16 January 2003
Bush Repeats "Time Running Out" Warning to Saddam Hussein
(White House Report) (870) BUSH AGAIN WARNS SADDAM HUSSEIN: "TIME RUNNING OUT" "Time is running out" for Saddam Hussein to disarm, President Bush said January 16 in a speech in Pennsylvania at about the same time it was reported that U.N. weapons inspectors in Iraq said they had found 11 empty chemical warheads in "excellent condition." They said they found the warheads January 16 inside a series of military bunkers at an ammunition storage area built in the late 1990s some 120 kilometers south of Baghdad. "So far, the evidence hasn't been very good" that Saddam Hussein is disarming, Bush said in a speech at the University of Scranton. "And time is running out. At some point in time, the United States' patience will run out. In the name of peace, if he does not disarm, I will lead a coalition of the willing to disarm Saddam Hussein." White House Press Secretary Ari Fleischer, briefing reporters on Air Force One en route to Pennsylvania, said a January 27 report to the U.N. Security Council on Iraq's weapons of mass destruction will be an important date. Beyond that date, Fleischer said, "events will dictate timetables." But Fleischer emphasized that President Bush "has not made any decisions about whether we go or will not go to war." That decision," he said, "will ultimately be made by Saddam Hussein in terms of whether he starts to comply or indeed complies with the inspections, under the inspectors. "After all, their job is more than to inspect, it's to verify disarmament, and they've been given very little to verify because Saddam Hussein has not cooperated with them in showing that he has disarmed. "So the terms of Resolution 1441 will continue to be followed, and that sets the timetable of January 27th as an important date. Beyond that, events will dictate timetables." Asked why the United States was asking the U.N. to scrap the inspection timetable stretching into the summer, Fleischer said: "Because as I mentioned earlier, one, we'll see what happens in terms of timetables -- the events will dictate that. But (resolution) 1441 lays out the current procedures. The previous resolution, which was number 1284, was written in 1999 and was based on the assumption that Iraq would cooperate and comply, and at the end of the day have sanctions removed. And 1441, which was, of course, enacted after witnessing Iraq's failure to cooperate and failure to comply, set out a different series of times and procedures; 1441 is immediately relevant. If Iraq had complied, other factors could have been taken into account; 1441 is relevant to the reality of today." Asked if the White House was working to stop a second resolution from being put forth in the Security Council that would authorize military action against Iraq, Fleischer responded: "No, it's exactly what I said yesterday, that we're going to continue to consult. And I think there's a division among different nations about whether one is necessary or not. The commitment that the President made was to consult .... and he will keep that commitment. But clearly, the U.N. has already spoken once, and powerfully so." Asked if the White House was pleased that the United Nations inspectors visited with two Iraqi scientists January 16, Fleischer said: "Well, again, I will always refrain from doing the play-by-play on what the inspectors are doing, hour by hour. But, clearly, when you look at how Saddam Hussein has lied and deceived the world before, one of the best, most effective ways to verify whether Iraq has arms or not is to talk to the people involved in the arms program. "It's easy for Saddam Hussein to hide his weapons of mass destruction in a country as large as Iraq. It is harder for him to stop people with something they want to say from saying it. He does that by using minders, by putting them in the room with the inspectors when they have those conversations. "So, therefore, history has shown that one of the most effective ways to verify disarmament is to talk to the people involved in the programs, and to do so in a way that protects their physical health and safety. Because if Saddam Hussein catches anybody spilling the beans, he has a history of killing them. And that's why the U.N. resolution explicitly authorized the right of the inspectors to talk out of the country with a scientist involved in a weapons program in the company of their families, and outside the watch of the Iraqi minders." PYONGYANG CONTINUES TO ISOLATE ITSELF, WHITE HOUSE SAYS North Korea's "seeming rejection" of President Bush's offer to talk about dismantlement of their nuclear programs "further isolates" North Korea from the rest of the world and harms the people of North Korea, Fleischer said. Asked if the White House considers North Korea's rhetoric an official rejection of a U.S. offer to talk, Fleischer said, "We continue to view it as another reason where North Korea continues to isolate itself from Japan, China, the United States, South Korea and Russia." (Distributed by the Office of International Information Programs, U.S. Department of State. Web site: http://usinfo.state.gov)
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