04 December 2002
Bush Wants Full Accounting of Iraqi Weapons of Mass Destruction
(Iraq must report to the United Nations by December 8) (860) By Wendy S. Ross Washington File White House Correspondent Washington -- The world will learn soon whether or not Iraq's Saddam Hussein is going to comply with United Nations demands that he rid his nation of weapons of mass destruction, President Bush said December 4. Noting the U.N. deadline of December 8 for Iraq to make a full accounting of its weapons of mass destruction, Bush said "soon he'll be making a declaration of whether he has any weapons. For years he said he didn't have any weapons. And now we'll see whether or not he does. And if he does, we expect them to be completely destroyed and a full accounting." Speaking with reporters at the White House following a bill signing ceremony, Bush said "This is not a game anymore of, well, I'll say one thing and do another. We expect him to disarm. And now it's up to him to do so. And time will tell whether or not he is willing to do so." "We've been at this -- what -- five days. This is after 11 years of deceit and defiance. And the issue, again, is not hide and seek; the issue is whether or not Saddam Hussein will disarm." White House Press Secretary Ari Fleischer told reporters at his noon briefing that it is up to the Iraqis to determine the length of their account to the United Nations, what it says, and the language it will be in. "We have various reports that it may be hundreds, if not thousands, of pages long. It may be in more than one language. We'll have to see what the Iraqis turn over," he said. "The United Nations will review it through the Security Council. It will be shared with member states of the United Nations Security Council and the General Assembly," the press secretary said. "And then the United States will carefully review it. We will take the appropriate amount of time to review it, to assess it, to study it. And then only at that point will I be able to indicate what the United States thinks of it," said Fleischer. "We have said publicly that based on our information," Iraq does have weapons of mass destruction. "The Iraqis don't exactly have a good track record of honesty and truth-telling when it comes to the declaration of what they have. That's why the work of the inspectors is important," said Fleischer. "And that's why the president insisted" on their return to Iraq. "Whether the inspectors ultimately will be able to disprove any lie by the Iraqis remains to be determined. That depends on the resources of the inspectors. It also depends substantially on the compliance of Iraq with the inspection regime," the press secretary said. Under the plan that the United Nations has put in place to verify Iraqi compliance with U.N. resolutions, the United Nations is sending a growing number of inspectors into Iraq, Fleischer said, "and these inspectors will have additional equipment that allows them to do their job. And the amount of equipment and the amount of inspectors grows over time, per the United Nations' plans. "What you have seen in the last five or six days or so has been the very, very beginning of a process where they have a small crew of people inside Iraq with a limited amount of equipment. You can anticipate that more people and more equipment will be arriving," the press secretary said. It is "the beginning of a process that the president thinks is an important process, that he called for, and he's pleased to see that the process of inspections is again resuming," said Fleischer. The president's statement is "that he is not encouraged and his skepticism is based on 11 years of empirical evidence and behavior from Saddam Hussein during which he violated United Nations resolutions and did everything he could to thwart the inspectors," the press secretary said. "The real reason the inspectors are back in Iraq after a four-year absence is because President Bush went to the United Nations and created a new climate and put the spine in the United Nations and the Security Council so the inspectors could get back into Iraq," said Fleischer. "This is a process that the president launched and the president created and the president has a real abiding interest in seeing work. "The president has also put the world on notice -- including Iraq -- that war is not his first resort. He wants to avoid war. But he is determined to protect the American people, hopefully through the inspectors who can make Saddam Hussein disarm. But if Saddam Hussein does not disarm, the president has made it abundantly clear that he will protect the American people as a last resort by using force and assembling a coalition of the willing, if necessary. "But make no mistake, the reason the inspectors are there now is because President Bush wanted them there and got the United Nations to put them there as a result of the diplomacy and the efforts that were launched at the United Nations. The process is just beginning. The president is content to let the process move forward," Fleischer said. (The Washington File is a product of the Office of International Information Programs, U.S. Department of State. Web site: http://usinfo.state.gov)
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