22 December 1998
PICKERING SAYS IRAQ COULD FACE "SANCTIONS IN PERPETUITY"
(Warns only disarmament will end economic penalties) (920) By Peter Sawchyn USIA Staff Writer Washington -- Iraq will face "sanctions in perpetuity" unless it agrees to work with UN weapons inspectors to demonstrate that it has fulfilled its post-Gulf War pledges to eliminate its weapons of mass destruction, according to Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs Thomas R. Pickering. Pickering told a December 22 briefing at the State Department that Saddam Hussein has essentially two possible choices in the wake of the US-British airstrikes, which have substantially degraded Iraq's ability to build and use such weapons. The first is "to refuse to work with the agencies that the (UN Security) Council has entrusted with the task of eliminating Iraq's weapons of mass destruction." Alternatively, he can "work with the UN Security Council, the (UN) Special Commission (UNSCOM) and the IAEA (International Atomic Energy Agency)," Pickering said. "Obviously it is preferable for Iraq to choose cooperation... If Iraq makes that choice and credibly demonstrates its readiness to cooperate with the Security Council, UNSCOM and IAEA, it can anticipate that the weapons inspectors will be able to return," he said. If, however, Iraq chooses to end cooperation, "then it has literally chosen for sanctions in perpetuity because it is only through disarmament -- the common objective of the UN Security Council and UNSCOM -- that one can achieve the possibility of dealing with the issue of sanctions." Thus, Pickering said the "burden" remains on Iraq to demonstrate "an absolute and authoritative" commitment to cooperate with UN weapons inspectors. The Under Secretary also praised UNSCOM Chairman Richard Butler, who Pickering said has done an "outstanding" job. He said the United States continues to support Butler and will resist any attempts either to weaken UNSCOM's mandate, or to "politicize" its role. Pickering said that while four-days of air strikes crippled Saddam Hussein's military infrastructure, they did not eliminate the threat he still poses to regional peace and security because of Iraq's remaining weapons of mass destruction capabilities. For that reason Pickering said the United States will continue to maintain a "robust military presence" in the region and a "readiness to use force again." "Saddam should already know that we will use force if Iraq threatens its neighbors, reconstitutes its weapons of mass destruction or moves against the Kurds," Pickering said. At the same time, he said, US officials will continue to work with the UN Security Council on the "shared objectives of assuring that Iraq is stripped" of its capability to rebuild weapons of mass destruction, he said. On the humanitarian side, Pickering emphasized that the military strikes were carried out "to avoid civilian casualties and damage to civilian infrastructure." He said UN humanitarian workers are returning to Iraq today and will report back on actual conditions there. Pickering said the United States is willing to consider a further expansion of the UN-administered "oil-for-food" program that allows Iraq to sell oil to purchase food, medicine and other humanitarian supplies. "Obviously," he said, "if they report that there are human needs that are unmet the Security Council will address the issue on an urgent basis. However, he said, he had no indication that Iraq's food supply was affected by the attacks. Power and water supplies apparently are also unaffected. And all Iraqi medicine orders under the oil-for-food program suggest that adequate stockpiles of medicine are also available, he said. Pickering said he has consulted with Russian and French officials, whose countries opposed the use of force against Iraq. Those talks in New York assessed the current situation in Iraq and on the future role of UNSCOM, he said. He denied that the United States and Russia are not that far apart in their views of what Iraq must do. "It's easy to exaggerate our differences," Pickering said, but the truth is that we share a "very, very broad area of views" on the situation. "We may differ on tactics, but that does not undermine our relatively similar views." Pickering also strongly rejected what he described as an "underlying thesis" of some persons in France and Russia that the United States "acted contrary" to Security Council resolutions in using force. "Quite the opposite. We believe the original use of force resolution from November 1990, 678, provided for the use of force to enforce Security Council resolutions. But also the cease fire resolution, which succeeded it and temporarily stopped the use of force only so far as Iraq kept its obligations under the cease fire resolution," he said. "And you know very well that in March of 1998, following the Secretary General's memorandum, the Security Council once again on 3 March, in resolution 1154, warned Iraq that there would be severest consequences for any violations of the memorandum or the Security Council resolution," Pickering said. He said the United States would consider "very serious" any circumvention of the current UN sanctions regime against Iraq. "The notion that mandatory resolutions of the Security Council applying sanctions to Iraq can be freely or lightly violated at any time they should choose, is a very serious one. Not only because of the immediate effects in terms of the threat that Saddam poses to the region and to the world community.... "But secondly what that would mean the effectiveness and the capacity of the Security Council to address threats to international pace and security, which is precisely what it is designed to achieve," Pickering said.
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