The NATO Summit in Prague, November 21-22, 2002

       The summit is also about NATO's transformation to meet the coming threats of the 21st century. That is something that -- enlargement is an issue has been thought about, written about, and started as a process some years ago. Transformation is an issue, which is coming on us fast. NATO has already been thinking through some of these problems and will continue to think them through. But this NATO summit is a moment in which I believe NATO will take some real decisions to change the way it handles the new threats to security.

       Now, let me be clear. The core of NATO's collective defense is Article 5, which is usually translated as: an attack on one is an attack on all. That remains. That is not changing.

       Article 5 never said that NATO countries would defend themselves against the Soviet menace. It didn't mention the Soviet Union at all, or Stalin. It didn't say that NATO would be an organization to stop a Russian or Soviet army on the Central European plains. Article 5 had no geographic limit, but it was -- let's be clear about it -- generally thought throughout the decades of the Cold War that NATO was an organization of purely European scope and directed against the Cold War adversary.

       These assumptions have to be looked at awfully hard in light of the fact that the Soviet Union no longer exists. Russia is no longer an enemy. No one remotely contemplates an Article 5 defense of Europe from the kind of mass tank armies that we thought about and people wrote learned treatises or alarmed treatises about in 1975. The new threats are real, they are not hypothetical, and NATO voted to invoke Article 5, for the first and only time in its history, on September 12th, 2001.

       So we are living in a world of new threats, and it is heartening for those of us who believe in NATO that NATO has been doing a lot of serious rethinking internally about the nature of its response to new threats. And I think you will see a lot of this at the summit.

       It is a summit in which NATO prepares itself to do as much good for peace, security and common values for the first half of the 21st century as it did for the second half of the 20th century. We're all looking forward to this very much.

       Because my time is limited and I was advised to keep opening statements short, I will stop here and answer all the questions to the best of my ability.

       Please. Come on. Yes?

       Q (Off mike.)

       SR. ADMIN. OFFICIAL: No, it is not -- this is not an Iraq summit. That is, the strategic outlines of the summit are longer-term than the Iraq issue, although obviously Iraq is on everyone's mind. Iraq will be discussed, especially now that the U.N. Security Council has voted a very strong resolution unanimously. I fully expect Iraq will come up in a lot of the conversations, the meetings, the side conversations.

       NATO summits are a place where a lot of work happens in the -- during the meetings and in side conversations, and of course Iraq will be discussed. But no, I had not contemplated -- we don't contemplate that this is -- this will be an Iraq NATO summit. We never did.

       Q Champiero Grimaldi (ph), Italian News Agency, ANSA. Following the same question. Even if it's not an Iraq summit, do you see any NATO involvement in Iraq? Lord Robertson made mention of that two days ago in Brussels. And second question: If you are ready to discuss -- (short audio break) -- of the president's trip in Europe, what's the main issue of the meeting with President Putin?

       SR. ADMIN. OFFICIAL: First part of the question: Until there was a Security Council resolution in hand, it was, I think, not opportune to start working with -- start thinking about the issue you raised. I appreciate what Lord Robertson said. I don't want to speculate at this early juncture. We're less than a week out from the Security Council resolution.

       President Bush has repeatedly stated that if action were necessary, this would be a coalition, but I don't want to have to speculate about the nature of that coalition. I do point out as a sort of historical point, the Gulf War 10 years ago was a coalition -- a highly successful coalition-led war, and at the time, no one -- the question of NATO's role did not arise at all, although it is true that without NATO bringing militaries together, it would have been impossible to assemble that coalition and have it fight effectively.

       We will be announcing very shortly the other stops on the president's trip. And because we haven't announced them, I didn't mention them here, but there are some secrets that are barely kept in Washington, so I don't think I will bother to deny that President Bush will be seeing President Putin. It will be a fairly -- it will be a meeting more on the model of their meetings at -- in Lublijana, Genoa, Shanghai, rather than the full-up Moscow summit last May or the Washington/Crawford summit a year ago.

       We're very much looking forward to it.

       NATO enlargement is not, and never was seen as directed against Russia. And it's important for the American president and the United States to send this message to the Russians. It has always been my view that NATO enlargement was actually beneficial to Russia, because it would mean that to Russia's west, there would be a series of countries which were stable, secure democracies, at peace with themselves and their neighbors, and seeking the best possible relations with Russia; rather than the alternative, which would be insecure states, nervous about their neighbors, afraid of Russia and giving Russia instead of a zone of constructive possibilities, a zone of trouble -- giving everyone a zone of trouble. So NATO enlargement is something that is in Russia's interests. This is no longer a theory.

       In fact, I remember in the 1990s, all sorts of dire predictions about what would happen if Poland joined NATO, and Poland did join NATO, and Polish-Russian relations are actually much better now than they were in the middle-1990s.

       So we're very confident that the Russians will see that NATO enlargement is not only not directed against them, but actually helps them and helps bring Europe together. A united Europe is good for Russia, a united Europe reaching out to Russia through the NATO-Russia -- working through the NATO-Russia Council is good for everybody.

       MODERATOR: Question in the front row? Or questions?

       Q Michael Backfisch, German business daily Handelsblatt. You said the summit is about the transformation of NATO. What's the American agenda for this? So far, we have bilateral contributions in the war against terror. But what can NATO do as a whole according to the American agenda? Is there a specific task, or is it a huge delivery system of military spare parts and services?

       SR. ADMIN. OFFICIAL: I remember many questions like yours arose last fall. After NATO invoked Article 5, there was -- I detected a certain frustration on the part of some NATO allies who wanted to participate in the war against terrorism; who wanted to send forces, who wanted to be in the fight. And it was a fact that the coalition in Afghanistan was assembled on the fly and in a very ad hoc manner. This was not a conflict the United States had thought about. We did not think we would be sending special forces to Afghanistan and dropping hay and saddles so they could get around on horseback. This was not something that was in our military's manual.

       It seemed, as we were thinking about NATO's role, and taking account of many of the concerns of our allies, who expressed concerns that -- along the lines of those you just expressed, it occurred to us that we needed NATO capabilities to be able to fight anywhere in the world, wherever the threats are.

       The first Article 5 threat to NATO originated in Afghanistan, was hatched in West European countries and the United States, and was carried out in New York and Washington. NATO-massed tank armies aren't much use against that kind of a threat. You need a NATO -- you need new kinds of NATO capabilities, but capabilities as NATO. We have enormous faith and confidence in NATO, which is the supreme alliance of the United States in the world and the great alliance of democracies. We believe that NATO has a place, and a critical place in dealing with 21st century threats.

       NATO's transformation is not, as you suggested, into some kind of delivery system. NATO's transformation is going to be a military transformation to deal with the kinds of challenges we face, and to deal with it as NATO. One of the things -- one of the initiatives the Americans have talked about with their allies, starting last -- a couple of months ago at the Warsaw defense ministerial, is a NATO response force, a NATO response force, which would be a multilateral military force with much greater mobility and striking power -- not a huge force, but a significant one, which would provide an opportunity for all allies to work together to deal with some of these new threats. And this will come up at the summit, and we may have agreement to pursue it. And that isn't actually a direct answer to your question, but I wanted to give you some of the background.

       Q Olga Bakalov (ph), Slovak Radio. My question is that a couple of days ago, yesterday in Brookings Institute, I heard that of course election in Slovakia went well, but still -- there are still doubts if it is okay. Can you tell me position of American government? Does it mean that you still consider Slovakia as a fragile democracy?

       And then, second part, I was told that minister of Defense, Donald Rumsfeld, is, of course, going to Europe, and immediately after summit he will visit Slovenia, and maybe some other countries. What does it mean?

       Does it mean that -- of course, the first question is if it is true, and then does it mean that he will congratulate those countries or something -- those states or what?

       SR. ADMIN. OFFICIAL: Well, Secretary Rumsfeld will certainly congratulate countries that have been invited to join NATO, if he visits those countries. He visits many countries, and not all of them are invited to NATO. But I don't want to be -- you should ask the Department of Defense about Secretary Rumsfeld's travel.

       With respect to Slovakia, I don't want to have to go through the list and talk about all the candidates to join NATO. But I am familiar and have been to Bratislava many times, and Kosice and Stary Smokovec, and I'd -- I think the election -- the recent election in Slovakia demonstrated that centrist coalitions can have political strength, even though the free-market democratic transformation is difficult. That was a -- it was a normal European election. You know, you had left, right, center. And I noticed that former prime minister Meciar appears now to be a politician of another era. Slovakia has made a real success out of its transformation. Free- market democracy -- the transition from communism to free-market democracy isn't easy, but Slovakia seems to have made a success of it.

       Q (Off mike) -- Rosaro Cedo (sp) from Radio Romania. First question: What would be the contribution of the new members to NATO? What -- how important is for NATO to have the new members?

       And the second question is also about what has been said. Yesterday at the Brookings Institute (sic), people seemed to say that Romania and Bulgaria are still unreliable democracies. What's your opinion about that?

       SR. ADMIN. OFFICIAL: Well, again, I don't want to have to go into a treatise about each aspirant country to join NATO. I will say that the American -- that the U.S. administration has looked very closely over the past year and a half at all of the nine countries that have sought to join NATO. We have had a number -- we have organized a number of senior-level trips to these countries. We've gone back again and again. We know them pretty well, as well as outsiders can know them.

       Romania started out -- and you know better than I -- communism in Romania was a lot harder than communism in Hungary. Let's put it that way. And Romania's start was a lot more difficult.

       But Romania has been doing a lot of the right things.

       With respect to new members' contributions, not every country should have or needs to have a full 360-degree military which does all things and maybe does them all very poorly. New countries can contribute to NATO missions -- new or smaller countries can contribute to NATO missions by developing specialized, excellent niche capabilities.

       For example, Romania has gotten a lot of press because it has sent a very well trained battalion, the Red Scorpions, to Afghanistan. It managed also, by the way, to transport them there on its own, which is -- the same could not be said for many, much wealthier NATO members.

       But this is -- each of the aspirants and the new NATO members -- Poland, Hungary, Czech Republic -- have specialized capabilities. The Czechs have a very well trained anti-chemical, biological and nuclear unit. And three or four years ago, people said, "Well, so what?" But nobody says "so what" about that now. The Poles are noted for having very good airborne and special forces units. Slovenia has good mountain units. Hungary has combat engineers. The list goes on.

       The NATO response force, that I mentioned earlier, is also designed to allow countries smaller -- some of the smaller and newer NATO members, to contribute to security. NATO members cannot simply consume security, they have to be in NATO to contribute to a common security. This -- and not surprising for people who have spent time in that part of the world, many of the aspirant countries and the new NATO members are eager to do so, eager to do so, including countries who get into the alliance. It's not as if Polish willingness to contribute dropped off after they joined NATO. So niche capabilities are something that new countries can contribute.

       And again, this answers the question of your German colleague. NATO can bring together forces, get them trained and ready to conduct missions. And I don't know, you don't know, nobody knows what those missions might be because we don't know what challenges await, but we know that they're out there and serious.

       Q Gabot Horvat (ph), Nepszapadsag, Hungary. I understand that yesterday you had a meeting with representatives of organizations of people coming from the new and future NATO-member countries, from Central and Eastern Europe.

       Did you find unanimous support of the enlargement? Did you find any hostilities between those organizations? And aren't you worried that some of the old-time historical tensions could be carried into the NATO?

       SR. ADMIN. OFFICIAL: Actually, no, I'm not worried about historic ethnic tensions. One of the good stories of the past 10 years in Central and Eastern Europe has been that historic animosities and tensions have tended to decline as countries succeeded in their economic and democratic reforms, and as they strove to meet standards for NATO membership. And you can cite examples.

       Polish-Lithuanian relations before World War II were very -- hmm, what's the phrase? Complicated by ethnic issues. Right now, Poland and Lithuania are extremely close. They are close -- the governments are close and the ethnic communities in the United States are close; they work very well together.

       Relations between Romania and Hungary have improved. Inter- ethnic relations inside Romania have improved to the extent that the ethnic Hungarian parties have been in the government and play a critical role, and nobody -- this is no longer an issue.

       Relations between, you know, Slovakia and Hungary have also improved. There has been a sense of solidarity that has developed among the new democracies of Central and Eastern Europe, and I'm pleased to say that that solidarity seems to be reflected or has been influenced by a parallel solidarity among American ethnic organizations who really have worked together over the years.

       And you are well informed. I did meet with American ethnic groups yesterday. I've been doing so for many years now from time to time.

       Q Hello. (Name inaudible) -- with Yomiuri Shimbun, Japan. About the NATO deployment force, don't you -- do you anticipate that it will somehow discourage or complicate the European Union effort to create its own rapid reaction forces? Or in other words, what is the division of labor of the two forces at the end of the day?

       SR. ADMIN. OFFICIAL: We thought about this, and there is no conflict. In fact, the suggested NATO reaction force and the EU rapid reaction force would fit together very well.

       The EU tells us that its rapid reaction force would be designed for what is known in the terminology as lower-end, more humanitarian situations. The NATO rapid reaction force is more upper-end, more combat situations. The way it should work is that they would fit together, that many of the same forces would be used. And NATO and the EU need to work out the rules so that NATO can support the EU so you don't have wasteful duplication. But these will fit together very easily. It is not meant as any kind of competition.

       We support the European -- the EU's efforts to develop a European defense capability as long as it's compatible and transparent with NATO, and this can all work out very well.

       Q Tom Borro (sp), ARD, German TV. At his recent visit here, the German secretary of defense, Minister Struck, mentioned in a press briefing that the EU -- that most countries, especially the smaller European countries, would probably not be able to supply two sorts of troops, meaning one for -- (short audio break) -- rapid response force and one for the EU rapid response force, implicating that they would be the same soldiers, basically, being deployed either for one or for another. Can you say anything about that? Because that seems to contradict a little bit the hope that they would complement each other.

       SR. ADMIN. OFFICIAL: Well, there has to be a degree of sharing of common assets. That is, it strikes me as just sort of common sense that you would not want to have a separate EU set of transport planes that were only used for EU missions, and NATO transport planes that are only used for NATO missions, when it's the same country supplying them. I mean, that strikes me as so wasteful. Not even any of our -- you know, no government would think of it even at its most creative moments.

       You need to have --

       Q (Chuckles.)

       SR. ADMIN. OFFICIAL: Seriously, there needs to be a minimum of overlap and a certain flexibility in the way the EU and NATO deal with each other. There should not -- countries should not have to supply two identical units to two organizations, as if the EU and NATO are competing. They're not. They need to be linked up together so that -- because in the real world, an EU rapid reaction force might intervene in a humanitarian catastrophe somewhere; I don't know where, we can all imagine. It would need the same kind of lift capabilities that the NATO rapid reaction force would need, but some of the units would be different.

       Some would be the same, some would be different. And with a certain flexibility and lack of -- if we don't care too much about the theology, this all can be worked out fairly well.

       Q Dobra Kosavic (sp), Belgrade daily, Novosti. On one hand, NATO has a massive presence on the territory of Yugoslavia in Kosovo. On the other hand, Yugoslavia has no formal relations with the alliance, given the fact that there is no Partnership for Peace. So how do you look upon the possibility of Yugoslavia to enter the program?

       SR. ADMIN. OFFICIAL: We look -- we hope that Yugoslavia will continue to return to the European mainstream in all aspects. That's a strategic objective. And we're very pleased by the general trend of developments over the past couple of years. We're pleased by our cooperation and hope it continues. Belgrade is -- was/is -- certainly deserves to be a European capital and part of mainstream Europe, and I think it will be again.

       Q Yes, what will be the message delivered by the -- President Bush during his visit in Bucharest? This visit is already known because he will give a briefing for the Romanian press next Monday. So what will be the message that the president -- that President Bush will give to Romania?

       SR. ADMIN. OFFICIAL: Yes, presidential trips are -- do not come -- they don't tiptoe their way into a country. Without actually confirming that the president will go to Romania, pending the announcement, a hypothetical presidential trip to NATO -- to Romania would be a moment of both congratulations to the Romanian people for all the progress, and encouragement to the Romanian people to continue the progress it -- your foreign minister, Mircea Geoana, puts it very well when he says we are sprinting to the starting line; that if we are invited to join NATO, we know we have much more to do and we must keep it up.

       And hopefully, an invitation will act as a political stimulus to convince Romanians that they are doing the right thing and that they should continue -- if a trip comes about.

       Q Until recently, there have been heavy turbulences in German- American relations, but that has eased up a bit, as we know. But the chancellor has reiterated for maybe the 100th time that Germany won't take part in any war against Iraq. Do remarks like this still "bug" the administration? Are they irritating? Or do you say, "Who cares?"

       SR. ADMIN. OFFICIAL: Neither. I have read, we have all read the U.N. Security Council Resolution 1441. That resolution, adopted unanimously, recognizes that Iraq faces the most serious consequences -- and I am paraphrasing, please forgive me -- if it does not come into compliance with all of its international obligations that the United States (sic) has imposed. We all know what this means. President Bush has said that Iraq will be disarmed -- peacefully, if at all possible, but in any event, disarmed.

       Germany is a long, close ally of the United States. It has played a gallant role in NATO for many decades. It is playing an important role in NATO transformation. This is quite apart from the -- what did you call them -- turbulences -- quite apart from what you called turbulences of the immediate period in the past. I have faith that the German political class and the German society will look at Iraq and look at the strong U.N. mandate and draw the right conclusion.

       MODERATOR: Last one -- (off mike).

       Q ANSA, Italian News Agency, Gampiero Gramaglia. Very short one, a question related to the German-American relations. There will be any bilateral specific meeting between President Bush and Chancellor Schroeder in Prague around the NATO summit?

       SR. ADMIN. OFFICIAL: President Bush's schedule is somewhere -- for the NATO summit is somewhere between tight and a nightmare. If you're familiar with NATO summits, they feature long meetings followed by longer dinners. There is not a lot of time for any bilateral meetings of any kind. There are very few that are planned.

       President Bush and Chancellor Schroeder spoke last Friday, I believe. That was a good conversation. We're getting back to business with Germany. I don't know -- the president will not have time to have bilateral meetings with most of the NATO leaders, though he will see all of them, and there will be long periods at the long ceremonial dinners for the two leaders to see each other. So, we shall see.

       MODERATOR: Thank you very much.

       SR. ADMIN. OFFICIAL: Right. Pleasure.

       MODERATOR: Ladies and gentlemen, just to emphasize once more that this was a background briefing and that attribution should be to a senior administration official.

       Thank you very much.

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