24 March 2003
Wolfowitz Urges Iraqi Regime to Surrender
(March 23 interview with U.S. media outlets) (810) By Christine Johnson Washington File Staff Writer Washington - The goal of the coalition military operation against Iraq is to end a regime that terrorizes its own people and "has weapons of mass terror -- chemical and biological weapons and is working on nuclear weapons -- and that has these connections to terrorists and uses terrorism as an instrument of national policy," U.S. Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz said March 23. The sooner the "pillars of that regime -- including the Iraqi military... do the honorable thing, which is to stop fighting for that criminal -- it will be better for everybody including themselves, including the Iraqi people, including the whole world," he said. Interviewed in Washington by reporters from three local U.S. television stations, Wolfowitz noted that the liberation of Iraq as a U.S. policy pre-dates the administration of George W. Bush, but said the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001 demonstrated acutely that "many of the fundamental concepts of deterrence are out the window" when dealing with states that have weapons of mass destruction and terrorist networks that can deliver those weapons anonymously. "This is not preemption," Wolfowitz said. "This is long delayed, long overdue enforcement of the conditions under which the war was supposed to have been ended 12 years ago. ... This is about whether the will of the United Nations means anything." He added that the priority of coalition forces "is to get rid of this regime and win the war. We're not out on a search for weapons of mass destruction until we've established control over the country." Asked to comment on the whereabouts of Saddam Hussein, Wolfowitz said only that the Iraqi dictator might be either dead or severely wounded and that "it's probably up to the Iraqi people to decide what they want to do with him if he's still alive." One issue he stressed during the interviews was the treatment of coalition forces held as prisoners of war. "We have reminded the Iraqis -- and I'll do it if they're watching this program -- that there are very clear obligations under the Geneva Convention to treat prisoners humanely [and] not to humiliate them," Wolfowitz said, emphasizing that any violations of the convention would result in punishment. "We treat our own prisoners, and there are hundreds of Iraqi prisoners, extremely well. We feed them, we take care of them, they're very safe with us," he said. Wolfowitz also reacted to reports that the regime has begun placing Iraqi civilians at military targets. "I think it's particularly despicable if, as we're hearing, they're taking political prisoners and trying to set them up as human shields," he said. "That's another war crime." As anti-war demonstrations continued around the world, Wolfowitz said that while he understands why the protestors are marching, he believes that "what they don't understand is just how dangerous this man is, how horrible it is to live under his rule." He also rejected the protestors' assertion that the war is about oil. "That's nonsense," Wolfowitz said. "If our interest was oil, as opposed to his weapons of mass terror, we would have dropped the [United Nations] sanctions 12 years ago, and we would have been in there developing Iraqi oil. This is not about oil. This is about security, and frankly I think it's also about the ideals that this country believes in and stands for." Saying it is "wonderful" that the protestors live in a democracy where they are free to say what they think, Wolfowitz expressed the hope that democracy will come to Iraq, as well, and he dismissed those who say this cannot be done. "I've heard far too many people say the Arabs are incapable of democracy. I think that is a terrible notion, and I think there is an opportunity here to demonstrate in one of the most important countries in the Arab world that Arabs are capable of democracy," he said, adding that while he cannot be sure of the outcome, "I'm certain that until this criminal regime is gone, they [Iraqis] don't have a chance." The deputy secretary also expressed the opinion that when Saddam's regime is gone, it will be easier to make progress on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. "It's not an accident that when [former Egyptian President] Anwar Sadat heroically made the first major step toward Arab-Israeli peace, it was Saddam Hussein who summoned all the other Arab leaders to Baghdad to organize the opposition summit to the peace process," Wolfowitz pointed out. Saddam also encourages suicide bombers "and probably does a lot of other things to destabilize the Arab-Israeli issue that we don't even know about. So his removal has got to be a good thing." (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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