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16 December 1998

EXCERPTS: GORE COMMENTS ON IRAQ STRIKE DECEMBER 16

(Vice President interviewed by CNN's Larry King) (390)
Washington -- Vice President, interviewed by CNN's Larry King late
December 16, explained why the United States felt obliged to strike at
Iraq's Saddam Hussein earlier in the day.
Following are excerpts from the Vice President's interview:
(begin excerpts)
"We tried to make this inspection regime work, and Saddam would not
cooperate. In fact, he obstructed the inspectors. And so we are going
to take the other alternative available to us, to use our military to
degrade his ability to get weapons of mass destruction and threaten
his neighbors. We'll make an assessment whenever this military action
is completed. If, at some point in the future he decides to try to
continue to threaten his neighbors and get weapons of mass
destruction, we may have to do it again."
"There are no plans for any kind of ground invasion or ground
activity. There's no thought of anything like that. I will say that we
have supported the Iraq Liberation Act passed by the Congress. We
would like to see a different kind of regime in Iraq. We've said that
plenty of times. But this action is focussed specifically and
precisely on preventing him or degrading his ability to get weapons of
mass destruction or to threaten his neighbors and we're going to
continue it until we achieve that objective."
"We have strong support from around the world. The British are
participating. We have strong support in the region. We're very
pleased with the level of support for this. I think people all over
the world are really fed up with Saddam Hussein."
"If you allow someone like Saddam Hussein to get nuclear weapons,
ballistic missiles, chemical weapons, biological weapons, how many
people is he going to kill with such weapons? He's already
demonstrated a willingness to use these weapons. He poison-gassed his
own people. He used poison gas and other weapons of mass destruction
against his neighbors. This man has no compunction about killing lots
and lots of people. So this is a way to save lives and to save the
stability and peace of a region of the world that is important to the
peace and security of the entire world."
(end excerpts)