• Military

• WMD Menu                           

• Introduction
• Systems
• Facilities
• Agencies
• Operations
• Countries
• Hot Documents
• News
• Reports
• Policy
• Budget
• Congress
• Links

• Intelligence
• Homeland Security
• Space

U.S. Department of State

Daily Press Briefing

.......................

QUESTION: Would you hazard a guess as to the future of the oil-for-food program? There was a report today that the Iraqi regime seems to have --

MR. RUBIN: Yes, I thought that report accurately summarized the basic situation, which is that it was the United States and the European countries and the Security Council that came to the rescue of the people of Iraq by creating a program that has provided 6 million tons of food to the - I may have gotten the tons wrong - an incredibly large amount of food to the people of Iraq - far more than they were getting when their own government refused to spend their money on food and medicine and supplies. Iraq has not been at the forefront of countries advocating this oil-for-food program; they've resisted it all along. We think that the reason they resist it is because they continue to want to use their people as pawns in an international game to try to get sanctions lifted.

Let it be clear if it's not clear already - sanctions will not be lifted unless Saddam Hussein comes clean and allows the inspectors to do their job. That is the first necessary prerequisite for sanctions to be suspended or lifted.

The oil-for-food program has worked very well in providing significant amounts of food and medicine to the people of Iraq. We want it to continue to work, and we want to work through the Sanctions Committee to make available the equipment necessary so that oil can be exported so that food can be provided to the hungry people that need it.

If Iraq were to take a decision that they cared more about using their people as international pawns than they do about the health and welfare of hundreds of thousands of innocent children and women and children and poor people, there is not a lot we can do about that other than to insist on our desire to have this program succeed, to continue to provide the facility by which food and medicine goes to the people of Iraq; and that's what we're going to do.

...............

(The briefing concluded at 1:45 P.M.)

[end of document]