24 April 2003
New Government Must Represent All Iraqis, U.S. Says
(State Department Report, April 24; Iraq, North Korea) (840) By Jane Morse Washington File Staff Writer Washington -- The new Iraqi government that arises out of the ashes of Saddam Hussein's regime must represent all of Iraq's people, says Richard Boucher, the State Department spokesman. At the April 24 daily State Department briefing, Boucher said, "Our view is that all the people of Iraq need to participate and be represented in their future government, whether they're Shi'a or Sunni, Kurds, Turkomen, Assyrians or others." The United States is espousing "Iraqi democracy, as the Iraqis decide their democracy should be," he said. "We're not imposing our own blueprint. We're not imposing our own picture of the United States or any other place in the world. We're letting the Iraqis decide how to form a representative government on their own." "We consider respect for individuals, respect for all people in society, refraining from persecution, refraining from torture, refraining from discrimination, refraining from discrimination against women, taking steps to promote an active role of all segments of society -- we consider all those things essential to founding a democracy that can truly represent all the people of Iraq," the spokesman explained. He said the goal of the series of meetings the United States is sponsoring around Iraq "is to get all the different people from different regions in Iraq, start getting them together, start talking about their own future together. It's not a question of assigning one group or the other a particular city or a particular role." One such meeting was held April 15 in Ur; a second is scheduled for April 28 in Baghdad. When asked about some Shi'a groups who are advocating a kind of theocracy, Boucher noted, "there are other Shi'a groups that are advocating a different kind of democracy. There are other Shi'a groups who aren't even Shi'a and who are basically secular, with people who belong to those groups who are Shi'a, who advocate democratic principles. There are other people who are Shi'a by religion but don't believe that religion and politics should be mixed together. "There are a great many groups within the Shi'a community of Iraq," he said. "The fact that people are out there expressing their views is fundamentally a good thing," he said. "This is democracy. People will be saying things" that they were not permitted to say under Saddam Hussein. The United States, he said, is "willing to help the Iraqi people reestablish themselves, organize themselves to take charge of their own destiny." He added: "And we would certainly welcome participation and contributions from Arab governments, as well as others that we've been talking to, to help the Iraqi people get back on their feet and take hold of their own business." The United States, he said, is pleased that the United Nations Security Council passed a resolution to extend until June 3 the U.N. secretary general's authority over certain parts of the Oil-for-Food program. "It provides the secretary general with the necessary authority and flexibility to run the program on a temporary basis so it continues to deliver needed food, medicine and other humanitarian goods to the Iraqi people," the spokesman said. "It makes sense in that it will allow for additional contracts to be processed and humanitarian supplies shipped during the next few weeks, and it enables the secretary general to better plan for the delivery of humanitarian goods to support the Iraqi people." As for Iraq's oil wealth, Boucher said: "The fundamental premise has to be that this oil belongs to the Iraqi people. ... We can help them get the infrastructure back together and make sure that their own needs can be taken care of." It's up to Iraqis, however, "to decide what to do with whatever is pumped from their fields," he said. Regarding multilateral meetings held this week in Beijing regarding North Korea's nuclear program, Boucher only said: "North Korea and China said a great many things during the course of the discussions. ... We'll look at it all, analyze it carefully as we decide how to proceed next." "We have," he said, "largely fulfilled the expectations we had for this, which was a chance for us to lay down clearly the United States' views, including the need for a verifiable and irreversible end to North Korea's nuclear weapons programs." He emphasized that the U.S. delegation has, through the three days of multilateral meetings in Beijing, kept close contact with South Korean and Japanese officials. "Our view," he explained, "is that there are many governments, many countries that have an interest in this" and that there are many countries prepared to offer help to North Korea if it drops its nuclear weapons ambitions. He said the United States is "not going to be intimidated by statements or threats or claims in pursuing these goals. We're not going to pay ... to end programs that never should have started to begin with." (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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