Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMD)

QUESTION: Could you give us the State Department perspective on the documents submitted by the Iraqis? I know you're not prepared to make snap judgments just yet, but when do you suppose some judgments will come in?

MR. BOUCHER: I don't know. Judgments will come in when we've had a chance to analyze the document, when we have had a chance to go through it, bringing to bear all the expertise that we have, but also the results of previous inspections and conferring with the other members of the Security Council, who will be analyzing it as well, and, above all, working with the inspectors at the IAEA and the UN to talk to them about their analysis as well.

QUESTION: Could you just tell us, on the logistics, when does the United States expect to receive its copy of this, and where and how? And then who will start looking at it?

MR. BOUCHER: All right, let me go through the logistics, the procedural parts of this, if I can, because a lot of this was worked over the last few days with other members of the Security Council.

The Resolution 1441 requires that the declaration go to the UN Monitoring, Verification and Inspection Commission, the International Atomic Energy Agency and the Council. Keeping in mind the concern that the declaration may contain sensitive proliferation information, we have been working with other Council members and the inspection agencies to ensure its expeditious review and distribution.

After consulting with other Council members, the Council president -- that is, Colombian Ambassador Valdivieso -- decided to allow access to the declaration to those members with the expertise to assess the risks of proliferation and other sensitive information so that we can begin our review. Accordingly, the Council president asked Dr. Blix to make it available to those Council members.

We are preparing to analyze the document, including, as I said, looking at it against our own information, the results of previous inspections and the results of other analysis. We will tap all our resources, experts in the national security field and in these various areas, in order to do a thorough analysis, but at this point I can't give you a listing of who might be doing that.

QUESTION: Well, can you tell us whether a copy has reached Washington yet, or is it just --

MR. BOUCHER: As I mentioned, the documents in the declaration contain sensitive data. They need to be handled in a secure manner, in keeping with our overall nonproliferation concerns. So we have been asked to ensure that the document is copied in a controlled environment in order to guard against the inadvertent release of information. So yes, we have a copy that is being reproduced for other members of the Security Council.

QUESTION: In Washington or in New York?

MR. BOUCHER: I don't want to get into exactly where it might be. We have a copy that's being reproduced using the resources of the US Government because we are able to do this in the high volume necessary, with the technical expertise necessary, and to do it in a controlled environment. So we are making the copies for other members of the Council.

QUESTION: And during this copying process, is somebody simultaneously starting to look at it?

MR. BOUCHER: I don't know. I wouldn't necessarily know one way or the other. I can't say.

QUESTION: In his speech yesterday, the Iraqi President greeted those Kuwaitis who attacked American soldiers in Kuwait. What's your reaction to that? And what's your reaction to the speech in general in which he tried to apologize for invading Kuwait in 1990?

MR. BOUCHER: Well, unfortunately, the speech was billed as some kind of apology, but, in fact, it was nothing of the sort. It was a continuation of Iraq's long-- the Iraqi regime's long record of outrageous, inflammatory and bellicose rhetoric. Iraq, this regime, has a deplorable record of brutality towards their own people and the people of the region, and in this speech Saddam Hussein said again, called for action against regimes in the region, praised those who use violence for political ends, attempted to shift the blame for the brutal invasion of Kuwait. These are just further examples of the threat the Iraqi regime represents to its own people and the people of the region.

QUESTION: The inevitable question which I know has come up again and again, but today seems a good time to ask it again. The Iraqis say that they don't have any weapons of mass destruction. You have been saying that you know they have, but -- and one reason why you wouldn't release it was because you didn't want the Iraqis to know in advance what you knew. Now they've made their declaration. Why don't you release what you -- the evidence that you, that you, that you have that you rely on?

MR. BOUCHER: I think, Jonathan, that the question, as stated, puts everything upside down. The Iraqis are trying to turn this on its head. Resolution 1441 states that the Iraqis have to provide a full and complete disclosure. It says they have to provide active cooperation with the United Nations and telling the United Nations inspectors where this stuff is, what it is, and then allowing the United Nations to destroy it. That's what we're doing here. That's what we've been trying to do ever since the end of the Gulf War.

For the Iraqis to suddenly say oh, you've got to prove it, oh, you know, you've got to catch me if you can, well, that's turning it on its head and, unfortunately, it's another indication of their lack of cooperation with the Council. They are required by the Resolution to provide active cooperation. As Dr. Blix said the other day, if they want to claim they don't have something any more, things that we all know they had, there's abundant public information on this, if they want to claim they don't have it any more, they have to provide convincing evidence, according to Dr. Blix. We agree with that. And that's the framework that we've been trying to work in ever since the Gulf War, and that's, unfortunately, the kind of cooperation that we haven't gotten from Iraq.

Elise.

QUESTION: Doesn't the resolution also say that any member-state with intelligence could submit it -- on Iraqi weapons of mass destruction, could submit it to the inspectors which would aid in their inspection?

MR. BOUCHER: And we're doing that. We're helping the inspectors in every way we can. That's what's required by the resolution. Every country should do that.

QUESTION: Well, have you provided the inspectors with intelligence on weapons of mass destruction?

MR. BOUCHER: I'm not going to get into specifics, but we are assisting the inspectors.

Betsy.

QUESTION: Richard, will you say, and that taking that in a slightly different direction, depending on what your analysis is of these documents, if you find areas where you think there are problems and you have information, will you turn over information that refutes what's in the documents?

MR. BOUCHER: It all depends on what the situation is. I don't know how we will handle it, if we start seeing omissions and errors in the Iraqi submission, whether we'll point those out to the inspectors, to the Security Council or to others. We'll see.

QUESTION: Can you say how long you think this process of analysis might take?

MR. BOUCHER: I can't, at this point. We'll do a very thorough analysis. We'll put all our experts on it. But I can't predict at this point how long it will take us to go through.

QUESTION: And you all will report back to? Who will you give the analysis that you have after looking at the document?

MR. BOUCHER: We'll give it to the President, I'm sure. Beyond that, I don't know. In terms of -- I'm sure we'll be consulting with other members of the Security Council. We'll be consulting with the weapons inspectors, both the IAEA and the UN inspectors. So, in that fashion, we'll be talking with others about it. Whether that means preparing a formal analysis and trying to present it, I don't know.

Christophe.

QUESTION: Who is going to do this analysis? Is it the State Department, the Defense Department, the CIA or any other agency?

MR. BOUCHER: A whole lot of people, and I said a moment ago I wasn't in a position to give their full listing.

QUESTION: So who is going to coordinate for this work and provide the final analysis out of the US?

MR. BOUCHER: I'm not in a position to go into that level of detail now.

QUESTION: Richard, there are several reports in the press today which say that the United States does not, in fact, have what they call smoking-gun evidence, in other words, conclusive proof that Iraq does, in fact, still have these things. And, of course, the Iraqis are now saying that they've destroyed them in the last years.

Are those reports correct?

MR. BOUCHER: First of all, I'm not going to talk about intelligence. You're asking me a question directly about our intelligence and what we know.

Second of all, don't you, yourself, ignore the abundant public record in this regard. The inspectors have talked about the things that were left over at the end of the last inspections. Even previous Iraqi submittals described that they possessed these kind of weapons. And it's not acceptable for Iraq just to say, well, we don't have them any more, we lost them, or whatever. They have to present convincing evidence, as Dr. Blix said.

So I think we are firm in our belief and in our knowledge that Iraq had these weapons of mass destruction, has had programs to maintain them and expand them, and still has these weapons of mass destruction.

QUESTION: Can I follow up on that?

MR. BOUCHER: Yes.

QUESTION: Okay. Well, given -- in that case, there's clearly a discrepancy, a discrepancy between what you know and what's in the documents. What are the implications of that?

MR. BOUCHER: I don't know what's in the documents yet. All I know is that the Iraqis have tried to characterize what's in the documents. But let us go through the documents and analyze them ourselves before we start talking about what's in the documents.

QUESTION: Two quick points. Did she have anything to say on Iraq? And second, was Eliot Abrams in the meeting?

MR. BOUCHER: No, Eliot Abrams wasn't in the meeting. He normally wouldn't be.

QUESTION: Right.

MR. BOUCHER: And did they talk about Iraq? Just sort of briefly in the beginning, just kind of the Secretary brought her up to speed where we are in the UN and the declaration and things like that.