08 October 2003
White House Putting New Emphasis on Progress in Iraq
Says U.S. continuing to discuss U.N. draft resolution
By Wendy S. Ross
Washington File White House Correspondent
Washington -- The Bush administration is embarked on a major effort to show the American people the progress being made on a number of fronts in Iraq, White House Press Secretary Scott McClellan told reporters October 8.
McClellan called it a "sustained effort to keep the American people informed." He said "There are a number of success stories that we are achieving on behalf of the American people and on behalf of the Iraqi people and on behalf of the international community."
Earlier in the week, President Bush had said some of the good news in Iraq was being subjected to a "filter."
McClellan reminded reporters of comments made to them recently by a group of Americans who had helped with reconstruction in Iraq.
"And those Americans went out to talk to you all after they met with the president, and they talked about how, if you looked at some of the media here, you wouldn't know about some of the great progress that we are making in Iraq," he said.
"There's some important progress that we are making, and it's the responsibility of this administration to keep the American people informed about those successes."
The infrastructure in Iraq is improving, McClellan said. "We are making great progress on that front as well in terms of the electricity and in terms of building hospitals, children's hospitals, in terms of opening schools. There are a lot of important success stories that are happening," he said, including the formation of an Iraqi police force.
"Last week you heard directly from Bernie Kerik about his experiences, what he saw and what he helped to achieve there by starting the Iraqi police force. And now you have 40,000-50,000 people in the Iraqi police force who are taking more and more responsibility for their own security," McClellan said.
President Bush met in the Oval Office October 3 with Kerik, the former New York City police commissioner, who spent more than four months in Iraq helping the Iraqis build a police force.
Kerik briefly described to reporters the situation in Baghdad when he arrived there four and a half months ago, saying, "There was no electricity. They didn't have telephones, communications, radios. They basically had nothing." Over a period of four months, he said, the police force grew to 40,000 police officers, 450 squad cars and 35 police stations in Baghdad.
According to Commissioner Kerik, the Iraqis "have made tremendous progress. ... They are arresting the Fedayeen Saddam and the Baathists."
McClellan also pointed to the administration's request to Congress for an additional $87 billion this fiscal year to provide "important resources that will help us move forward to achieve our objectives" in Iraq and Afghanistan. The request is now being debated in the Congress.
"This is about winning the war on terrorism," the press secretary said, and "Iraq is the central front. ... So we're going to continue to keep the American people informed as we move forward in this front on the war on terrorism and as we prevail in this front in the war on terrorism. ...
"So there will be a sustained effort to keep the American people informed about these actions that we are taking and how those actions are benefiting the American people, in addition to the rest of the international community."
In another development, McClellan said the United States continues to consult at the United Nations on the most recent U.S. draft Security Council resolution on Iraq.
Asked the status of that resolution, he recalled that the United States put a draft forward in August "in order to encourage even broader international participation and in order to meet our shared goal of transferring responsibility to the Iraqi people as quickly as possible, as soon as they are ready to assume that responsibility."
"So we put forward that draft," he continued. "We consulted with members of the Security Council, we listened to some of the views that they expressed, and then we incorporated that into a new draft, to make some improvements to it, and presented that draft back to those members last week [October 2]. And we have received feedback on their views on the new draft. We're continuing to consult with member nations to move forward on this resolution, and that's where it is at this point."
"We have made some improvements to it, based on some initial conversations that we had," he explained. "And we look forward to continuing to consult with members of the Security Council so that we can move forward on this resolution, because we have a shared goal of a free, sovereign and prosperous Iraq. And that's what we're all working towards."
(The Washington File is a product of the Bureau of International Information Programs, U.S. Department of State. Web site: http://usinfo.state.gov)
This page printed from: http://usinfo.state.gov/xarchives/display.html?p=washfile-english&y=2003&m=October&x=20031008175426relhcie0.7139856&t=usinfo/wf-latest.html
|
NEWSLETTER
|
| Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list |
|
|
|
