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U.S. Department of State

Daily Press Briefing

QUESTION: On Iraq, maybe.

QUESTION: Well, I have a -- (inaudible) - one. There are reports of an Iraqi army offensive in Southern Iraq against marsh Arabs.

MR. RUBIN: I have no information on that; I'll have to check that for you.

QUESTION: The inspections, which, the latest word is that they are to begin tomorrow -- some experts say that initial inspections will only be a test; that it will take a couple or three months to really dig in and that's when Saddam's true intentions should be clear. Could you speak to whether you think there will really be an early test of his sincerity?

MR. RUBIN: The pace and specifics of any inspection are to be determined by Chairman Butler under his own authority and pursuant to his professional judgment as to what they need to know and what they need to pursue. Clearly, Ambassador Butler has already spoken to the importance of getting the necessary documents from the Iraqis, getting the cooperation that has been so sadly missing all these years.

UNSCOM is a very complicated operation and I don't want to presume to judge for them how quickly this could or would come to a head. The bottom line is Iraq can fail to cooperate at any stage. Certainly one of the early tasks is to check on the monitoring equipment and try to determine what information that monitoring equipment has provided, to try to ascertain other information and gradually try to get to the bottom of these numerous outstanding questions. But I wouldn't be in a position to put a time frame on that for you. That is really up to Ambassador Butler. But I could say, logically, at any moment Saddam Hussein could choose to thwart the inspectors and not provide them the cooperation they need; and we are taking this one day at a time.

QUESTION: What will happen if he does that?

MR. RUBIN: I think we've made quite clear our position on this. We are poised to act if there's not full compliance.

QUESTION: So there will be military strikes?

MR. RUBIN: I said we are poised to act if there is not full compliance.

QUESTION: Jamie, the suggestion that, in this interim period, he's probably moved a bunch of his stuff around, is that a view the Administration shares with the experts?

MR. RUBIN: Well, certainly our view of Saddam Hussein is laden with a heavy, heavy dose of skepticism about things he says and things he does. And certainly there has been no shortage of attempts by Saddam Hussein and his henchmen to try to deny information, access and cooperation to UNSCOM over the recent seven-year period, and only provide cooperation when confronted with irrefutable evidence or cornered by the work of UNSCOM inspectors or UNSCOM monitors.

So we have no illusions about their desire to try to mask their programs, hide their discrepancies; and that's why it is so important for UNSCOM to do its work. Let's remember what UNSCOM really does and what it doesn't do. There's some misunderstanding about this. UNSCOM gets proof. If UNSCOM cannot verify Iraq's declarations, we keep the pressure on Iraq to come clean and prove what it claims. The VX discovery, for example, is what we discover when UNSCOM applies scientific methods to verify what Iraq says.

We can also get new information. By continually pressuring Iraq and backing that up, UNSCOM forces Iraq to come out and admit things it has denied have ever existed. An example of this, obviously, was the offensive biological weapons program. Also, we get insurance: When UNSCOM is inspecting, it's a deterrent and a way of ensuring that it's harder for Iraq to begin to reconstitute its weapons of mass destruction.

We've never claimed that UNSCOM has yet been able to uncover through simply stumbling upon whole treasure troves of data and equipment. Rather, what it does is, it corners the Iraqis and forces them to disclose their information. Sometimes people mistake the one for the other.

QUESTION: Jamie, you say indeed that this is an UNSCOM operation and that it's Chairman Butler's prerogative to decide one way or the other. But the President set down five criteria, benchmarks. So there is a strong US imprint on this operation. When, for instance, do you think the inspectors might get these lists that the President is demanding?

MR. RUBIN: Well, the President laid out things that the Secretary General has confirmed are his views of full compliance. That includes monitoring any sites they choose; providing free access; turning over all relevant documents; resolving outstanding issues; and not interfering with the independence or professional expertise of UNSCOM.

I am not saying that any one of those or any part of one of those is necessarily going to constitute action that will bring upon - what I'm saying to you is that when you put all that together - I almost got myself in trouble there, but pulled it right back in time.

When you put it all together, that is what full compliance is. And if Iraq wants a positive review during this comprehensive review, that is what it needs to do - be disclosing information, cooperating not only when it's cornered, but when it's asked. That constitutes full compliance. We will be poised to act if there is not full compliance, but I don't want to specify in advance what specific action will cause what result.

QUESTION: Well, I mean, I understand; but I don't suppose China or Russia are waiting on pins and needles to see if Iraq complies. It's the United States which has taken the lead.

MR. RUBIN: The Secretary General has taken this view.

QUESTION: Well, it's become - all right, that's why I'm asking you if it's a UN operation - you understand. If the UN has adopted Clinton's criteria, then you mean any question about when do you get your list is for Butler and the UN to figure out?

MR. RUBIN: I'm sorry; I don't understand the question.

QUESTION: All right. The US has established tests for Saddam Hussein --

MR. RUBIN: That would constitute full compliance, right.

QUESTION: Right, which have been absorbed by the UN.

MR. RUBIN: That Secretary General Kofi Annan has confirmed are his views as well.

QUESTION: Does that mean the US has passed off to the UN judgment on whether Saddam is complying?

MR. RUBIN: No, I think what's important here is we think UNSCOM is returning with a stronger sense of international support for all of the things that I described to you than it might have had going in. By the Secretary General of the UN confirming that all of those steps constitute full compliance, any doubt that might have been in the minds of Iraqis or other countries about the extent to which the US and the UN had a meeting of the minds on what constitutes full compliance has been eliminated.

QUESTION: Non-essential personnel that was taken out of Israel and Kuwait, are they back?

MR. RUBIN: There has been no change in our authorized departure notice and order.

QUESTION: It was just a dozen, wasn't it?

MR. RUBIN: A couple of dozen we expected to take advantage of it. But the authorized departure, the order, has not changed.

QUESTION: If I understood you correctly, earlier you said the inspectors would go in and check monitoring equipment and ascertain information. It doesn't look like they'll be very aggressive.

MR. RUBIN: I don't know how you can possibly draw that conclusion. We expect UNSCOM and its inspectors to, as I - I was asked a question about how they will go about doing their work. If you've been gone for a while, the first thing you do is you check your equipment, check your materials, find out what's there; and then you go about setting up a plan of inspections. Any suggestion that they won't be aggressive -- I don't understand how you could draw that conclusion from what I said.

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