DoD News Briefing
Tuesday, November 10, 1998 - 1:45 p.m.
Presenter: Mr. Kenneth H. Bacon, ASD (PA)
Mr. Bacon: Hello everybody. Welcome to the Pentagon.
................
Today is the 223rd birthday of the Marine Corps, so I'd like to wish all the Marines happy birthday.
With that I'll take your questions on the history of the Marine Corps or anything else.
........................Q: Ken, it's alleged or reported in the International Herald Tribune today that the answer, the response that Secretary Cohen received in his tour of the Gulf states, the Saudis and the Arab Emirates as well, was something like we can't afford to let your planes use our bases if they're going to drop a few bombs and leave, but if you mean business, we're with you.
So what is "business"? Is there going to be a follow-up patrolling of the airspace of Iraq after some initial bombing period? And is this what, in fact, the Arabs said to Secretary Cohen?
A: As we said last week, the Secretary had very productive meetings with his counterparts and other leaders in the Gulf and in the Middle East generally, and he left those meetings confident that the U.S. would have whatever support it needs to carry out its mission in the area. I can't go beyond that. It was a clear statement then, it's a clear statement today.
In terms of what the future holds, our strategy vis-a-vis Iraq is unchanged. It's to contain Iraq from threatening, intimidating or attacking its neighbors. We will continue to follow that strategy.
Q: Is a follow-on air patrol, quarantine by air of Iraq being contemplated?
A: The United Nations Security Council under its resolution going back to 1991, has set up a regime to contain Iraq. The pillars of that regime are the sanctions and the inspections. We patrol parts of Iraq under those UN Security Council Resolutions and we will continue to operate Operation Southern Watch and Operation Northern Watch to contain Saddam Hussein from attacking his own people or his neighbors.
..................Q: In your absence Mike said that the breakdown in UNSCOM could potentially give Saddam a chance to reconstitute his weapons of mass destruction. Have you seen any evidence of anything like that?
A: I'm not aware of any action along those lines. It clearly does remain a threat, and the CIA filed a report with, I believe, the Senate Intelligence Committee several months ago outlining what they thought some of the time lines could be -- particularly if there are no inspectors -- to reconstitute some of the weapons of mass destruction.
Q: Would the United States feel if they had evidence that there was reconstitution of weapons of mass destruction that that would be enough to justify a strike, just on that?
A: Without getting into questions of triggers, we have said many times that our goal, and the goal of the UN Security Council, is to contain Iraq from threatening, intimidating, or attacking its neighbors. Certainly weapons of mass destruction are one of Iraq's instruments of intimidation. It has used weapons of mass destruction against Iran, it's used chemical weapons, it's used chemicals against its own people, the Kurds, and it has launched missiles against Israel and Arabic countries. So it has a history of attempting to use weapons of mass destruction.
Q: If the United States has been discussing the issue of using force to make Saddam Hussein comply, can you talk a little bit about how you think force makes him comply? At the State Department today Jamie Ruben was no longer willing to say that our goal was to get weapons inspectors back up and deeply embedded in their society. The argument seemed to have shifted a little bit. Is that no longer a goal?
A: I think it's important to go back to our overall strategy, and our strategy is containment. The pillars of containment have been the sanctions, have been the inspections, and have been Operation Southern Watch. We believe, and the UN Security Council unanimously believes, that sanctions should remain in effect until Saddam Hussein complies with UN Security Council resolutions, particularly 687. He is out of compliance now because he has unilaterally abrogated the inspection regime.
If we don't have inspections, it makes containment more difficult. The CIA has reported to Congress that in relatively short periods of time, matters of months, he would be able to begin reconstituting parts of his chemical arsenal and begin manufacturing some biological weapons and perhaps manufacture missiles as well. So the inspections are a very important part of containment.
We don't have inspections right now. So what the President is looking at, and he's made no decisions, is how do we, the United States, and how does the international community respond if one of the pillars of containment is removed? As Secretary Cohen made very clear this morning, we prefer a diplomatic resolution to this problem that would get the inspectors back on the ground doing their job. Right now that does not seem possible. Iraq has steadfastly refused to retreat from its position of stiffing the UN Security Council.
So the President is looking at what our range of options are right now and we've been discussing those with our allies.
.................Q: The President had meetings with some Pentagon officials today, evidently in response to his request for more information. Was that meeting sufficient for a response to what the President needed, or was there an additional request for additional information?
A: He didn't meet exclusively with military advisors. Secretary Albright was there and National Security Advisor Burger was also there. Secretary Cohen and General Shelton were there. It was a private meeting, and I think I should let the outcome of the meeting remain private.
...................
Q: Can you contrast or compare and contrast the amount of support you received in February from the Gulf states versus today? Fairly comparable or...
A: I think that we received support back in February and we received support on this trip. What is different is a much greater sense of frustration on the part of our allies both in the Security Council and in the region and in Europe about Saddam Hussein's refusal to honor the agreement between Kofi Annan and Iraq.
There was a sense of relief last February when the agreement was reached and the crisis appeared to end, but he's not honored that agreement. So people see him for the intransigent figure that he is. I think they have determined that he is not committed to maintaining the terms of that agreement or the inspection regime, and that I think has made people, as I said, frustrated and somewhat impatient.
Q: One more follow-up on the air quarantine, what might come. Is it a part of the plan at the present or there may be an alternative to take all of the airspace, merge north and south, quarantine all of Iraqi airspace with combat aircraft, and keep, try to keep Saddam from reconstituting his weapons of mass destruction, moving his military? Can that be done? Is that a way to bottle him up?
A: I can't talk about future plans that we have, future operating plans.
Q: Have you got an alternative you can talk about?
A: I just said I'm not going to talk about it so I'm not going to change my mind and suddenly talk about it.
Q: Why is overt force an option with Iraq when there's other nations such as North Korea that clearly also...
A: First of all, Iraq has used weapons of mass destruction against its neighbors in the past. It's attacked a neighboring country, several neighboring countries, and it is now under UN Security Council mandates to discontinue its program and it's in violation of those mandates.
Secondly, we take very seriously what's happening in North Korea today, and we are engaged in negotiations with North Korea to force it to honor the framework agreement which deals with nuclear forces, but we've also been talking to them about missile forces as well. As you know, there are supposed to be talks in Pyongyang, I believe they're in Pyongyang, next week dealing with the question of underground facilities and U.S. access to those facilities, or U.S. or international access to those facilities to inspect them.
So we are working with North Korea on that, but the Iraqi situation is a different situation and different situations have to be treated with different means.
..................Q: Jumping back to Iraq really briefly, we've always maintained that we have sufficient forces in the region. Would we feel confident launching a strike six hours from now? Or tomorrow? Or how soon would we be ready?
A: We do have strong forces in the region, and they give us a lot of flexibility.
Q: To launch an effective, successful strike..
A: This is like that classic Saturday Night Live episode during the Gulf War where people are asking for specific battle plans and timing. Come on, give me a break. And show some respect for yourselves. I can't answer questions like that, and it's really, I don't think it's appropriate to... It's certainly not appropriate to answer, but I'm not even sure it's appropriate to ask questions like that. We're talking about serious issues here, the possible use of force. It's very clear that it's not appropriate to talk about timing or about operational detail of any sort.
Q: Another Iraq question. You might want to take this. Can you give us a general figure of how much the United States has spent since the Gulf War to keep Saddam in his box?
A: I'm sorry I can't do that. It's an interesting question. I'll take the question but I'm not sure I can promise an answer.
................Press: Thank you.
|
NEWSLETTER
|
| Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list |
|
|
|
