• 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: Jamie, next week Great Britain is convening a meeting of 15 Iraqi opposition groups to urge them to resolve their differences and work towards diplomacy. Do you have any comment on that meeting next Monday?

MR. RUBIN: Well, we have been supportive -- and President Clinton spoke to this - of the idea of developing as rapidly as possible an engagement with opposition groups and other parties by strengthening our political and economic support for them. We want to do so in a prudent and viable manner that makes the opposition a more effective voice for the aspirations of the Iraqi people.

With respect to the British effort, we're obviously supportive of their efforts to do the same thing - which is to develop and work with the opposition to coordinate and make more effective the possibility that they could present a viable alternative to the current regime in Iraq. So we're supportive of the United Kingdom's efforts in this regard.

QUESTION: Will you all get involved in that --

MR. RUBIN: I don't know what specific involvement we will have in person, but we've been working very closely with many of these groups for a long time. We'll continue to do so. The British and American efforts are aimed at the same objective, and I expect to be coordinating closely with the United Kingdom.

QUESTION: Mr. Ahmed Chalabi was in town yesterday and possibly is today. Does he have any meetings in the State Department?

MR. RUBIN: My understanding is he is expected to meet with Assistant Secretary Indyk today.

QUESTION: How would you characterize the support among your Arab allies towards this program - particularly those immediately surrounding Iraq and in the Gulf.

MR. RUBIN: Well, I don't want to characterize their position. Obviously, we want to work to support the Iraqi opposition to make this viable alternative as effective as possible. We will consult with other states in the region about our plans, but I prefer not to characterize their views for you.

QUESTION: On weapons inspections, the UNSCOM inspectors are back. What is the US position on how quickly and intrusively these inspections should take place?

MR. RUBIN: UNSCOM has announced that monitoring staff continue to arrive in Baghdad and that the immediate priority will be to reestablish - as I indicated yesterday - monitoring infrastructure, like testing communications equipment, rebooting computer files, confirming the location of tag monitor equipment the Iraqis may have moved. It's the necessary work to do serious monitoring.

I am not going to preview UNSCOM's work for you. We have great confidence in Ambassador Butler, and whatever program of work he develops we believe will be an effective and important way to achieve the objectives of the UN Security Council resolutions. It's really up to him to describe that plan. I've talked to you about the broad requirements for Iraq to comply with in recent days, but it's really up to Ambassador Butler to announce his intentions as to how to go forward with an effective program. We will be supportive of his efforts.

QUESTION: Follow-up on that - an official Iraqi scientist said yesterday that the Iraqis would hand over relevant documents for weapons inspection, implying that non-relevant documents would not be. Is that good enough, as far as the US is concerned?

MR. RUBIN: Well, if the definition of relevant is relevant, that will be fine. The problem has been that Iraq has denied documents, using whatever excuse they can and whatever definitions they can.

What's relevant are documents that directly or indirectly bear on the amount of weapons of mass destruction Iraq has had, the programs that it developed and what happened to those programs. That is relevant. To the extent that they provide relevant documents for the first time in a cooperative, disclosing way, that will be an important indicator of their intent to cooperate. But we're not holding our breath.

QUESTION: Has the Secretary been in touch or been working on the diplomatic front in case --

MR. RUBIN: She has been in touch with certain countries about this issue. I don't have a list of calls right now, but she's been working on the Iraq issue, including with phone calls.

QUESTION: Do you know what region -- phone calls in the region, do you know?

MR. RUBIN: I don't have the list.

QUESTION: I don't know if you can address this, but does the State Department have any concerns that Iraq might have been tipped off on any of your plans concerning the region?

MR. RUBIN: People have spoken to this; we've seen the reports. First of all, I don't think it would take an intellectual genius to know, after Friday, that things were getting hot. I think that was something that you all seemed to be quite familiar with. So you didn't need a Ph.D. in military planning or an elaborate intelligence apparatus to know that things were getting very close to the point where force might have been used.

With respect to any specific tip-off, I'm not aware of a big effort to try to determine that; that doesn't mean there aren't people in the government who were not concerned about things like that -- that's their job to always be concerned about things like that.

QUESTION: Do you know, Jamie, if the Iraqi Government had organized any kind of deployment of their citizens around potential targets on this particular occasion, this last weekend?

MR. RUBIN: I'm not aware of that, but I don't know all the details of what they'd done.

QUESTION: Don't most governments put their citizens underground in some protective place?

MR. RUBIN: Well, Iraq is a country that tends to make its citizens pawns in the process. For example, their refusal to buy food and medicine for many years for their own people and then to claim concern about those people put us in a position where we developed the oil-for-food plan, which provided billions of dollars' worth of food and medicine that had to go their people. They've in the past shown great cowardice and the worst kind of behavior in putting their citizens at risk. I just don't happen to know the facts as to what they did on this occasion.

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

QUESTION: Can I ask another Iraq question?

MR. RUBIN: Please, I love Iraq questions.

QUESTION: Prior to the last crisis, or during the last crisis, the United States was talking a lot about unanimous support for the United States' position. How would you characterize the allied support today if you did find yourself in a position where the military option again became an option?

MR. RUBIN: I think the decisions Iraq made in the run-up to the recent crisis were ones that put them in flat opposition to all the countries in the world. The fact that they were so isolated, that no country was prepared to stand up for them, is a fact that remains. We do believe the world is united in demanding Iraqi compliance with the UN Security Council resolutions. In particular, UN Secretary General, former Under Secretary General but current Secretary General Annan's statements about the importance of cooperation by Iraq strengthen UNSCOM's hands as they go about their work.

So we think that what happened is a result of the recent crisis is that Iraq painted itself into a corner, lost its friends, had to capitulate and is now facing a greater and greater demand from the international community for more and more complete cooperation with the UN Special Commission.

QUESTION: What is the US view on whether Saddam Hussein should stand trial for crimes against humanity?

MR. RUBIN: Well, in that regard let me say the specific case of Halabja is an example of behavior that is truly horrific and we have talked about the crimes Saddam committed against the Iraqi people in Halabja and neighboring areas in 1988. An estimated 5,000 people were killed when he used poison gas against innocent Iraqi Kurdish civilians.

As part of our effort to help the international community focus attention on the regime's crimes against humanity we have worked with Dr. Christine Godsden, a UK scientist who has done research on this issue, and with the Washington Kurdish Institute to support a seminar that is designed -- that is going to be held this week. It is designed to explore the implications of the Halabja tragedy and ways in which the international community can deal issues like this.

We have committed funds to help bring this seminar into being and we've obviously worked internally and with other governments for many years to try to develop evidence on the subject of war crimes and crimes against humanity.

QUESTION: The United States maintained friendly relations with Iraq after Halabja, but that was a different Administration.

MR. RUBIN: Well, fortunately I don't have to speak for all previous Administrations or it would be even harder than it already is.

QUESTION: This seminar - who did you say was going to be sponsoring it? Are you sponsoring it?

MR. RUBIN: We have provided support for a seminar organized by the Washington Kurdish Institute on Halabja and Iraqi chemical weapons at Meridian House this week. Funding for this conference comes from some of the $5 million appropriated by Congress to support the Iraqi opposition.

In other words, one piece of this whole puzzle is getting greater and greater understanding around the world for the horrific crimes committed by Saddam Hussein's regime.

QUESTION: Do you not, then, have a specific position about war crimes trial for Saddam Hussein?

MR. RUBIN: I think we've spoken to this issue in the past. Let me try to get you some past guidance on that.

QUESTION: Same subject - there was a report that the United Nations group concerned with chemical warfare - I'm sorry, the chemical warfare agreement out in Geneva has noted that Iraq and Israel are among those who have not signed. Is the Administration urging Israel to sign, despite the fact that Iraq hasn't signed and that Halabja exists and we know that she's used chemical warfare weapons?

MR. RUBIN: We have a universal position that all governments should sign the Chemical Weapons Convention.

QUESTION: Is there any attempt to get Saddam Hussein to sign that you know of?

MR. RUBIN: I think that we prefer that he start cooperating with UNSCOM. We'll worry about treaties later.

QUESTION: I'm sorry, back to this seminar - this is an open seminar; anyone can go who would like to go?

MR. RUBIN: I urge you to get in touch with the Washington Kurdish Institute and they - it's taking place on November 18 and 19.

QUESTION: Okay, because there was some feeling that people participating in it would prefer to do it in private.

MR. RUBIN: You'll have to talk to them; I just don't know. It's their show. We're supporting it because we believe the issue is important.

QUESTION: Do you have there the dollar amount the US has put in? I mean, you said it's part of the $5 million.

MR. RUBIN: I don't have that level of detail.

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

QUESTION: Jamie, just to go, I'm sorry, go back to the --

MR. RUBIN: The conference?

QUESTION: Well, the bigger, the larger issue of the conference .

MR. RUBIN: I really think you should go to this conference.

QUESTION: Believe me, I -

QUESTION: It's on background, he won't go.

(Laughter.)

QUESTION: Don't start with the background. I waiting for the passport briefing. Earlier this week, or maybe late last week, it was said that if Saddam, as unlikely as it probably is, if Saddam met the requirements of the weapons inspections, you could dispense with the other issues, and --

MR. RUBIN: No, I didn't -- nobody said that.

QUESTION: It could be handled easily, and --

MR. RUBIN: Nobody said that.

QUESTION: They would fall under - okay, whatever it was you said, whatever your words were.

MR. RUBIN: I stand by my words.

(Laughter.)

QUESTION: Whatever your words were, my impression was that it was something like, we can handle -- the other issues can be dealt with rather quickly.

MR. RUBIN: I think I'm going to have to restate it all over again; but what's the question?

QUESTION: Okay, the question is, how does that thought - however you'd like to interpret it - jive with this, now with the war crimes issue? Apparently, no matter what Saddam might or might not do, the position of the Clinton Administration is, he first has to - the issue of the war crimes has to be dealt with before anything else.

MR. RUBIN: I think I'm not going to have to repeat the issue, because it's very simple. We have serious doubts as to whether Saddam Hussein will ever comply with Security Council resolutions because of the behavior, including behavior like killing your own people with chemical weapons. But as a matter of legal and international policy, of course, if he were to meet the conditions of the Security Council resolutions, we would see our way clear to act pursuant to those resolutions. But we think that's a moot point, because we have no reason to believe that he ever will do that, given past practice.

QUESTION: But on top of the Security Council resolutions, will you also hold him - hold up any easing of the embargo, as far as the United States is concerned, on his coming to justice or standing trial for these charges?

MR. RUBIN: We have a position on the question of Saddam Hussein and responsibility for war crimes that I offered to provide you in writing.

QUESTION: Okay, and also how that would jive with the easing of the embargo as well?

MR. RUBIN: Sure.

QUESTION: And can we expect to get that by the end of today?

MR. RUBIN: As soon as we can get it for you, but I can't give you any expectations.

QUESTION: One more back to North Korea -- in the meeting, did Ambassador Kartman raise the resumption of the missile talks?

MR. RUBIN: I don't - I know the subject and focus of the meeting was the other; I don't know whether that came up.

(The briefing concluded at 1:05 P.M.)

[end of document]