continue working together. The purpose of my consultation is to set out -- if you can call it that -- a program, a strategy, a set of objectives, and a role for each of us in the future. KTV: Is the U.S. Government comfortable with the current situation in Iraq, in particular Iraq's stance toward U.N. resolutions? PICKERING: Well, I'm tempted to answer in Arabic "la abadan" (no, never). I think of course we're not comfortable with the present situation and I don't believe that our friends in Kuwait are, although I'm waiting to hear from them. Saddam Hussein is continuing to cause very serious problems in the area, everything from oppressing his own people by finding ways to deny them food and medicine under the U.N. program, to confronting the U.N. Special Commission which is there seeking to discover and eliminate his weapons of mass destruction, to failing to disclose as he was required to do under original resolutions what his weapons of mass destruction system is. Oppressing his people -- you have of course here in Kuwait first-hand experience with Saddam -- I don't think Saddam is changing. And I think we are all caused serious problems, therefore, we must reaffirm and reinforce our strategy of dealing with this particular difficulty through diplomacy backed up by a firm threat of use of force. KTV: Yes, but the U.S. President has recently decided to scale down the military presence in the area. Can you elaborate on the conditions that prompted this decision? PICKERING: Of course and I think it's an important question. We, as you know, maintained the baseline force in the region for a number of years following the Gulf War. And, the President in fact has decided that that baseline force must be scaled up as a result of the crisis. We also increased our reinforced presence in the Gulf as a result of the confrontation between Iraq and the UNSCOM last year. We are not planning and have never planned to maintain that high level of deployment. We have other, of course, responsibilities in the world. We don't believe that Saddam should determine our force deployments, but means and strategy should. And so what we will be doing is creating a higher level baseline force. There will be carrier time, there will be more carrier aircraft in the region, and there will be more missiles in the region than there ever was before. And at the same time we will be maintaining a rapid reinforcement capacity. We learned from the last redeployment that we could do it better. We have plans to do it better, so Saddam will have to continue to calculate on the capacity of the U.S. and coalition partners, working closely with Kuwait and others in the area, to be able to deal the kind of devastating blow which we hope will make him think twice before he continues further confrontation, before he threatens Kuwait, before he attempts to use weapons of mass destruction that he may have. These are important goals and the President is committed to having the forces in the area, and to having the rapid capacity to increase those forces as is necessary to meet our common responsibilities here. KTV: As a follow up to my last question, there are some reports that have implied that certain countries in the region have asked the U.S. to scale down its military presence. PICKERING: Well, I've been going around and listening to certain countries and I haven't heard that. It's important obviously to know that American forces are here in common interest and a common effort to make sure Saddam doesn't succeed in continuing his weapons of mass destruction program, that UNSCOM is supported, that no sanctions will be removed until such time as he complies fully with all of the U.N. resolutions, including those related to missing Kuwaitis, Kuwaiti prisoners, and Kuwaiti property. Until in fact he demonstrates, as the U.N. resolutions says, his peaceful intentions, which means in fact that the world community needs to have high confidence that he has done everything that the resolutions require, and he truly has turned a page in his book. This is a high standard -- a tough standard -- but it is a standard that the U.S. will certainly apply in the Security Council. KTV: Under the present conditions do you see that the sanctions will be maintained and for how long? PICKERING: Well, of course, it's up to Saddam Hussein. We've always said that. But, I don't see signs that he's prepared to comply with the resolutions. He hasn't yet fully disclosed his weapons of mass destruction program, something he was supposed to do back in 1991, a few days after Resolution 687 was passed at the end of April. He hasn't done that. That of course is a primary, requirement, but there are many other requirements. We don't know much about his biological program. We are still exploring information about his chemical program. Outside experts, who came in and examined the work of UNSCOM at the request of Iraq, have all reached the same conclusion. He is not complying. He hasn't provided the full disclosure and there is much work still to be done. So, even on that basic question of weapons of mass destruction, we don't find him in compliance. As a result, the more he confronts UNSCOM, the more he fails to disclose, the longer he himself will perpetuate the sanctions against himself. KTV: With your experience in the Middle East do you expect the Iraqi regime to instigate any future crisis? PICKERING: I think that if we examine carefully the history of Saddam Hussein, we would be obviously soft in the head, if I may use that expression, were we not to expect other confrontations and crises. That the way he's operated. He has always found ways to chisel, to lie, to cheat, to steal around the edges of the U.N. And that's why it is so important that we continue to work closely together, that we have an effective diplomacy, that we build on the agreement that the Secretary General has reached, that we build on the work of the Security Council. But, that each time we have that fully backed up, as the President has committed himself to do with the necessary threat of force, so that if he doesn't comply, we can, at the time and place of our choosing, use that force to implement effectively the UN Security Council resolutions. That is a strategy that has worked. It is not in my view realistic to believe that Saddam has gained anything out of these confrontations, except an excessive prolongation of the sanctions. We will continue to work with the U.N., as I said earlier, on the oil-for-food resolution, to make sure that the people of Iraq have the food and medicine they need, something that Saddam -- not the world community, not the United States, not the Security Council -- has denied them over the years. And that is not realized, I am surprised, by the number of people who believe that sanctions have somehow affected the question of food. Saddam has denied the food. The sanctions have never affected food. Saddam has refused to go along with the oil-for-food question. He continues to delay putting into effect effective distribution plans. The United States, from President Clinton on down, is determined to provide that for the people of Iraq through the mechanism of the UN program. This is important because clearly Saddam has played on the condition of his people, I think to mislead the world continuously, that they, not he, are responsible for the condition of the Iraqi people. And we will work very hard to assure that this doesn't continue to happen. KTV: All the other issues, the POW issue which weighs heavily upon the people of Kuwait... PICKERING: It does and, of course, the people of Kuwait have strong sympathy among the people of the US on this particularly difficult issue. It was one of the original requirements that we included in the famous Resolution 687 -- the "mother of all resolutions." It was very important to ensure that your country and my country, both of which have suffered from missing people, from POWs, get a full accounting; that we do everything we can to continue to stay together on this issue, to determine that particular question, and that Saddam must comply with this provision before we would agree to lifting the sanctions. KTV: The latest nuclear tests by India and Pakistan... Does Iraq pose a real nuclear threat to the region? PICKERING: We believe that until there is a full accounting, until all of the questions are asked in recent statements by the president of the Security Council -- a number of questions still remain to be asked on the nuclear file -- it is not possible in our view to believe that Iraq has cleared itself, if I could put it that way, by providing full information verified by the UN -- and that's the standard -- before we can move from the verification phase to the monitoring phase. The people in this region should continue to know that if and when -- and that's a question of course that is prefaced by an "if" -- the Security Council should decide to move on nuclear questions in Iraq, from active verification to monitoring. The UNSCOM inspectors will have exactly the same rights and the same duties. They will have the right to go anywhere. They will have the right to have full access. They have the right to determine whether their monitoring and other information has produced new information that he didn't comply on the nuclear question. And so there are safe-guards built into this process which will continue, which will assure people in the region here in Kuwait and elsewhere, as well as around the world, that this is the best mechanism that the U.N. has been able to put together to deal with the question of proliferation. And, against the backdrop of what's been happening in South Asia, I think it's an effective and worth-while, and important activity that we all need to continue, to see carried out fully and completely by Saddam. KTV: Iraq has repeatedly proposed to open dialogue with the U.S. Can you elaborate on this and is there any Jordanian mediation? PICKERING: I cannot elaborate except to say that this may be a position of Iraq but the U.S. does not see any value in a dialogue with Iraq. Some in Jordan have suggested publicly and privately that this would be a good idea, but that's really a personal idea by people in Jordan. I spoke with them about it again today, and I made clear that Iraq must comply with the resolutions. There's nothing that the US would tell Iraq that the U.N. hasn't told Iraq -- full and complete compliance -- that's the answer with the sanctions and there should be no mystery about that. The UNSCOM will be having a meeting in New York tomorrow to set out a road map for the future, as Chairman Butler calls it, for UNSCOM activities, which will obviously also have something to do with the need for further Iraqi compliance. If the Iraqis are in any doubt about this they can talk with Chairman Butler, they can talk with Secretary General Annan, they can talk with the president of the Security Council. There shouldn't be any reason in my view for any such dialogue and I can assure you on our part that there is no interest. KTV: Your Excellency, thank you very much for your time. PICKERING: Thank you very much. (End transcript)
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