The White House Briefing Room
December 16, 1998
PRESS BRIEFING BY NATIONAL SECURITY ADVISOR SANDY BERGER
7:18 P.M. EST
THE WHITE HOUSE
Office of the Press Secretary
______________________________________________________________
For Immediate Release December 16, 1998
PRESS BRIEFING BY
NATIONAL SECURITY ADVISOR SANDY BERGER
The Briefing Room
7:18 P.M. EST
MR. BERGER: You've heard a good deal over the last hour
or so from the President, Secretary Cohen, General Shelton, Secretary
Albright. I want to basically take your questions.
Let me simply reconstruct some recent history and take you back to
November 14th when the President decided to pause to halt the
military strike when Saddam Hussein essentially caved into the demand
that we had made that he fully cooperate with UNSCOM.
At that time, as you recall, Saddam, the Iraqi officials
sent a letter to the Security Council indicating that they would
commit to full and unconditional cooperation with UNSCOM. And the
President on November 15, when he said he was pausing or staying the
military action, was very clear that he wanted to test whether or not
Saddam Hussein would, in fact, comply with the commitment he had
made. And he outlined five criteria with which that would be judged.
And I would point out that on the night of November 14
-- 13, I guess -- 14 -- the last thing that we put in place was a
phone call at 3:00 a.m. in the morning to Secretary Annan to make
clear that these were the -- these five elements of compliance were
the same way in which he saw compliance. And he said that that was,
in fact, the case. And they involved resolving all outstanding
issues with UNSCOM, giving inspectors unfettered access, turning over
all relevant documents, acceptance of all WMD resolutions and
non-interference with the weapons inspectors. And Prime Minister
Blair and the President on the 14th and 15th made it very clear that
they needed then to test that proposition.
On the 17th of November, UNSCOM began to test Iraq's
cooperation. The timetable for that effort was established by UNSCOM
and its Chairman, Richard Butler. It completed its work on Sunday
and reported to the Council yesterday. UNSCOM's conclusion is
unambiguous. Iraq did not provide the full cooperation it promised
on 14 November. They wrote -- the report noted that, "Iraq's conduct
ensured that no progress was able to be made in the field of
disarmament." And finally, perhaps most significantly, that "the
Commission's not able to conduct its substantive disarmament work."
In short, the Commission has essentially said it's not able to
function. It has been essentially eviscerated.
Under these circumstances, the President, I believe had
no choice but to take military action. He proceeded on the
recommendation of all of his national security advisors, and in
particular, the recommendation of his military advisors, that if
he acted he should do so swiftly with the least possible warning
and the greatest degree of surprise for the greatest degree of
effectiveness of the strikes themselves.
Now, the President and the Secretary have outlined the
objectives here. The objectives of this military action are to
attack his weapons of mass destruction and missile delivery
production capability and to attack his military capability to
threaten his neighbors and, in so doing, to degrade both. And the
mission will continue until such time as we believe the
objectives have been completed.
Q If I could follow up on that, the President said,
talking about timing, and one of the reasons for acting today, he
wanted to avoid initiating a military strike during Ramadan, or
words to that effect. Does that suggest, since Ramadan will
start in four or five days, that this will be completed, or can
you continue a military strike during Ramadan?
MR. BERGER: Well, there is no artificial deadline for this
action. The President expressed the sensitivity that we have to
the holy month of Ramadan and said in particular that he
understood that initiating military action during that period
would be particularly offensive. But, as I say, there is no --
I'm not going to specify how long this will go on.
Q Then you're suggesting that it might continued then, by
emphasizing that the initiating was the key word.
MR. BERGER: I would not rule that out.
Q Sandy, would you respond to this, which has already
been reported, that the air strikes, that the attack itself will
end before Ramadan begins -- that's been reported -- and I want
to ask you how you can conceive of this as more than a so-called
slap on the wrist or pin prick -- how it can be possibly equated
to what was advertised a month ago as a massive strike severely
punishing Saddam? You can't do it in three days, can you?
MR. BERGER: Well, I think that this is a substantial
military action. I don't want to discuss the details of it. It
is no less than what we had contemplated in November.
Q In duration?
MR. BERGER: I'm not going to discuss duration. Nor did we
discuss duration in November. But I believe this will be a
substantial strike, and I believe, hopefully, it will accomplish
its objectives. Now that UNSCOM is not on the ground to help
detect WMD and to be a deterrent against WMD reconstitution, we
will seek to do, through air strikes, some of that work. It's
obviously not as good as UNSCOM, but there is certainly a
diminution in his capability that we can effectuate. And, by
hitting his military infrastructure, we can reduce his ability to
threaten his neighbors.
Q Is this the end of UNSCOM, then? Are you talking
about, now, a policy of military containment? And if not, what
are you looking for from Saddam at this point?
MR. BERGER: Well, I think it's very important to recognize
-- let me say this first. If, at some point, Saddam Hussein were
to decide to allow UNSCOM back in and to cooperate with it fully,
that would be a welcome development. I think it is a highly
unlikely development.
But the fact of the matter is, UNSCOM has been ineffective
for some time. And that's what Richard Butler said on Tuesday.
He said, we can't do our job. And for UNSCOM, it can stay in
Baghdad, but it's a sham, is essentially what he's saying,
because of the deception; because of the tactics and techniques
that have been escalating, particularly over the last year. It
is ineffectual; it is not able to do its job by its own judgment.
And therefore, to have a Potemkin UNSCOM in Iraq doesn't make
much sense. It doesn't provide much deterrence against WMD
activity.
Q But I don't understand how this will. I mean, can
military containment provide an effective means to limit his
building of weapons of mass destruction?
MR. BERGER: Well, I think there have been several elements
to a containment policy. I think there have been basically four.
One has been the economic sanctions, which we will endeavor to
maintain in place. Those have deprived Saddam Hussein of $120
billion that he would otherwise have to reconstitute his
military. Not just WMD; his tanks, everything else. Unless he's
in full compliance with the resolutions, and there's no -- that
doesn't seem to be over the horizon, we will seek to maintain the
sanctions.
Number two, we've sought to maintain UNSCOM as a mechanism
to help detect and deter the reconstitution of his WMD program.
Number three, we've had a credible threat of force, which says,
basically, if you act recklessly; if you threaten your neighbors,
we're going to act. And number four, we've tried to hold
together the support from the region and from other key allies.
If UNSCOM is essentially ended by Saddam Hussein, and if we
take no action as a result, two of those four elements have been
destroyed -- UNSCOM and the threat of force. Because the threat
of force will be meaningless if, under these circumstances, the
President did not act.
Q Sandy, had you had the plan already set up that, if
Butler's report came back as you probably expected that it would
come back, that this attack could start at this time? It didn't
take you very long to start the attack. Was this already in the
planning stages?
MR. BERGER: We began planning for this on November 15th,
after the last episode. We did so by putting our forces in a
position and in a posture that could act very quickly. We knew
soon thereafter that there would be a series of inspections
roughly during this week. I don't know that we had a judgment as
to whether Saddam Hussein would comply. I mean, one would think
that since at the end of this, had there been full cooperation,
there would have been a comprehensive review in the U.N. to look
at all of his compliance that maybe for three weeks he could have
figured out a way to comply.
It suggests to me, and it suggests to the President, that he
has no intention of complying. Even when three weeks down the
road had he complied and cooperated, he would have had a
comprehensive review, which would have looked at all of the
issues.
Q What do you say to the Republican critics who are
spitting mad about this, they think it's to distract from
impeachment. Eagleburger said it smells to high heaven. Trent
Lott is against it and so forth. I mean, is there -- can you
appease them in any way?
MR. BERGER: Well, I could only say this, that this in an
action taken by the President solely on the basis of his best
judgment of what is in the national security interest of the
United States, both with respect to the action and the swiftness
with which he acted after Butler's report. It is an action that
was supported by all of his national security advisors, military,
foreign policy, and otherwise. And no other factor was permitted
to alter that.
Q Does that include that his best judgment is that his
impeachment is not in the best interest of the United States?
MR. BERGER: No, I think -- I don't even know what that
question means. It's kind of cute, but anyhow -- it means that
that was not a factor in the President's decision-making.
Q Sandy, when did it become apparent that a decision
about military force was imminent? And when did the actual final
decision get made?
MR. BERGER: I think that it became clear, John, on Tuesday,
when we -- we had some indication of Butler's conclusions as
early as, I think, Sunday. But we had basically had his final
conclusions on Tuesday, I think -- that we were on the plane,
literally coming back from the Middle East.
We had a conference call on the plane, secure conference call.
The Secretary and myself were on the plane with the President,
the Vice President, the Secretary of Defense, the Director of
Central Intelligence, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs, my
Deputy, Jim Steinberg, and Don Kerrick -- Deputies -- and Leon
Feurth, the Vice President's National Security Advisor, were on
the phone here. We talked it through. We went around the horn
and asked everybody what their recommendation was. The
recommendation was unanimous the President should go forward.
Q Can I have a follow up on what Helen said? Senator
Lott has questioned the timing; he has also questioned the
intensity of the attach. And Senator John McCain, who usually
backs any military action, has also questioned whether this is
just a pinprick action or whether you'll go much farther and
really degrade Saddam Hussein.
MR. BERGER: Well, I think it's a little premature to judge
the intensity of the action, which has been going on for two and
a half hours.
Q But their question is whether it will be --
MR. BERGER: So let's make that judgment after the fact,
rather than before the fact.
Q Well, what I was saying was Trent Lott and John McCain
basically were saying --
MR. BERGER: Questioned the timing. Let me walk through the
timing consideration again, because it is certainly a question
that we knew would be raised. It was the very strong view of the
military people, when we began thinking about the prospect of
this after November 15th -- after the President basically laid
down the marker, the word of the United States, that if he
didn't' comply we would act -- that if we acted, we should act
swiftly. We've learned from previous episodes that the longer
the time between CNN reporting that we're thinking about acting
and actually acting, the more time Saddam Hussein has to disperse
his forces, the more time he has to move things that we would
like not to be moved.
And, therefore, the element of surprise here, of tactical
surprise, was extremely important. And that should Butler come
back and report, I think we didn't anticipate it would be as
stark as it is. But should he come back and report clearly that
there was a problem, that we should act as swiftly as it was
militarily possible. And that basically was a 24-hour period.
Q There's no visible sign of support from anybody but the
British. A month ago you had a lot of people lined up. Where is
everybody else?
MR. BERGER: Well, based on the phone calls that all of us
have made today -- the Secretary of State, myself, Secretary of
Defense, the President -- I think there is a good deal of support
in the world --
Q They're not out there publicly.
MR. BERGER: Well, if could finish. We made a conscious
decision and back in February we put together a coalition of
several -- three, four dozen countries that all had participated
in the arsenal that was prepared. That is a time consuming
process. You have to fit in the extra plane* so that it
interfaces with the rest of the operation. It takes weeks to do
that. You lose the element of surprise. We decided that we
would act with the British, ourselves, with the support of many
other countries, but not necessarily with their participation
because the process of securing that participation in and of
itself would have taken us days and now weeks.
Q How about just an endorsement?
Q Do you know where Saddam Hussein is, and do you care
whether he is alive or dead?
MR. BERGER: I suspect we will see that.
Q Sandy, do you care if --
MR. BERGER: Let me just say -- excuse me, Bill -- that
yesterday the Gulf Cooperation Council, which consists of all of
the Gulf countries, issued a statement saying in terms very
similar to the statement that they issued back in the second week
of November, that if Saddam Hussein did not comply and did not
cooperation, the consequences of his actions would be his
responsibility alone. And I take that to be quite a forthcoming
statement.
Q Sandy, do you know where Saddam is?
Q Did you specifically seek the support of the
congressional leadership? Did you get their support? And are
you surprised or dismayed by Lott's reaction?
MR. BERGER: We talked through this period with the
congressional leadership, both in the House and in the Senate.
Obviously, we would like the support of all members of Congress.
It's a judgment they have to make. I noticed that Senator Helms
just issued a statement in support of what we did. I believe
there are other Republicans and Democrats in the Congress that
are supportive.
Q Sandy, do you know where Saddam Hussein is? And does
the administration care if he is alive or dead?
MR. BERGER: I just got a quick factual correction. The GCC
statement was last week, not yesterday.
Q Do you know where Saddam Hussein is at this moment and
does the administration care if he is alive or dead?
MR. BERGER: Well, I think I've set forward the objectives
of the mission; that is, to degrade his military capability and
to degrade his WMD and missile delivery capability and I'm not
going to go any further in terms of --
Q The Russian Duma is scheduled to vote within the next
10 days or so on START II. Given Russia's obvious attitude
toward this military action, do you expect what's going on right
now to delay START II even further or even kill it?
MR. BERGER: Well, I would hope not. START II is very much
not only in the interest of the United States, it's very much in
the interest of Russia. And I would hope the members of the Duma
would act in the best interest of the Russian Federation.
Q What is your expectation.
MR. BERGER: I have no expectation with that. I think it
was hard to predict before this; we certainly would hope that
they would do that.
Q Sandy, half a dozen senators have sent a letter to the
President saying it's time to get serious about implementing the
Iraq Liberation Act and urging that Saddam Hussein be indicted
for war crimes. Is indicting Saddam Hussein something the
administration is considering?
MR. BERGER: Well, first of all let me say, as the President
said on November 15th, we -- and he said again today -- in the
interim we have to contain Saddam Hussein, all the elements that
I mentioned to Claire, in terms of sanctions, in terms of use of
military force where necessary.
But over the long-term we agree with the Congress that the
solution here is a government in Iraq that respects its own
people. We intend to proceed on the Iraqi Liberation Act. We
have already done a number of things -- most importantly is to
change what's called our declarative policy with respect to Iraq,
that is, what our stated goals are.
We will work very actively with the opposition. We've
already met with them in London. one of the things that's
important is to try to bring the opposition groups together in a
more coherent, cohesive operation. Right now they're quite
divided. We will do -- I think as Secretary Albright has said
that we would support and indite Iraq campaign, Radio Free Iraq.
This is something that has to be seen as a long-term goal; we
have to proceed in a practical, prudent, effective way -- but we
have to keep our eye on the goal and be steady about it. And I
think we are moving toward that objective.
Q Sandy, on many occasions in the past when Saddam
Hussein broke his promises the United States refrained from
taking military action. This time Clinton takes action the very
eve of his impeachment vote, which is expected against him, and
effectively delays that vote. How can you say that this doesn't
at least have the perception of "Wag The Dog"?
MR. BERGER: Well, I can't deal with perceptions; I can only
deal with realities. The fact is, in those previous instances,
what happened was the United States built up our military
capability, we threatened force, and he backed down.
Now, in this situation -- having backed down on November
15th, and our setting criteria -- he violated those commitments
that he made on November 14th. And the President was very clear
on November 14th and 15th of what would happen if he did not
fully cooperate.
And what the United States says matters in the world. And
the credibility of our word, and the fact that we will carry out
what we say we will do, is important. So all I can tell you is
that this was -- we have spent countless hours on this over the
last two weeks, and certainly over the last several days. And
the President has been extremely firm and steadfast in making it
clear that the criteria here, that he was going to make a
decision on, was what is in the national security interest, and
that the fact of the congressional debate would not alter what he
saw was his responsibility as President.
Q Sandy, was the attack actually launched last night?
Did you start the process -- was the trigger pulled last night?
And if so, what was this morning for? What was the meeting this
morning about?
MR. BERGER: We just like each other, we like to meet at
7:00 a.m. when we arrive home at 1:00 a.m. I don't really want
to get into too many details about timelines here. In a
situation like this, the President essentially makes a "go"
decision, which he made -- initially last night, but there are
points in which, as we know from November 14th, where he can turn
the key off. And there was a point today in which the real
decision as to whether or not to go forward -- or to stop going
forward, I guess, is the best way to put it -- arose.
The President -- we had a principals meeting at 7:00 A.M.
The President joined us down in the situation room. We went back
through it again; we told him where things were with respect to
UNSCOM evacuation; with respect to notification of allies; with
respect to support from the region. And, you know, we sort of
went around the table again and everybody had their say.
Q Sandy, could you clarify on briefing congressional
leaders -- did you do that today? Did you do it last night? Or
are you just saying you talked to them in general, after November
15th? And what did they say to you when you -- if you asked them
for their support or for their opinion about the wisdom of going
forward?
MR. BERGER: I have stayed in touch with former Speaker
Gingrich; Speaker-elect Livingston? What is the title -- Speaker
Livingston --
Q Congressman Livingston.
MR. BERGER: Congressman Livingston; Congressman Gephardt;
Senator Daschle and Senator Lott through this period to basically
just keep them abreast of what was happening -- inspections were
going to take place; Butler was going to go forward; this was
basically the timetable.
So I have talked to them a couple of times a week during
this period. Yesterday, Secretary Cohen -- since he was here,
and we were on planes with lousy phones -- spoke at length to
Mr. Livingston, Mr. Lott and Mr. Gingrich. The President, last
night, when we got back home at about 1:00 a.m., called Mr.
Gephardt and Mr. Daschle. And then today, he spoke to, I think,
all of the leaders this afternoon, before the action commenced.
Q And told them that it was underway, or about to be
underway?
MR. BERGER: Told them that he -- today he told them that he
intended to proceed, obviously.
Q And did you get support from the Republican leadership
there?
MR. BERGER: Well, I don't think it's fair for me to
characterize their views. They will speak to that themselves.
Q How worried are you that what you've outlined is
essentially, as you put it, a policy right now of military
containment, and then in the long-term, perhaps, a new regime.
But in between, how do you monitor the weapons of mass
destruction program effectively because the case you all have
made over and over again is that without UNSCOM you can't do
that.
MR. BERGER: I come back to my answer to your earlier
question. You assume that UNSCOM was alive and well and
functioning --
Q No, no, I don't --
MR. BERGER: What Richard Butler said yesterday was, UNSCOM
is sick and ineffective. And I think that it's been their
judgment over the past several months that they have become
increasingly unable to perform their functions. So when they
reach that judgment that they can't do their job, they can stay
in Baghdad and stay at the Baghdad Hilton or wherever they stay
and go out from time to time. But in terms of effective work,
what they have said is that they can't do effective work.
Now, what we can do -- so we have to recognize that fact,
what we can do militarily is to destroy some of the facilities
that relate to WMD* and the missile systems. We can monitor --
we have, obviously, our own means of intelligence. And to the
extent we have any information that -- we have information that
they are reconstituting, any of their WMD* programs, we reserve
the right to take military action again.
Q You said earlier that it would be a positive
development, although you certainly didn't expect it, if Iraq
were to allow UNSCOM back in and comply fully. Is there anything
that Iraq could now say or do that would encourage the
administration to consider bringing to an end more quickly this
current series of attacks? Is there anything they can say or do
that would cut any ice with you now?
MR. BERGER: I think the -- I think we will conduct and
complete the mission as planned.
Q Sandy, going back to the "Wag the Dog" theory real
quick -- I know you don't like it, but nonetheless, you have
Republicans talking against this timing issue, but you also have
friends --
MR. BERGER: Let me just interrupt you for a second. Let's
let all the returns come in. I suspect by the end of the night
you will see some very prominent -- excuse me, if I can finish --
you'll see some very prominent Republicans being supportive.
Senator Helms, the Chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations
Committee is obviously someone whose views matter.
Q Sandy, but going back to some of the Democrats and some
of the friends of the President, Reverend Jesse Jackson just came
out less than a half an hour ago and said that especially now
that he's going to be holding this rally tomorrow, he said that
the motive was clear, but the timing is suspicious.
MR. BERGER: Well, he's wrong. And I'm a great friend and
admirer of the Reverend Jesse Jackson, but he's just wrong.
Q You're basically saying that the U.S. will be in a kind
of state of war with Iraq from now on until --
MR. BERGER: No, listen -- understand we have had a policy
of containment for seven years. This is not the first time we've
used military force. The Bush administration used military force
after the Gulf War. In 1992 we have used military force once
when they -- we learned that they had attempted to assassinate
President Bush. We deployed military force when they started to
move towards Kuwait.
I think the fact of the matter is that so long as Saddam
Hussein is there, he has to be contained. If he believes that
there is a credible threat of force, he is less likely to act
recklessly. Had we not acted today in view of the conclusion of
UNSCOM that it had been rendered ineffective, we would have
eliminated the credible threat of force. Saddam Hussein
unrestricted or unimpeded by the fear of force is a danger to the
region.
Thank you.
Q Thank you.
END 7:50 P.M. EST
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