15 January 2003
Bush Committed to Consulting with U.N. on Iraq
(White House Report) (1160) BUSH COMMITTED TO CONSULTING WITH U.N. ON IRAQ Asked if the United States would seek another resolution from the United Nations Security Council if the president decides military action against Iraq is necessary, White House Press Secretary Ari Fleischer responded that President Bush "made it clear in his discussions with members of the Security Council" after Resolution 1441 was passed that the president would commit to consulting with the Security Council and with members of the Security Council on any eventualities thereafter. "The president will keep his word. There will be ongoing consultations. And it's impossible to go beyond that in terms of guessing at what a specific result may or may not be," Fleischer said, adding that he cannot predict "what specific actions might result as a result of those consultations." "And whether somebody thinks a second resolution is necessary, or whether a different nation says a resolution is not necessary, the president will continue to work with one and all to build a coalition of the willing," Fleischer said. President Bush, the press secretary repeated, "has made no decisions about whether or not we will go to war. Indeed, much of this still depends on Saddam Hussein, whether Saddam Hussein will get the message that time is running out and he needs to actively comply with the inspections and the inspectors." Fleischer cited statements made January 15 in Moscow by Mohamed Elbaradei, director general of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), in which he made clear that the inspectors are not satisfied with what Iraq has been doing. He quoted ElBaradei's statement that "I intend to impress upon Iraq the need to shift gear from passive cooperation to active cooperation." Fleischer noted that the recent report made to the United Nations by the U.N. weapons inspectors "cited a whole series of deceptions and evasions that Iraq is engaged in," including discrepancies with Iraq's description of its special munitions, illegal imports involving a relatively large number of missile engines, and contradictions involving the chemical agent VX. Chief U.N. weapons inspector Hans Blix and ElBaradei "also cited the list of scientists that Iraq turned over to the inspectors as being an absolutely inadequate list that failed to make a serious effort. So all is not so good from the inspectors' point of view as they review Iraqi cooperation and compliance," Fleischer said. Asked about news reports that Saddam Hussein has sent emissaries to at least one Arab state to discuss his potential exile from Iraq, Fleischer said, "You've known from repeated statements from both the State Department and here that if Saddam Hussein were to leave his country, that would be a welcome event.... I think at this point it's very hard to assess if Saddam has any interest in that." PYONGYANG RESPONSE TO BUSH NOT VIEWED AS OFFICIAL Asked if the January 15 statement by North Korea's Foreign Ministry is seen by the White House as an official response to President Bush's January 14 statement that he would consider an aid initiative if North Korea halted its nuclear programs, Fleischer said: "(I)t's always very hard to read North Korea. North Korea has a habit of saying very many inflammatory things, and then even their inflammatory things can sometimes contradict themselves. So can their private statements. We still await an official response from North Korea. And this is why North Korea has invited such concern around the world upon itself." The North Korean statement, according to news reports, charged the U.S. with wanting to see North Korea disarmed and with tying aid to the disarming of North Korea. Fleischer responded that "just as China has indicated, we, together, support a non-nuclearized peninsula. That is not the same as disarmament. The president would like to see North Korea, which is one of the most militarized nations on earth, reduce its level of military threat and presence vis-a-vis South Korea. But that is a far cry from disarmament. No, I think the statement that this is about disarmament by the North Koreans is a red herring." Asked why the United States does not formalize a nonaggression pact with North Korea, Fleischer said: "The issue is not what is the United States going to do; the issue is, what is North Korea going to do. It is North Korea that stepped out of its commitments to the world and started to pursue the development of nuclear weapons in total violation of everything they agreed to. "And when one sovereign nation gives its word and doesn't keep it, the answer is not that a different sovereign nation will, indeed, give it more. The answer is for the nation that broke its word to come back and keep its word. And in this case, North Korea needs to begin by dismantling its nuclear programs in a verifiable and irreversible way. That comes first." President Bush, he added, addressed what would happen if North Korea took this action in his January 14 remarks. Asked to comment on remarks by Senate Democratic Leader Tom Daschle that the Bush administration's policy on North Korea has been flip-flopping, Fleischer: "The administration rejects that criticism. It's been a very constant policy, where clearly it is North Korea has brought this on the world and the position of the United States is shared by our neighbors in the region. And it's unfortunate that somebody would make a statement that would imply that China, Japan, South Korea and Japan have flip-flopped. We stand together as a united group, a united group of nations dealing with the position that North Korea has put on itself." TASK FORCE ON PREVENTING TERRORIST MISSILE ATTACKS Fleischer confirmed a report in the January 15 Washington Post that a Bush administration inter-agency task force is considering a number of measures -- from changing take-off schedules to equipping planes with anti-missile technology -- to thwart terrorists attempting to shoot down commercial airliners with shoulder-fired missiles. "There are many different types of ways to provide increased protections to the traveling public from the remote threat of this possibility," he said. "And these are all being discussed by the FBI, by the Transportation Security Administration, the FAA, National Security Council, et cetera," Fleischer said. Passenger planes are seen as vulnerable to portable missiles that could be launched from outside an airport's perimeter. Two failed attempts in recent months to bring down planes with shoulder-fired missiles, one in Kenya and one in Saudi Arabia, have heightened concern. Last November, terrorists fired two SA-7 missiles that narrowly missed an Israeli passenger jet after it took off from Mombasa, Kenya. The other incident was in Saudi Arabia last May, when an SA-7 missile was fired at a U.S. military jet but missed its target. (Distributed by the Office of International Information Programs, U.S. Department of State. Web site: http://usinfo.state.gov)
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