UN information center: IRAQ

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IRAQ Friday, 10 January 2003

Chief UN Inspectors: No ‚Smoking Gun’: Speaking to the press after a closed-door Security Council briefing Thursday, the chief UN weapons inspectors said Iraq’s arms declaration left unanswered questions but investigations have not uncovered any „smoking guns.“ Hans Blix, head of the UN Monitoring, Verification and Inspection Commission (UNMOVIC), said UN Iraq was giving UN investigators prompt access to sites. Mohamed ElBaradei, head of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), urged governments to give inspectors more “actionable information” to help focus the search. http://www.un.org/Depts/unmovic/recent%20items.htm

Security Council Backs UN Arms Inspectors and Hopes for ‘Peaceful’ Disarmament’: After the briefing, the Security Council President said the 15-nation body fully supported the UN inspectors and hoped they would “achieve and verify the disarmament of Iraq through peaceful means.” http://www.un.int/france/sc2003/frame_anglais/accueil/page_accueil.htm

Chief Inspectors Plan to Report Again to Security Council on January 27

Inspections Continue as UN Team Grows and Helicopters Widen the Search: UN experts used helicopters this week to visit a fertilizer plant well outside Baghdad. Other teams visited a missile storage area, a biological research center and university chemistry labs. The UN currently has about 200 international staff in Baghdad and Mosul.

Quelle http://www.unicwash.org United Nations Information Center und http://www.un.org/News/ UN news center

White House Press Briefing

Excerpts from the Press Briefing by Ari Fleischer, January 6, 2003 (Full transcript)

QUESTION: My follow-up is, why does he want to drop bombs on innocent Iraqis?

MR. FLEISCHER: Helen, the question is how to protect Americans, and our allies and friends —

QUESTION: They’re not attacking you.

MR. FLEISCHER: — from a country —

QUESTION: Have they laid the glove on you or on the United States, the Iraqis, in 11 years?

MR. FLEISCHER: I guess you have forgotten about the Americans who were killed in the first Gulf War as a result of Saddam Hussein’s aggression then.

QUESTION: Is this revenge, 11 years of revenge?

MR. FLEISCHER: Helen, I think you know very well that the President’s position is that he wants to avert war, and that the President has asked the United Nations to go into Iraq to help with the purpose of averting war.

QUESTION: Would the President attack innocent Iraqi lives?

MR. FLEISCHER: The President wants to make certain that he can defend our country, defend our interests, defend the region, and make certain that American lives are not lost.

QUESTION: And he thinks they are a threat to us?

MR. FLEISCHER: There is no question that the President thinks that Iraq is a threat to the United States.

QUESTION: The Iraqi people?

MR. FLEISCHER: The Iraqi people are represented by their government. If there was regime change, the Iraqi —

QUESTION: So they will be vulnerable?

MR. FLEISCHER: Actually, the President has made it very clear that he has not dispute with the people of Iraq. That’s why the American policy remains a policy of regime change. There is no question the people of Iraq —

QUESTION: That’s a decision for them to make, isn’t it? It’s their country.

MR. FLEISCHER: Helen, if you think that the people of Iraq are in a position to dictate who their dictator is, I don’t think that has been what history has shown.

QUESTION: I think many countries don’t have — people don’t have the decision — including us.

QUESTION: Are you factoring in when you’re doing these numbers, the cost of a possible war with Iraq?

MR. FLEISCHER: I’m talking about the tax cut itself. That’s what you’re question was addressed to.

QUESTION: Right. And ultimately, you hope to not be in a deficit situation down the road, presumably, right?

MR. FLEISCHER: Well, clearly, anything dealing with Iraq is such a hypothetical, I’m not in a position to address what a potential cost could or could not be. But regardless of any decisions that are made on Iraq, the economy needs a boost. And that’s why the President is going to go to Chicago tomorrow, separate and apart from anything dealing with Iraq, to announce a plan to give the economy a boost.

QUESTION: You also call for cuts in spending, though, in addition to this.

MR. FLEISCHER:The President is going to continue to ask Congress to hold the line on spending. The President has announced a series of priorities which involve increases in spending for education, increases in spending for homeland security, to fight bioterrorism, to provide more money for first responders. All of those are the priorities that the President has announced that he’ll continue to work with the Congress on. And the Congress, as you know, is taking up the appropriation bill that was undone from the last Congress, in the next two weeks. They’ve already agreed on an aggregate cap of $750 bill for all domestic discretionary spending for the 11 remaining appropriation bills. So the President is encouraged by the fact that they have already agreed to a cap that the administration supports for the upcoming appropriation cycle for 2003.

QUESTION: British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw said earlier today that the way he sees it, war with Iraq is less likely now than it was. Does the White House agree with that assessment?

MR. FLEISCHER: Well, the President, as he said over the holidays, remains very hopeful that peace can be pursued as a result of some of the decisions Saddam Hussein has yet to make. And this is about disarmament. And that’s why the inspectors are there. They’re going about their jobs and they’re doing their work, and the President continues to hope that war can be averted.

QUESTION: So the buildup that we’re witnessing now, particularly the departure of the hospital ship Comfort today, is that posturing or is that serious?

MR. FLEISCHER: I think the President has been very serious. And hopefully, Saddam Hussein will get the message that the world community, through the United Nations, has called on Saddam Hussein to disarm, and as the President said, he will either disarm or the United States will lead a coalition to disarm him. That’s a serious message. It’s not a bluff. And perhaps as a result of it being such a serious message, Saddam Hussein will indeed get that message and disarm peacefully.

QUESTION: Okay, one — just one quickly on Iraq. You said this morning, the work of the inspectors needs to continue.

MR. FLEISCHER: Correct.

QUESTION: For how long?

MR. FLEISCHER: The President has not put a period of time on there. The President wants to continue to work with the international community to make certain that the inspectors can do their job. And that requires the compliance of Iraq with the United Nations Security Council resolutions. Saddam Hussein’s statements where he accused the weapons inspectors of being — of carrying out pure intelligence work is an attempt to divert attention from the fact that Iraq still has not shown signs that it will disarm itself of weapons of mass destruction.

Quelle: http://www.whitehouse.gov

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