The White House Briefing Room
September 4, 1998
PRESS BRIEFING BY MIKE MCCURRY AND DEPUTY NATIONAL SECURITY ADVISOR JIM STEINBERG
3:10 P.M. (L)
THE WHITE HOUSE
Office of the Press Secretary
(Dublin, Ireland)
_____________________________________________________________
For Immediate Release September 4, 1998
PRESS BRIEFING BY
MIKE MCCURRY AND
DEPUTY NATIONAL SECURITY ADVISOR JIM STEINBERG
Dublin College Filing Center
Dublin, Ireland
3:10 P.M. (L)
................
Q Jim, if there's nothing to Scott Ritter's
charges of appeasement, why is the U.S. response to this round of
Iraqi intransigence so different from what it was some months ago
when we sent carrier battle groups and other Navy ships to the
region?
MR. STEINBERG: Well, I have a couple of
observations about that. First, in response to the last round of
challenges, we decided to reconfigure our forces in the region
because we were concerned that this pattern that was developing
-- that is Saddam would challenge, he would ultimately give in --
was leaving us in a situation where we had to keep deploying and
withdrawing forces which imposed costs, obviously, on our
military and had an impact; and that we wanted to have a posture
that would allow us to retain significant capability in the
region without have to constantly make specific deployments to
deal with the crisis and then withdraw them when the crisis
ended. So we have significantly greater fire power in important
respects now in the Gulf then we had at the time of the last
situation, which sustains a number of options for us.
Second, we are in the middle of this process, as the
President and others have said. We have not ruled out any
options in terms of the resolution of this. We have to use our
best judgment about the best way to marshal
the various tools and techniques that we have, including
diplomatic efforts. I think you're going to see further activity
in the U.N. Two weeks ago we got, in connection with the denial
of the sanctions review, one of the strongest statements by the
whole Security Council, unanimously, opposing the actions of
Saddam.
We want to be in a posture where it is clear that
what Saddam is doing is challenging not just the United States,
but the entire international community. I think the statements
of President Yeltsin while we were in Russia, his categorical
opposition to what Saddam was doing, his belief that it was an
offense against the Security Council, against Russia, not just
against the United States, helps us be in a posture which
maximizes the pressure on Saddam.
We're in the middle of this right now. It's by no
means over, and we are pressing ahead with what we think are the
best combination of tactics to try to get the inspection regime
in place.
Q Jim, are you saying it's counterproductive to
push a confrontation with Iraq until it's clear that multilateral
action is possible?
MR. STEINBERG: What I'm saying is that we want to
try to maximize the possibility of multilateral action without
ruling out any options.
..............
Thank you.
END 3:45 P.m. (L)
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