23 January 2003
U.S. Wants to Work in Concert with Allies on Iraq
(Bush hopes Saddam Hussein receives "unambiguous" message to disarm) (1130) By Wendy S. Ross Washington File Staff Writer Washington -- Top Bush administration officials said January 23 that President Bush wants to work in concert with U.S. allies to resolve the Iraq issue peacefully but that if Iraq does not disarm, as required by the United Nations, the United States will act with a coalition of partners to disarm it. "The president continues to hope that this matter can be resolved peacefully," White House Press Secretary Ari Fleischer told reporters. "From the president's point of view, it's preferable to work in concert with the allies to the greatest degree possible. And the United Nations Security Council is one very effective avenue to do so. There are other effective avenues, as well," Fleischer said. And to give Saddam Hussein "the greatest incentive to do what he is obligated to do, which is to disarm," President Bush thinks "it's very important for Iraq to receive as unambiguous a signal as possible that the world means business," Fleischer said. Fleischer announced that Australia had dispatched a military force to the Persian Gulf and said Bush welcomes that support. He also announced that Bush and Russian President Vladimir Putin reviewed Russian-American cooperation on Iraq in a phone conversation January 23 and "agreed to remain in close touch" in the period ahead. Fleischer said Monday, January 27 -- the date chief U.N. weapons inspectors Hans Blix and Mohamed ElBaradei are to brief the U.N. Security Council on Iraq's compliance with Security Council resolutions -- "is an important date. ... We will await further judgment until that takes place." Asked if the White House would support a new United Nations Security Council resolution authorizing force against Iraq, if force becomes necessary, Fleischer said "it's not clear at this time. It's premature to make any judgments about it. It is a possibility." Secretary of State Colin Powell, asked the same question, said "it's an open question right now." "We have always held the position that there is probably sufficient authority in earlier resolutions or in (resolution) 1441," Powell said. "But we know that many of our colleagues in the Security Council would prefer to see a second resolution, if it comes to the use of military force." Powell spoke with reporters at the State Department following a meeting there with Britain's Foreign Secretary Jack Straw. "As the president has repeatedly said, he is hopeful for a peaceful solution," but if this is not possible, Powell said, the international community must have the will to see the matter resolved. "Resolution 1441, which was voted unanimously by the Security Council 15-0, does not deal with inspectors as much as it deals with Iraq," he said. "It gives Iraq one last opportunity to come into compliance with its obligations under the various previous U.N. resolutions. "And it also makes clear that if Iraq does not act in a responsible manner and disarm itself, with the inspectors assisting in that process, then it is the responsibility of the Security Council ... to consider what should be done about this. And so, this is a process that is unfolding." The issue "is the disarmament of Iraq, not how much more time the inspectors need, but how much more time should we give Iraq when they have not used the time they've already been given to do what is required of them, and that is to disarm." Iraqi officials, up until now, he said, have given the U.N. inspectors "flawed and incomplete and inadequate cooperation." "There are questions that must be asked. Why are they trying to deceive the inspectors? Why are they not allowing reconnaissance to take place? Why are they hiding documents in the homes of individuals? Why are we just starting to discover things that should have been declared? Why was the declaration so false? All of these are relevant questions that we will put to" the U.N. weapons inspection chiefs and to the Security Council after the inspectors' report, Powell said. State Department Spokesman Richard Boucher, asked about the reported positions of France and Germany against military action now on Iraq, said, "We are going to work this through with our friends and allies; we're going to work this through with the other members of the Security Council; we'll see where we end up. "First, we're going to look for the inspectors' report, and we're going to base our judgments and our decisions on the inspectors' report, and then we're going to work through the issues with other members of the Security Council, including many of our closest allies, who are there, and decide on what the next steps are." The issue, Boucher said, "is Iraq's defiance, and what to do about it." Boucher said the United States has differences from time to time with some of its friends and allies. "It's part of the nature of our alliance, it's part of the nature of working through these issues. But fundamentally, these are our allies.... and we're not pulling back from them, nor they from us." He cautioned reporters "against writing disarray and end-of-alliance stories," saying "Let's work this through. And as Ari Fleischer said this morning, France is one of our oldest allies, one of our best allies. Sometimes we come together on these things, and sometimes we don't. But we remain allies, and we will look at the facts as presented by the inspectors and start talking about them again." In New York, Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz said Saddam Hussein "has not made the fundamental decision to disarm" and until he does, the threat posed by his chemical, biological, ballistic and nuclear weapons programs will continue to grow. In a speech to the Council on Foreign Relations, Wolfowitz compared what disarmament should look like and what has happened in Iraq. He said that so far Baghdad has treated disarmament "like a deadly game of hide-and-seek or cheat and retreat." The deputy secretary talked about: what inspectors can and cannot do in the disarmament process; Iraq's practice of hiding and moving its prohibited weapons; Baghdad's use of its own intelligence abilities not only to conceal its illegal activities but also to spy on and intimidate U.N. inspectors; and its policy of obstruction and lying. He used the nuclear disarmament programs of South Africa, Ukraine, and Kazakhstan to illustrate "what real disarmament looks like." Saying several times throughout the speech that "time is running out," the deputy secretary said that "the imperative" is that "Baghdad must disarm -- peacefully, if at all possible, but by force, if necessary." (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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