26 August 2002
Bolton Fields Queries on Iraq, North Korea
(August 26 press roundtable in Tokyo) (8140)
The U.S. government remains "very concerned about North Korea's
outward proliferation activities," Undersecretary of State for Arms
Control and International Security John Bolton said at a briefing at
the Tokyo American Center August 26.
"It is a state of concern in connection with ballistic missiles and
possibly with nuclear technologies in particular ... (and) it's one of
the states that we've been concerned about in the biological weapons
area for some time," he said.
Bolton said the Bush administration's decision this year to decline to
certify that North Korea was in compliance with the Agreed Framework
had no effect on the country because the United States waived the
compliance question and thus allowed the provision of heavy fuel oil.
"The precise practical effect this year was that there was no
practical effect," Bolton said, but the decision to decline
certification signaled ... a feeling on our part."
The Under Secretary stressed that the U.S. decision not to certify did
not mean that North Korea was not in compliance. "We were saying
nothing as to whether they were in compliance or not," he said.
"That was a change from the previous practice, where the last
administration had certified that they were in compliance," Bolton
pointed out.
When asked by reporters about the U.S. desire for a change of
leadership in Iraq, Bolton replied that "there's not a lot of
disagreement internationally with the policy of regime change."
"There's been comment on hypothetical ways in which that might occur,
but in terms of the notion that the region would be more peaceful and
more stable with a different regime in Baghdad, I don't really think
there's much disagreement on that," he continued.
As for garnering support for the Bush administration's plan regarding
regime change in Iraq, Bolton admitted "that there will be a need for
explaining more fully what we know Saddam Hussein is up to, and I
think at an appropriate time we'll make that information available."
Bolton also replied to reporters' questions about the U.S. withdrawal
from the Anti-Ballistic Missile (ABM) Treaty and ratification of the
Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT).
Bolton was in Japan primarily to attend a meeting of the Japan-U.S.
Commission on Arms Control, Disarmament and Non-proliferation
Verification.
Following is a transcript of the press roundtable:
(begin transcript)
U.S. EMBASSY TOKYO
Press Office
Under Secretary John Bolton
Roundtable with Japanese Journalists on Arms Control
Tokyo American Center
August 26, 2002
Tokyo, Japan
BOLTON: Well, if everybody is ready. I'm in Japan principally for a
regular meeting of the Japan-U.S. Commission on Arms Control,
Disarmament and Non-proliferation Verification, which is a
long-standing consultative mechanism that the U.S. and Japan have used
for some time. And we covered the whole range of international
security, arms control, non-proliferation issues involving questions
of nuclear weapons, chemical weapons, biological weapons, ballistic
missiles, various international agreements and conventions, and export
control regimes, and I thought it was a very productive discussion. We
talked about a number of regional conflicts and issues as well, and I
thought it was a very good exchange of views on both sides with our
counterparts in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. And why don't I just
leave it at that and be happy to answer any questions you have.
QUESTION: You mentioned that you discussed regional conflicts. Could
you elaborate more on what conflicts you discussed?
BOLTON: Well, we talked about areas of concern where weapons of mass
destruction would be involved: Iran, Iraq, South Asia, North Korea,
questions of proliferation generally. So we covered a pretty wide
range of those areas.
QUESTION: Did you have, Mr. Secretary, did you have any new message
with regard to North Korea?
BOLTON: No, I didn't have any new message with regard to North Korea.
But we talked about a variety of issues that could arise in connection
with North Korea's outward proliferation activities in connection with
nuclear weapons and ballistic missiles. We talked about the
implementation of the Agreed Framework and the role of the
International Atomic Energy Agency and North Korea's activities with
respect to a number of other proliferant countries.
QUESTION: Separate from the meetings you have had so far, are you
going to make any statement or speech in Tokyo or maybe Seoul about
North Korea?
BOLTON: Well, I'm going to make a speech tomorrow here about the
Biological Weapons Convention, which will touch on Korea. And then in
Seoul on Thursday, I'll have a speech about our policies with respect
to North Korea, generally.
QUESTION: Are you going to send any new message?
BOLTON: The short answer to that is you should come to my speech,
which will be fully cleared, I can assure you.
QUESTION: Secretary, could you give us the latest U.S. assessment on
the development of WMD by North Korea?
BOLTON: On missile development?
QUESTION: Missile and WMD-weapons of mass destruction development by
North Korea.
BOLTON: Well, we remain very concerned about North Korea's outward
proliferation activities. It is a state of concern in connection with
ballistic missiles and possibly with nuclear technologies in
particular. The United States recently issued sanctions against North
Korea in the Missile Area, just as one example of that. It's one of
the states that we've been concerned about in the biological weapons
area for some time. So I don't have any information that I'm at
liberty to reveal publicly about that, but the subject of North
Korea's activities in the WMD area is something we do pay very close
attention to.
QUESTION: And have you detected any signs of change of the attitude on
the development of missile or WMDs recently?
BOLTON: I don't think there's been any diminution in their outward
proliferation activities that we can see now.
QUESTION: Sir, may I ask you about nuclear testing and development of
nuclear weapons in the United States? We understand by the Nuclear
Posture Review that the United States is looking at a new way to make
use of nuclear weapons. I was wondering whether that change of policy
requires testing for a new type of warhead.
BOLTON: Well, the president's moratorium on nuclear testing is in
force and will remain in force. The Nuclear Posture Review was
principally directed at ascertaining what the optimal strategic
nuclear force for the United States was over the next 10 years. And
the purpose of the Review, which is both mandated by statute and
requested by President Bush, was to look at the new international
strategic situation 10 years after the end of the Cold War and try to
make a judgment about what was the appropriate level of our strategic
nuclear capability. Now this review came at a very important time
because we had been in discussions with the Russians about seeking to
see if there was a mutually acceptable way to move beyond the ABM
treaty of 1972. And, as I'm sure you all know, it turned out that we
were not able to find a mutually acceptable way to move beyond the ABM
treaty and so we gave notice of our withdrawal from that treaty on
December the thirteenth of last year.
Many people around the world who were critical of our decision to
withdraw from the ABM treaty said that withdrawing would undercut
international strategic stability and possibly lead to a new arms
race. And yet the conclusion of the Nuclear Posture Review was exactly
the opposite. The conclusion of the Nuclear Posture Review was that
the United States could reduce its operationally deployed strategic
nuclear warheads by essentially two-thirds over a ten-year period.
From something just under 6,000 deployed strategic warheads now to a
range of between 1,700 and 2,200 at the end of the 10-year period.
That's a very dramatic conclusion and an important step toward a safer
international environment as both we and the Russians draw our levels
down. The Nuclear Posture Review, as was inherent in its charter, also
considered possible developments in the future, making sure that the
nuclear infrastructure in the United States was sufficient to assure
the safety and the reliability of our weapons stockpile, and also to
consider what might or might not be necessary in the future. But as a
matter of policy there's no decision on designing new weapons and no
decision on testing other than continuing the president's policy on
the moratorium.
QUESTION: Mr. Secretary, what would be the constructive new measures
you expect from DPRK, so that you can start or restart the talks with
North Korea, and when would be the deadline for that action?
BOLTON: Well, there isn't any deadline. I think President Bush has
made it clear that our policy is that we'll talk with the North
Koreans at any time, any place, and that remains the policy. We've got
a number of issues we want to talk to them about. Their compliance
with the nonproliferation treaty on nuclear weapons, their compliance
with the Agreed Framework, their outward proliferation activities that
we discussed before, the disposition of conventional forces on the
peninsula, the human rights situation, and the economic and
humanitarian situation in the North. All of those things are things
that we think are worth discussing, and the president made that policy
clear last year and it remains in effect. So there's no deadline from
our point of view, but we do have some serious issues we want to
discuss.
QUESTION: Suppose if North Korea didn't take any action in limiting
the proliferation-of-weapons-of-mass-destruction-related technologies
and didn't allow the inspections to the nuclear facilities, would you
think of any new actions? For example, the stopping of the oil supply
to North Korea at a certain point in the near future, say in half a
year or so?
BOLTON: Well, I wouldn't want to speculate on what we might do in
those circumstances. Obviously, we expect the North to comply with the
Agreed Framework and I think you're probably familiar -- you may not
be -- but we declined this year to certify that the North was in
compliance with the Agreed Framework as is required by our statutory
framework to provide the heavy fuel oil. Now that wasn't certifying --
I want to be careful in my English here -- we didn't certify that the
North was not in compliance. We simply declined to certify that they
were in compliance. In other words, we were saying nothing as to
whether they were in compliance or not. That was a change from the
previous practice, where the last administration had certified that
they were in compliance. As I say, we waived the compliance question
as we are permitted to do by our statutes to supply the heavy fuel
oil. But I think that, you know, you would really have to address the
question more to the North Koreans as to what they intend to do about
it. I think it's very clear that we have made the proliferation of
weapons of mass destruction an important element of American foreign
policy. That's why we're concerned about all of the activities of
proliferater countries and proliferant countries, and that's why North
Korea receives the attention that it does from us.
QUESTION: Mr. Secretary, Mr. Kelly will visit Pyongyang next month. Is
there any prior condition for his visit?
BOLTON: Well, Mr. Kelly is here in Tokyo. You should really ask him.
QUESTION: At your meetings with Japanese officials, did you talk about
or did the Japanese officials refer to the speeches made by the mayors
of Hiroshima and Nagasaki at the ceremonies marking the fifty-seventh
anniversary of the atomic bombing?
BOLTON: In fact, there was ...
QUESTION: They basically criticized specifically the policies of the
president.
BOLTON: Yeah, they did make reference to the speeches, although I have
to confess I hadn't read the speeches and I assumed that meant they
were critical of our policy. But I'd have to say, since I had not read
the speeches, I was not familiar with what the specific criticism was.
Maybe you can tell me.
QUESTION: They basically criticized the president's withdrawal from
the ABM treaty as well as his attitudes toward the ratification of the
CTBT and other issues.
BOLTON: Well, you know, on the withdrawal from the ABM treaty, I've
said elsewhere that in foreign ministries, and editorial and newsrooms
around the world, there used to be a key on the word processing
machines that whenever somebody would type in the ABM treaty of 1972,
all you'd have to do would be to press one key on the word processing
machine and it would automatically print out: "comma, the cornerstone
of international strategic stability, comma" and that's why people
said if we withdraw from the treaty that it will enhance instability.
And in fact, the opposite is the case. We have not an arms race in
progress on strategic nuclear weapons, but continuing reductions over
the next 10 years to the lowest levels since the early days of the
Cold War. What that reflects is a substantial change in the
relationship between the United States and Russia. The treaty doesn't
drive the changes. The changes in the relationship drive the treaty
relationship. And I think that's important. Also, the withdrawal from
the ABM treaty allows us to address a threat to the United States and
its friends and allies that didn't exist when the ABM treaty was
written, when at that time basically a very limited number of states
had access to ballistic missile technologies. Now almost thirty states
have access to ballistic missile technologies, so that the threat that
the United States faces is not from an opposing superpower, but from
states that are relatively small, weak economically, that don't have
large arsenals, but that might have a handful of ICBMs on which they
could place nuclear, chemical or biological warheads that would
threaten the United States and its friends and allies.
It's not enough to say that in a crisis that we might have with such a
state, that they only fired a handful of ballistic missiles at the
United States and only destroyed a few cities. That is not an
argument, that is not a result that's acceptable to us. So that the
ability to defend, as we have said, against handfuls, not hundreds of
incoming ballistic missiles, but the ability to defend against
handfuls of incoming ballistic missiles, is a basic responsibility
that a democratic government owes to its innocent civilians. So we
think that what we've done is entirely consistent with our president's
constitutional obligations to defend our civilian population, and with
the ABM treaty gone, to be able to share ABM technology with friends
and allies and protect their innocent civilian populations as well.
QUESTION: I know that during the previous administration, the Senate
voted against the ratification of the (CTBT) treaty. However, the
people in Japan, especially many of us are more and more concerned
about the proliferation of nuclear weapons, as well as nuclear testing
by your country.
BOLTON: Well, the ratification or not, of the CTBT, in our judgment,
would not affect nuclear proliferation. The states that are seeking
nuclear weapons now are typically states that are already in violation
of their treaty obligations under the non-proliferation treaty. If
they were determined to seek nuclear weapons, violating two treaties
rather than violating one treaty would not stop them. The issue for
the United States on the CTBT is our responsibility to ensure the
safety and reliability of our nuclear stockpile, the umbrella of
protection, that protects all of us -- protects Japan as well. The
feeling in the Senate when the treaty was rejected was that a complete
ban on testing, essentially forever, did not leave us with the
necessary level of assurances that we would need both on safety and
reliability. Now, we have an active stockpile stewardship program to
try and verify those two requirements, but I don't think it would be
prudent to say that that program alone is enough. That's basically why
the Senate rejected the treaty and why this administration is not
going to resubmit it. For all of those who benefit from the protection
of the stockpile, I think it's critical that they believe and have
reason to believe that the stockpile is safe and that it's reliable in
case it needs to be used. I think those who are our opponents also
need to know that we consider the stockpiles safe and reliable. So
those are the reasons that we have decided not to seek ratification of
the CTBT, and I think our level of activity against the proliferation
of weapons of mass destruction-nuclear in particular --demonstrates
how important we consider the objective of non-proliferation. So it's
not from any lack of interest or lack of dedication to preventing the
spread of nuclear technology that we're not ratifying the CTBT. It's a
question of making sure that our stockpile does what we commissioned
it to do in the unlikely event we would ever need to rely on it.
QUESTION: Do you have any other choice, any alternative to the CTBT
treaty?
BOLTON: No. Under existing obligations, the amount of testing that
could be done was already quite limited and we had extensive
transparency with the Russians already, so that the CTBT was simply
the last step. The issue is whether, in effect, you're going to reject
the scientific method entirely and say there's never going to be any
experimentation. There's no plan -- and I want to stress this -- no
plan to change the moratorium against testing, but it is a question
that our scientists and technicians are looking at now from the point
of view of long-term safety and reliability of the nuclear stockpile.
QUESTION: If the presidential moratorium is still in place, why are
you trying to shorten the preparation period for the testing?
BOLTON: Because if somebody were to say to the president, "Mr.
President, the nuclear stockpile is no longer reliable," and the
president were to say, "Alright then, I guess we need to begin testing
again, how long will it take?" and the response was "Three or four
years," I think the president would be shocked to learn that. Now this
is a matter of really, I think, just a question of prudent planning
for contingencies that we hope are not going to occur. But we have the
capacity at the Nevada test site with a certain amount of work to
reduce the time, so that if there were a substantial change in the
international geo-strategic environment, or if there were a question
of the safety and reliability of the nuclear stockpile, that a
president should have the option to resume testing and not to leave
the nation at risk for a period of three or four years while we work
back to testing. I mean, to say -- think about this for a minute -- if
somebody were to conclude that a substantial part of the stockpile
were not reliable, that would mean that the nuclear umbrella had
failed. That is something that we have not contemplated during the
entire post-war period, when the United States led the international
coalition to preserve freedom and keep the peace through the use of a
strong deterrent. Saying that the stockpile was not reliable would
mean that the deterrent had failed, and that's a very dangerous
proposition in an insecure world. So I just regard this as a matter of
prudence and careful planning.
QUESTION: Mr. Secretary, you talked about the nuclear umbrella, and I
would like to know how you see an impact of 9/11 in the emergence of
transnational terrorists who can make use of the weapons of mass
destruction, because it seems to me that first of all, those guys
can't be deterred, and second of all, those guys don't depend on ICBMs
to deliver those weapons. They will take whatever unconditional means
possible. So it seems to me that from the Allies point of view the
necessity or credibility of an extended deterrence or nuclear umbrella
is decreasing.
BOLTON: Well, I think the likelihood that we would have to use nuclear
weapons in a Cold War style nuclear scenario is definitely reduced,
and that's why we're able to reduce our operationally deplored
strategic warheads by two-thirds over a 10-year period. I think that
September 11 also tells us that there are people who are not
susceptible to traditional theories of deterrents. I quite agree with
you. As bad, as tragic as September the eleventh was, how much worse
would it have been if Al Qaeda had nuclear weapons or biological or
chemical weapons? So it means that the incentive for terrorist groups
to try to acquire these technologies is substantial, and requires the
kind of unremitting non-proliferation and counter-proliferation
efforts that we're currently engaged in. It also means that, for the
states that sponsor terrorism, the states that seek to acquire weapons
of mass destruction, and those two categories of states are almost
completely the same, the same states that are sponsors of terrorism on
our list, anyway, are pretty much the same states that are seeking to
acquire weapons of mass destruction, that if they reach that
capability, we can't count on deterrence from stopping them from using
them, which is why we need missile defense. We need other kinds of
defense too. As Secretary Rumsfeld has said, we need defense not just
against ballistic missiles, but against cruise missiles and against a
range of other non-conventional forms of attack. But it's one of the
reasons why facing asymmetric threats of the kind we're talking about,
not traditional state versus state or large state versus large state,
of the kind of confrontation that we're familiar with over the
centuries, but from concern over the threat that a small,
impoverished, dictatorial regime could pose to nearby democracies with
just a handful of missiles and a small number of nuclear weapons. If
such a state existed and threatened a city in Japan, it wouldn't
matter that the country threatening might have an economy one-tenth
the size of this country. It could still kill thousands and thousands
of people and that risk would be unacceptable. That's why the subject
of preventing the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction is so
important to us. And it's not looking at, as I say, this kind of
threat -- the risk posed by weapons of mass destruction-gives even
small, insignificant powers, grossly disproportionate influence
potentially because of the sheer magnitude and horror of the damage
that they could pose to nearby countries.
QUESTION: Mr. Secretary, my question is on ABM and the missile defense
issue and I understand that you did not react to the withdrawal from
the ABM treaty by U.S. in a way we thought, but we still don't know
the possible reaction by China and how do you see that Chinese
reaction? And also the question is, what kind of discussions are you
going to have with China or the current status of the discussion on
the missile defense issue with China?
BOLTON: Well, I don't think China reacted very decidedly one way or
the other in a public fashion when we announced our withdrawal from
the ABM treaty. Obviously, it was a bilateral treaty, so it was just
between us and Russia. And I don't think China's decisions on its own
strategic force levels were much affected by our withdrawal from the
AMB treaty, which is not to say there aren't a lot of questions raised
by what China is doing with its strategic forces and what it's doing
with its proliferation activities, and we do discuss those with China,
but I don't think our decision on the ABM treaty has really played
into their thinking one way or the other.
QUESTION: And are you going to have a similar discussion with China
like you had with Russia?
BOLTON: Well, I've been to -- since August of last year -- I've been
to Moscow seventeen times, so the answer is, no, I'm not going to have
the same kind of conversation because the force situation --
comparison -- between China and Russia is vastly different. But we've
certainly had conversations with China on proliferation and arms
control issues and I'd expect we'd have other conversations with them
as well.
QUESTION: Mr. Bolton, can I ask about the issue of Iraq? I think that
President Bush repeated again, again and again that he wants to
replace the leadership of Baghdad, but few countries are going to
support it. So how are you going to explain the seriousness of the
threat posed by Baghdad?
BOLTON: Well, I think actually there's not a lot of disagreement
internationally with the policy of regime change. There's been comment
on hypothetical ways in which that might occur, but in terms of the
notion that the region would be more peaceful and more stable with a
different regime in Baghdad, I don't really think there's much
disagreement on that. There's no question that Baghdad, since it threw
out the UN inspectors, has moved aggressively to acquire capabilities
in the nuclear, chemical and biological weapons area and is seeking
greatly enhanced ballistic missile capabilities as well. The pattern
of activity is something that poses a very grave concern to us because
of what Saddam Hussein's history of the use of these weapons has been
in the past -- and as recently as the invasion of Kuwait just over ten
years ago.
I don't doubt that there will be a need for explaining more fully what
we know Saddam Hussein is up to, and I think at an appropriate time
we'll make that information available. We're certainly having private
conversations with a number of governments now, and we're also working
to make sure that if Saddam does allow UN weapons inspectors back in
that they are as prepared as possible to conduct inspections that will
show just exactly what his efforts to acquire weapons of mass
destruction are. We have experience in that area, we're aware of his
extensive efforts at what we call denial and deception to avoid
detection of what his efforts are, and we would work with the
inspectors to overcome that as well. It is a profound threat to
international peace and security in the region, and it's typical of
the threat that we see from states that seek to acquire weapons of
mass destruction around the world. It's something that we think is
increasingly important, that all governments, particularly democratic
governments, see in the conduct of the states that are seeking to
acquire these weapons, and why they're such a threat to a peaceful way
of life.
QUESTION: The threat means that -- do you think that Baghdad still
gives substantial amount of the SCUD missiles?
BOLTON: Well, we don't really know the total extent of their missile
capability and that's frankly one of the things that concerns us. You
know, one of Secretary Rumsfeld's favorite sayings is that "the
absence of evidence is not evidence of absence." That is to say, just
because we can't answer the question "How many SCUD missiles does he
have?" doesn't mean we're not worried that he's got enough SCUD
missiles to cause a lot of death and destruction, both possibly to our
troops in the region -- our forward-deployed troops -- or to our
friends and allies. So that is one indication of, I think, of the
measure of the threat that he poses. Particularly when you're talking
about the use of weapons of mass destruction against civilian
populations, which is the way he targeted his SCUD missiles in the
Persian Gulf War ten years ago, this is something that we're very
concerned about.
QUESTION: Given the very grave concern you have about the leadership
in Baghdad, how quickly do you think you have to deal with him?
BOLTON: Well, I don't think there's any particular deadline, but it's
clear that given his efforts to acquire WMD, the risk grows daily that
he will have such a capability and could inflict very substantial
damage. And it's one reason why I think it's only prudent that we
consider what steps are taken in a very measured and careful fashion.
And I think that's exactly what we are doing.
QUESTION: Did you attend the meeting at the president's ranch in
Crawford, Texas last week?
BOLTON: No, I did not.
QUESTION: Were you briefed on or discussed ...
BOLTON: Well, it was a briefing by the Pentagon on a number of issues,
including missile defense and a range of other Pentagon-related
issues.
QUESTION: Including Iraq?
BOLTON: I don't think-- I mean I wasn't there, but I can tell you Iraq
was not a central subject of it, despite what some of your colleagues
elsewhere in the press wrote. It was a long-scheduled briefing on a
number of Pentagon programs, missile defense being one of them.
QUESTION: What constitutes a condition to decide to launch an attack
on Iraq?
BOLTON: Well, I think that would be speculation for me to get into
that. You know, there are a lot of ways that regime change can occur.
People speculate a lot about military attack, but there are lots of
other ways that regime change can occur as well, and there are
substantial elements of resistance to Saddam Hussein and the Iraqi
Diaspora. There are already substantial tracts of northern and
northeastern Iraq under the control of the Kurds that Saddam Hussein
does not control, and I think there are strong aspirations among the
Iraqi populace to be free of this dictator. So it's not at all
dictated one way or the other how regime change is going to occur, but
I think what the president's trying to do, and I think he's making the
arguments very compellingly, is to try to get people to understand why
a government that terrorizes its own people, but is consistently
seeking to acquire weapons of mass destruction, is a threat that you
cannot simply allow to remain in place. The president said in the
State of the Union message, "Time is not on our side," which is an
unusual thing for an American to say. I mean, we're very optimistic,
always looking to the future. He said, "Time is not on our side, and
we cannot allow the world's most dangerous people to acquire the
world's most dangerous weapons." If they acquire that capability, they
can threaten everybody else. Imagine, for example, if during the
Kosovo crisis, Slobodan Milosevic possessed ballistic missiles and
nuclear warheads capable of reaching Western Europe. It certainly
would have affected the way Western Europe treated the Kosovo affair.
Well, I can imagine the impact here of the threat from a country with
ballistic missiles and nuclear warheads. I think that it's important
that -- and it's incumbent on the United States I would say this -- to
spell out what those consequences would be, and therefore why a regime
like Iraq's does pose such a threat, and that is what we are trying to
do.
QUESTION: Going back to the North Korean issue, it is supposed that
North Korea is very much afraid of a possible U.S. attack on Iraq.
After that it may fall upon them -- the attack may...
BOLTON: You think there are North Koreans in Iraq? Maybe there are.
QUESTION: ... and that is said to be one of the reasons why they are
so active these days in dialogues with the outside world. But in the
talks with President Putin of Russia just last week, they didn't
announce any new measures -- for example, the extension of the
stoppage of missile testing. Are you a little bit surprised that there
was no new announcement of that sort? Or disappointed a little bit?
BOLTON: I'm not disappointed. That's for sure. You know, I can't judge
what motivates the North Korean regime. Why it would allow widespread
starvation among its people while pursuing ballistic missile
technology is hard to understand. What we can do, I think, from our
position is insist on North Korean performance, ceasing its
proliferation activities and coming into compliance with its
international obligations. That is how we have to judge what our
response to North Korea will be ultimately.
QUESTION: When you refer to North Korea's proliferation activities, I
think you mentioned this a bit earlier, but you could you be a bit
more specific on what types of things you are concerned about?
BOLTON: Well, we're particularly worried about -- given what we know
they're doing and have done in the past in the field of nuclear
weapons, ballistic missiles, biological weapons and a range of other
things and given we know their outward proliferation activities in
several of these areas -- it's a problem that is posed both by what
capacity North Korea itself may have and by what capacities it is
helping other rogue states deliver. So it's really two-fold. It's a
question of what they're doing themselves indigenously, and what other
states they're helping through supply of components, technology and
that sort of that thing-and what they may be acquiring from other
states as well.
You know, there a lot of things that we know that we can't discuss
publicly for obvious reasons. A number of you asked earlier about
trying to persuade people to our view on Iraq or other areas. It's a
dilemma that we face, and it's legitimate for people to say, "Well,
tell us what you know." And yet there are occasions when, since we
don't comment on these matters publicly, we're just constrained from
discussing as much as we do know. But we watch North Korea and we
watch the rogue states very carefully, and we feel confident that when
we talk about their proliferation activities we have the evidence to
support it.
QUESTION: The nature of the attack against Iraq next time around will
be preemptive. You won't wait for Iraq to launch an attack on U.S.
soil or U.S. nationals, right? Then how, if you don't disclose that
intelligence information, how do you expect that you can persuade
other nations to support you?
BOLTON: Well, I don't necessarily agree with the premise of the
question about what comes next on Iraq. As I say, there a lot of ways
in which regime change can be accomplished. But I think there will
come a point when we do explain, at least at some level, what we know.
I think another way it might happen is if Iraq, after almost four
years, finally lets UN weapons inspectors back in and then obstructs
them, as Saddam obstructed UNSCOM almost from the first moments it
landed in Iraq after the Persian Gulf War and obstructed it and tried
to hide what it was doing right up until the time it actually expelled
the inspectors. I think that's important for people, should the
inspectors go back in and should Saddam Hussein obstruct them, to
recognize what that means, which is he has something to hide. It's not
because it's an inconvenience to one of the presidential palaces, it's
because there's something he doesn't want them to see.
QUESTION: When you say that the U.S. declined to certify that North
Korea is in compliance, does that have any actual concrete
ramifications?
BOLTON: Well, it doesn't this year because we waived the fact that we
were not able to certify, and there were other conditions that had not
been met in the past and those were waived as well. So the precise
practical effect this year was that there was no practical effect. But
I think what it signaled was a feeling on our part that we wanted to
demonstrate what we believed was actually happening in North Korea,
and that's why we declined to certify.
QUESTION: Regarding the speech that you're planning in Seoul, there
was a report last week in The Washington Times that one draft of the
speech contained the phrase "axis of evil." Do you plan to use that
speech to describe ...
BOLTON: Jeez, I've got to keep something secret here so that somebody
comes to my speech. You know, I personally think it's okay for a
senior American official to quote the President of the United States.
That's what I think. How's that for a dramatic statement? "State
Department Official Supports President."
QUESTION: Back to this morning's paper. We read an article by Mr.
James Baker III about ...
BOLTON: My former boss.
QUESTION: Right. A new UNSC resolution to call on another inspection,
and then that resolution would authorize military attacks on Iraq.
What in the discussion on that idea is now well-known in the State
Department?
BOLTON: Well, there's no decision on that point, although as Secretary
Baker's article indicates: First, we could rely simply on Article 51
of the UN Charter; second, we could rely on the existing ceasefire
Resolution 687. I guess I should reveal I was assistant secretary of
state for international organizations during the first Bush
administration when we wrote Resolution 687, so I could do everything
but recite it by heart for you. Essentially, the point is when Iraq
accepted the ceasefire, it accepted the obligation to comply with all
of 687's obligations, including free and unimpeded access for UN
weapons inspectors. Its failure to grant free and unimpeded access
constitutes a breach of the ceasefire resolution, which in effect
therefore terminates the ceasefire and reactivates Resolution 678,
which authorized the use of force against Iraq, and that's what
Baker's article says this morning.
His argument is somewhat different, saying that it would be better to
get another resolution because of the Clinton administration's failure
to object strenuously enough when Iraq expelled the inspectors in
1998. He says further that if we sought a resolution and failed it
would nonetheless leave us in a stronger position to launch military
action. Like all arguments that Jim Baker makes, I have the highest
respect for him and I think they'll be considered very seriously, but
there's no decision on the point. It's pretty clear from the article,
though: He supports the use of military force for regime change
purposes in Iraq. And while we're counting former secretaries of state
and so on, and where they line up, you can put Baker in the support
column.
I'm going to give a speech tomorrow about the biological weapons
convention. That will be interesting too -- I can guarantee you. Thank
you very much. I appreciate you coming by.
(end transcript)
(Distributed by the Office of International Information Programs, U.S.
Department of State. Web site: http://usinfo.state.gov)
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