08 June 1998
TRANSCRIPT: PICKERING 6/4 PRESS CONFERENCE IN BAHRAIN
(Says Saddam Hussein presents danger to Gulf region in days ahead)
(3780)
Manama, Bahrain -- "Iraq under Saddam Hussein continues to be a threat
that must, and will be, contained," Thomas R. Pickering, under
secretary of state for political affairs, said at a press conference
here June 4.
Pickering is traveling in the Gulf region to discuss with leaders
issues of regional and bilateral interest, including the Middle East
Peace Process, Iran, the recent developments in India and Pakistan,
and most importantly, Iraq.
"I found here a common understanding about a fundamental requirement:
Iraq must prove itself and its peaceful intentions by full and genuine
compliance with its international obligations, including especially
those in the United Nations' Security Council resolutions," Pickering
said. "It is plain to all that Iraq is not now in compliance."
Responding to a question about the lifting of sanctions, Pickering
stressed that sanctions have never been applied to food and medicine,
but Iraq has continued to delay or block the efforts of the
international community to assist and help the Iraqi people with food
and medicine through the United Nations oil-for-food program. He
noted, in fact, that recently the Secretary General of the United
Nations recommended doubling the size of that program, which the
United States, as well as other members of the Security Council, will
support.
"So we need clearly to separate the question of sanctions from the
health and well-being of the people of Iraq," he insisted. "It is our
view that the sanctions are very, very important, that they are a key
incentive in getting Saddam to cooperate with the United Nations'
inspectors in ending his programs of weapons of mass destruction, and
clearly they are also very important in securing the return of missing
Kuwaitis, stolen property from Kuwait, and other questions left over
from the Gulf War."
Until Saddam fully complies and shows his peaceful intentions as the
United Nations' resolutions require, Pickering said, ... "the Security
Council is not going to move to lift the sanctions. So it's in
Saddam's hands."
Pickering said that during his meetings with Gulf leaders, he
"conveyed the United States Administration's grave doubts that Saddam
Hussein can be rehabilitated, and our conviction that if not
contained, Saddam will reassert himself as an even greater danger to
the region in the days ahead."
"What has just happened in South Asia, the breaking of the two-year
moratorium on testing, carries with it very important possibilities
for the future in terms of the dangers to the region, and in terms of
the dangers beyond the region," Pickering said. He recommended that a
statement released following the meeting of the foreign ministers of
the Permanent Five, should contain, among other things:
-- a call for a strong and unswerving commitment on the part of the
parties, India and Pakistan, to do no more testing;
-- that they should sign the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty;
-- that they should work with all of the parties in the region to end
the production of fissile material for use in weapons;
-- that they should not proliferate;
-- that they should re-begin the dialogue that was begun some time ago
between Prime Minister Nawar Sharif and former Prime Minister Gujral.
Following is the transcript of the press conference, provided by USIS
Manama:
(Begin transcript)
TRANSCRIPT OF PRESS CONFERENCE OF U.S. UNDER SECRETARY OF STATE FOR
POLITICAL AFFAIRS THOMAS R. PICKERING
AT THE DIPLOMAT HOTEL
MANAMA, BAHRAIN
THURSDAY, JUNE 4, 1998
Charge George Staples: Thank you very much for coming everybody. It's
a pleasure to have you here this evening. We are very honored today to
have with us a very distinguished delegation headed by our
Undersecretary of State Thomas Pickering and he has been traveling
through the Gulf doing the Government of United States business, he
has had a very good series of meetings, important discussions and I
will let him tell you about them and answer your questions. Mr.
Secretary.
PICKERING: First let me begin by saying how delighted I am to be back
in Bahrain after a long period of time. Bahrain is a state that has
been long a friend and partner of the United States in the important
work of ensuring the security and stability of the Gulf region. I am
especially pleased to be here so soon after the very successful
meeting between His Highness the Amir and President Clinton, which has
done so much to further cement the ties of mutual respect and
cooperation between our two countries.
As the Amir's welcome in Washington attests, the United States is very
proud of its friendship with the State of Bahrain. It is a
relationship that stretches back over a century, and encompasses a
broad range of bilateral and international interests.
Today I had the honor of meeting with the Deputy Amir and Crown
Prince, His Highness Shaikh Hamad bin Isa Al Khalifa, and with the
Prime Minister, His Highness Shaikh Khalifa bin Salman Al Khalifa.
Earlier in my visit, I had meetings with Shaikh Zayed, Sultan Qaboos,
Amir Jaber, King Hussein, and Crown Prince Abdullah.
In each case, and with members of their governments, I discussed
regional and bilateral interests, most importantly Iraq, the Middle
East Peace Process, Iran, and the recent developments in India and
Pakistan.
I came to the region to consult, not to ask for anything, and to
express appreciation to our friends in the area for their support.
President Clinton and Secretary Albright instructed me to take this
mission, especially to consult with our friends about the issue of
Iraq. These were excellent discussions in every place, and an
important opportunity to review at the highest levels within the
region our policies, and to seek the wisdom and views of the leaders
of the region.
I found here a common understanding about a fundamental requirement:
Iraq must prove itself and its peaceful intentions by full and genuine
compliance with its international obligations, including especially
those in the United Nations' Security Council resolutions.
It is plain to all that Iraq is not now in compliance. I also found a
common view that Iraq should not continue to delay or block the
efforts of the international community to assist and help the Iraqi
people with food and medicine through the United Nations oil-for-food
program. The burden of sanctions is on the Saddam Hussein regime, not
the Iraqi people; the sanctions have never applied to food and
medicine for the people of Iraq. Saddam has been trying to use the
Iraqi people, his own victims, by delaying the oil-for-food program
time after time.
This cynical maneuver reveals the reality that Iraq under Saddam
Hussein continues to be a threat that must, and will be, contained. I
explained to the leaders with whom I met our views and our plans in
that regard, including to ensure that the Iraqi regime realizes that
the U.S. and other allied forces in the coalition are ready and able
should diplomacy fail.
Finally, I conveyed the United States Administration's grave doubts
that Saddam Hussein can be rehabilitated, and our conviction that if
not contained, Saddam will reassert himself as an even greater danger
to the region in the days ahead.
Thank you all very much and I look forward to answering your
questions.
QUESTION: What will happen in the future? How long will this go on?
PICKERING: The question obviously is a very important one. It will go
on either until Saddam Hussein fully complies by showing his peaceful
intentions, or he leaves the scene.
QUESTION: Salah Jaber of "Bahrain Tribune" Newspaper. Mr. Pickering,
there's been a call by the U.S. government for the postponement of an
Arab Summit for one week. Is there a justification for this
postponement by the U.S. government, and are there any plans to
enforce on Israel the U.S. plan for the fifteen percent withdrawal
from the West bank?
PICKERING: Well, of course, you have many assumptions in your question
so I'll have to take them one at a time. First, there has been no such
call. I had the opportunity when I came here to talk about the peace
process, about our engagement in the peace process, about our
objective of securing a full commitment of both parties to the ideas
that we put forward at their request. That continues to be the view of
the United States. I had the opportunity to explain to the parties our
views of how, and in what way, statements and actions within the Arab
world might or might not effect the ongoing nature of this process
which is now in a very important stage.
I found receptivity to the thought that, if there were going to be an
Arab Summit, it needed to be very carefully prepared, very carefully
thought about, as you have heard from many Arab leaders. But it is of
course up to Arab leaders to decide when they will have a Summit.
In respect to the details of the U.S. ideas, they have never been
officially confirmed, so assumptions about percentage numbers in your
question we will of course not confirm. What is important, however, is
that we are continuing to work in many areas and in many places to
see, in fact, if the ideas we have provided will be acceptable to both
sides. We will continue as long as we feel that process has strength,
validity and possibilities. When it doesn't we will recognize it, when
we recognize it you will be among the first to know.
QUESTION: ("The Hindu" daily newspaper.) France has said on the
Indo-Pak nuclear issue that the G-8 should shift the emphasis from
punishments to incentives. Is this acceptable to the administration,
and if so, what are the incentives besides security guarantees?
PCIKERING: First, of course, this is not an American suggestion, it is
a French suggestion from what I understand. I haven't yet heard it, so
I don't want to get too deep into comment on it. Secondly, it is very
clear that the foreign ministers of the Permanent Five, including both
France and the United States, are meeting today in Geneva to discuss
this issue, and I understand that they hope to be able to issue a
statement.
The statement in my view should contain among other things a call for
a strong and unswerving commitment on the part of the parties, India
and Pakistan, to do no more testing, as they apparently have said, in
one guarded way or another, they intend to do now; that they should
sign the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty; that they should work with all
of the parties in the region to end the production of fissile material
for use in weapons; that they should not proliferate; that they should
stop testing; that they should begin the dialogue that was begun some
time ago between Prime Minister Nawar Sharif and former Prime Minister
Gujral. They should re-begin that dialogue, to see if there could be a
settlement of the major issues between them.
This in my view is a very important objective, an objective which
India and Pakistan should undertake in their own interests -- that the
countries move in their own interests, and not as the result of
sweeteners, perhaps not as the result of pressures. We will have to
wait and see. But in my view, this would be a major contribution to
security and stability in South Asia and indeed in the world, because
what has just happened in South Asia, the breaking of the two-year
moratorium on testing, carries with it very important possibilities
for the future in terms of the dangers to the region, and in terms of
the dangers beyond the region.
QUESTION: Going back to Iraq, Mr. Pickering -- there has been a
growing sense of apprehension, if you like, from the region that
sanctions must be lifted because it has been long enough. It was only
yesterday that Sheik Zayed called for a similar move. Have you had any
feeling on this, was there any expressed opinion on this from any of
the leaders you have met in the last couple of days?
PICKERING: I think that what I have found, both before I came to the
region and to some extent during the time that I was in the region, a
deep confusion in the minds of many people that somehow the sanctions
applied to food and medicine for the people of Iraq. As I said in my
opening statement, food and medicine for the people of Iraq have never
been subject to sanctions. It has been Saddam Hussein who for five
years refused what was an offer of the Security Council to allow him
to export oil under United Nations control in order to provide the
funding for food and medicine for his own people. And so, in a sense,
he has adopted a policy of blaming the rest of the world for steps
that he should be taking himself, that indeed he could take himself,
and for which he is fully and completely responsible.
Now that he has finally accepted the oil-for-food program, at each
stage he appears to fight it, he appears to delay it. Recently, the
Secretary General of the United Nations recommended a doubling in the
size of that program. The United States, and I'm sure the other
members of the Security Council, will support that. We join with all
of you here in the region in feeling Saddam Hussein's mistreatment of
his own people needs to be rectified by the full implementation of the
United Nations program recommended by the Secretary General, to get
food and medicine to them, to increase the amount of oil to cover the
costs of this, and to provide the necessary materials for more
effective treatment of water and sanitation, and other questions which
affect their health and well being.
So we need clearly to separate the question of sanctions from the
health and well-being of the people of Iraq. It is our view that the
sanctions are very, very important, that they are a key incentive in
getting Saddam to cooperate with the United Nations' inspectors in
ending his programs of weapons of mass destruction, and clearly they
are also very important in securing the return of missing Kuwaitis,
stolen property from Kuwait, and other questions left over from the
Gulf War. When and if, as I said, Saddam fully complies and shows his
peaceful intentions as the United Nations' resolutions require, then
one could look forward to the steps that you are talking about.
But until, in fact, the strictures of the United Nations are met,
under the terms of the resolutions themselves, the Security Council is
not going to move to lift the sanctions. So it's in Saddam's hands.
First and foremost, the state of his people has been made very bad by
his own misbehavior. Secondly, it is up to him to comply, and when he
does the sanctions can be lifted. Thirdly, the sanctions do not affect
the fate of his people, it is his own actions that affect the fate of
his own people.
QUESTION: Gulf Daily News: If I can just continue in this vein of
sanctions, there is a growing feeling that U.S. foreign policy is a
sanctions-driven policy now, and it doesn't seem to be working. It
isn't working in Iraq, Saddam Hussein is still very much on the scene,
and he still continues to make the case.
PICKERING: The sanctions, of course, were not designed to remove
Saddam Hussein from the scene. They were designed to assure full
compliance by Saddam, or whoever might lead Iraq, with the resolutions
of the United Nations, including the ending of his programs of weapons
of mass destruction, and the other elements that I set out for you. In
other areas, the United States has sanctions mandated by legislation,
such as those applied to Pakistan and India as a result of their
nuclear testing. There are many other areas where United States policy
is not driven by sanctions, where in fact sanctions do not play a
major role at all -- cooperation in NATO, work with China, assistance
to the states of the former Soviet Union -- many such issues. So I
would say your question is a mischaracterization of United States
policy and the thrust of America's foreign policy.
QUESTION. Ahdeya Ahmed from Bahrain Television: Mr. Pickering, we
believe that according to Israeli sources there was a meeting held in
Houston, Texas, between Israelis and Syria. What is the U.S. comment
on the issue?
PICKERING: I have been here in the Gulf for the last three days. I
know nothing about any such meetings in Houston, Texas, or otherwise,
so I am not in a position to confirm or even talk about them. We do, I
hasten to assure you, meet frequently with all parties to the peace
process. I myself had the pleasure of meeting with the Syrian Foreign
Minister a week and a half ago in Washington.
QUESTION: Mohammed Omar from "Akhbar Al Khalij." If I am not wrong, I
would say that the United States is very keen to see Saddam Hussein
leave the power there. It is quite obvious, and at the same time, I
think that Saddam's regime is getting day after day popularity among
the Arab people. Even here in the area, the Gulf nationals, they don't
want to see Saddam leave because they think that this is a matter
totally for the Iraqi people because they don't want actually to
interfere in the internal policies of the other countries. What is the
opinion of the United States about that?
PICKERING: Well, as for the first part of your question, I would refer
you to a speech given by the Secretary of State about a year ago in
the United States, in which she said the United States would look
forward to dealing with a successor regime to Saddam Hussein. I think
that speaks fairly clearly for itself and I would not disabuse you of
your conclusions. I would also say that I would only wish that somehow
Saddam Hussein would be responsive to the wishes of his own people. It
seems to me that he came as a dictator, he has remained as a dictator,
he has always been a dictator, and that many, many Iraqi people have
already voted with their own feet, and with their hearts and their
hands. I have only to refer to people of Kurdish origin and many of
the Shia'a.
I don't know what would happen if there were a free and fair election
in Iraq; it is an interesting question. I can only tell you that I
don't think the chances are very much larger than zero that that will
take place, and that as a result your conjecture about how the people
of Iraq truly feel, living under one of the world's most oppressive
dictatorships, is one about which I would express skepticism about
enthusiasm for the continuation of Saddam.
QUESTION: Adnan Malik from the Associated Press. I am speaking here of
reports about the cutback of the forces, U.S. forces in the Gulf, can
you just tell us about how significant this cutback would be?
PICKERING: Yes, I think that first and foremost I should tell you that
our policy in the Gulf and in dealing with Iraq has been based on
diplomacy backed up by the possible use of force and the threat of the
use of force. This remains a central tenet of our foreign policy in
dealing with Saddam, and so far we believe that diplomacy has been
effective, in large measure, as the Secretary General said when he was
in Baghdad in February, because it was backed up with the potential
for using force. In the coming days there will be redeployments, as we
have announced, and I have made it clear that we believe that we will
leave in the region adequate forces to do the job. In addition, should
emergencies again eventuate, we have new and I think very impressive
plans for rapid deployment should that be necessary. These particular
arrangements allow us a more flexible use of our forces to meet
contingencies elsewhere in the world, and at the same time to provide
the level of force, and support and backing in our diplomacy and that
our friends in the area we believe need in the face of what Saddam has
historically been doing in confronting the United Nations and the
world community.
QUESTION: Mr. Pickering, Richard Butler yesterday announced the
failure of Iraq's compliance with the United Nations Security
Council's resolutions in a closed Security Council session. He showed
surveillance, pictures from Iraq showing that Iraq did not comply. He
announced that there would be a future plan by UNSCOM which Iraq
should comply to if he would lift the sanctions. Can you give us
insight if you have any information concerning his plan? I have
another question: today Israeli newspapers published a draft of the
American proposal concerning the Middle East Peace Process, the
withdrawals, how much percentage and what are the other outlines of
the draft. Could you give us information concerning this as well?
PICKERING: With respect to the first question, I wasn't there and I
haven't received any reports, so I can't confirm the results of the
meeting, but I do know that the American permanent representative to
the United Nations, Ambassador Bill Richardson, said very clearly that
it was obvious and self-evident to all attendees at the meeting that
Iraq was not in compliance with its obligations under the United
Nations resolutions. With respect to reports that have been appearing
at a regular basis about the details of U.S. ideas, of course, as I
said in my earlier remarks, I am not going to confirm any such
details.
QUESTION. In conclusion what is the current position (inaudible)
PICKERING: You are using words that I know very well from my previous
experience with South Asian policy. Rather than to give it a
particular label, which I think would be misleading, I have given you
in my earlier response to your questions a series of examples of the
kinds of things that I believe would contribute to stability and
sanity in the area of South Asia, which I believe would be in the
interests of all the parties, and for the people of both countries.
(End transcript)
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