EDITED TRANSCRIPT OF PRESS CONFERENCE GIVEN BY THE SECRETARY OF STATE FOR DEFENCE, MR. GEORGE ROBERTSON, AND THE CHIEF OF DEFENCE STAFF, GENERAL SIR CHARLES GUTHRIE, LONDON, THURSDAY 17 DECEMBER 1998
MR. ROBERTSON:
I am here this morning to give you some further information. I am accompanied here by General Sir Charles Guthrie, the Chief of the Defence Staff.As you already know, military action against Iraq began at 2200 London time last night, it was a joint decision taken by the United States of America and the United Kingdom. The attacks so far have been confined to Cruise missiles and aircraft launched from the United States naval platform but operations are continuing and will include United Kingdom forces. The decision to commit our personnel to action was not a decision taken lightly. We, like so many people in the world, would have preferred a peaceful solution but Saddam Hussein left us no alternative.
Since 1991 and the end of the Gulf War, our aim has been to prevent Saddam from maintaining or developing a weapons of mass destruction capability that would threaten his own region and indeed international order.
We have sought to achieve this by ensuring Saddam's full compliance with the United Nations Security Council resolution and the Memorandum of Understanding that he agreed with the UN Secretary- General in February of this year. After the last crisis in November, only a month ago, Saddam agreed - I quote - "clearly and unconditionally" to co-operate fully with the UN special commission and the International Atomic Energy Agency.
It is however clear from the UNSCOM executive chairman's report to the UN Secretary-General yesterday that far from providing full co-operation, Iraq has made it impossible for UNSCOM to fulfil its mandate from the United Nations. The Prime Minister last month said that if Iraq failed to fully co-operate we would strike without warning.
All other means of securing Saddam Hussein's compliance have evidently failed.
Saddam's flouting of his obligations could not be allowed to go unchecked, that would have left Saddam free to build up his nuclear biological and chemical weapons and once again to threaten his neighbours and of course it would have given encouragement to dictators and proliferators of these weapons everywhere in the world.
It is right, therefore, that we should use force at this time because unfortunately it seems to be the only language that Saddam Hussein understands. The diplomatic track having failed, our objectives in this military action are, as the Prime Minister said last night, first of all to degrade Saddam's capability to build and to use his weapons of mass destruction and secondly, to diminish the military threat that he poses to his neighbours. My thoughts - and indeed I believe the thoughts of the whole country - are with our service personnel whose responsibility it will be to put our plans into practice. I know, because I met them in Ali al-Salem air base in Kuwait last year and elsewhere in the year, that they can be relied upon for bravery and sheer professionalism as we have depended on them on other occasions and in so many other parts of the world.
They can be confident that they go into action in pursuit of a just and important cause and with the support, I am sure, of the overwhelming majority of the British people. It is of course this morning too early to say what the results will have been of the military action that was taken during the night. but the pictures on television today from Baghdad - I think - amply illustrate how well it is we have chosen the targets that were adopted and I am confident that this military exercise is one that will fulfil its objectives and we will continue until we have fulfilled those objectives.
GENERAL SIR CHARLES GUTHRIE:
In "Desert Fox", we are engaged in a carefully-planned and calculated hard- hitting limited air campaign, the largest air campaign since the Gulf War of 1991. The diplomatic track having failed, our objectives, with the United States, in this military action are twofold; First, to degrade Saddam's capability to build and use weapons of mass destruction and secondly, to diminish the military threat he poses to his neighbours.There are three things that this military action is not designed to do. It is not designed to kill, capture or remove Saddam Hussein. Iraq is an enormous country and it would take many thousands of troops in a land campaign to have any chance of succeeding to do that. Secondly, it is not designed to punish the people of Iraq, we have no quarrel with them, we have sympathy with them. Thirdly, it is not designed to destroy Iraq as a country. Iraq was a great country and has the potential to be a great country again.
The targets chosen, therefore, are targets connected with his weapons of mass destruction, with other military capabilities which pose a threat to his neighbours including command-and-control capabilities and also with air defence systems which pose a threat to coalition aircraft involved in the operation. We are making every effort to minimise civilian casualties through careful selection of targets and through the use of precision weapons and our aircraft - the Royal Air Force's aircraft, the Tornadoes - have exceptionally accurate weapons systems, laser-guided bombs. Last night, United States sea-based systems comprising both ship-launched Tomahawk Cruise missiles and carrier-borne aircraft were used to attack targets in Iraq.
The decision to use sea-launched systems at the outset of the campaign was made both to maximise tactical surprise and operational security. The United States did not use land-based aircraft either. The attacks were made against a variety of targets within the broad categories I have already described. It is too soon to assess the damage done.
These first attacks cannot in any case be viewed in isolation, they are part of a large air campaign. Further operations are planned that will include missions by our 12 Royal Air Force Tornadoes based in Kuwait which will provide a significant contribution to the manned bomber effort and for obvious reasons I can't provide any information on timing or targeting of such attacks.
So far, all has gone according to plan and I am confident that by the end of the campaign we will have achieved our objectives.
QUESTION:
Having confirmed that British Forces have not yet been directly involved, can we assume that British aircraft will today be attacking Iraq? And how concerned are you at the possibility of British casualties?MR. ROBERTSON:
I can confirm that they will be. There are no risk-free options in any of these exercises but the determination, bravery and professionalism of our pilots is beyond question and they will clearly minimise the risk to themselves but I will ask the Chief of the Defence Staff who was actually in al-Salem air base in Kuwait last week to give you additional information.GENERAL SIR CHARLES GUTHRIE:
I spoke to many of the pilots who were involved in a possible attack earlier in November. They were confident, they are very professional, they realise that what they have to do may well be hazardous but I think that they are very confident and I came away extremely proud of them and confident that there is not another air force which could do better.
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