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DoD News Briefing

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Q: Two Persian Gulf questions, not directly related. Does the Defense Department accept the Israeli intelligence assessment of the missile proliferation to Iran that would then threaten Israel as far as the missiles having the range to reach Israel? And is the Pentagon going to lobby the White House strongly to ask that Russia shut down all sources of missile parts and alloys and such that are going to the Iranians?

A: To take the second question first, it's not a question of the Pentagon having to lobby the White House. This Administration, from the Commander-in-Chief on down, is committed to trying to stop the proliferation of missiles and weapons of mass destruction in Iran and Iraq. We've made that very clear to the Russians over a period of years. In the last several months, Ambassador Wisner has made several trips to Moscow to talk to the Russians about this. He'll be going back again soon for more talks. The Russians have made some public statements about their desire to stop proliferation as well. I think we're making progress, but it's a complex issue. One of the reasons it's complex, of course, is changes taking place in the business structure in Russia today. So we're trying to work with the Russian authorities to address those problems.

There is no doubt that Iran is working to improve its military capability in a variety of areas, and one of those areas is to build longer range missiles. It does have SCUD missiles now that are relatively short range. They're working to develop medium range missiles which could go more than 1,000 kilometers. We are trying to stop them from doing that. We don't see any defensive need for Iran to do that. We will continue to work with... We don't think they're there yet, we don't think they have tested missiles.... We know they have not tested missiles of that range. It could be several years off. But the time to prevent this type of proliferation is in the early stages, not in the later stages, and that's what we're trying to do -- start in the early stages to prevent it.

Q: The second issue that I wanted to raise, Iraq is threatening to forbid the UN any more inspections. What is the United States Department of Defense reaction to that attitude by Saddam Hussein?

A: Well, it's clearly... Saddam Hussein has not been a good citizen in good standing in the international community for a number of years, and this type of threat on his part shows that he's not getting any closer to being a citizen of good standing.

The UN is clear on what it requires from Iraq, and the U.S. fully supports complete compliance by Iraq with the UN resolutions. This is one other sign that Saddam Hussein is determined not to comply with international norms of good behavior.

Press: Thank you.