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03 February 2003

Boucher: Powell to Make "Compelling" Presentation to Security Council

(Says Powell will demonstrate Iraq's duplicity) (480)
State Department Spokesman Richard Boucher said Secretary of State
Colin Powell will make a "compelling" case to the U.N. Security
Council February 5th that Iraq has been deceiving the U.N. weapons
inspectors about its programs to develop weapons of mass destruction
in violation of Security Council resolutions.
Briefing reporters at the State Department February 3, Boucher said
that Powell's presentation will be a "straightforward explanation of
the facts" and that anyone "with an open mind and open ears and open
eyes will see that the Iraqis are failing to comply with the UN
resolution."
Following is an excerpt from Boucher's February 3 briefing containing
his comment about Powell's speech to the Security Council:
(begin excerpt)
QUESTION: A question a little bit related to the Secretary's op-ed
this morning in The Wall Street Journal, that he said that there was
no smoking gun. Is the administration concerned that maybe
expectations are a little too high for the Secretary's presentation
tomorrow and that the world is expecting some kind of, you know,
"gotcha" here that will, you know, suddenly turn public opinion on its
face?
MR. BOUCHER: The administration has said that we are doing this
presentation in order to support the report that the inspectors have
already given. We've also made clear we think the case of Iraq's
failure to comply is already quite clear from the evidence from the
information that the inspectors conveyed.
This will -- presentation will, we think, be compelling. It'll be a
straightforward explanation of the facts and we think an explanation
that will reinforce the conclusion that the inspectors have been
forced to draw, the reports that the inspectors have -- the facts that
the inspectors have been forced to report to the Council: that Iraq is
not cooperating, Iraq is concealing evidence, Iraq is trying to
preserve its weapons of mass destruction. And so I think it will go a
long way to bolstering that case, to making clear the facts as we
think they already are clear.
We're not trying to hype this presentation. We have, I think, made
clear it's a straightforward account of what's going on that supports
the conclusions and the facts that the inspectors have already put
forward. The bottom of the TV screen may have other small words on it,
but we didn't write those.
QUESTION: Well, Richard, when you say, though, that you think it will
be compelling, do you think it will be so compelling that anybody that
didn't think before that Iraq was hiding things is now automatically
going to say, "Oh, yes"?
MR. BOUCHER: I think that anybody with an open mind and open ears and
open eyes will see that the Iraqis are failing to comply with the UN
resolution.
(end excerpt)
(Distributed by the Office of International Information Programs, U.S.
Department of State. Web site: http://usinfo.state.gov)