Second UN Security Council Resolution on Iraq

Real Audio of Briefing

MR. DENIG: Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen, and welcome to the Foreign Press Center. I'm delighted to be able to welcome today for a briefing, Kim Holmes, the Assistant Secretary of State for International Organization Affairs, and John Wolf, the Assistant Secretary of State for Nonproliferation.

Today's briefing will deal with the topic, as we announced it, of the second UN Security Council resolution on Iraq. Of course, all of those who follow this issue avidly know it's actually the 18th resolution dealing with Iraq, so we have a long line of them behind us, but we wanted to focus attention on this, and we'll also deal with other nonproliferation issues.

Assistant Secretary Holmes, will have an opening statement to make, then Assistant Secretary Wolf will make some comments, and then we'll open it up to your questions.

So, Assistant Secretary Holmes, please.

ASSISTANT SECRETARY HOLMES: Thank you very much. It's a pleasure to be here today. I welcome this opportunity to speak to members of the foreign press. As you know, on February 24th, the United Kingdom tabled another Security Council resolution on Iraq, of which the United States and Spain are co-sponsors. This resolution is brief. It says that Iraq has failed the final opportunity to comply with Security Council Resolution 1441.

And it's brief because more resolutions spelling out what Iraq must do are not necessary. Iraq knows full well what it must do. Iraq has not disarmed. Saddam Hussein has had the choice between disarming peacefully, as other countries have done, or to be disarmed forcefully.

He continues to flout the demands of the Security Council. Now after nearly four months and five reports to the Council by the heads of UNMOVIC and the International Atomic Energy Agency, Iraq has failed to avail itself of the final opportunity afforded by Resolution 1441. Iraq has failed the two basic tests that were set forth in that resolution.

The first one was a currently accurate, full and complete declaration of its weapons of mass destruction programs and delivery systems; and second, the immediate and unconditional and active cooperation with the inspectors.

Some have said that we should give the inspectors more time. But Resolution 1441 is not about inspections. It's about disarmament. It's not about the inspectors proving that Iraq has weapons, or had weapons of mass destruction. Rather, it is about Iraq providing credible evidence that it no longer possesses such weapons.

The Council's Resolution 687 laid out, laid down, rather, a 45-day timeline for Iraq to disarm. Iraqi disarmament is more than 4,200 days overdue. So 30 days, 60 more days, 90 more days, it is difficult for us to imagine what you would learn in that time period that we don't already know from the 4,200 days that have already passed. 1441 gave Iraq a generous opportunity. Despite Iraq having defied more than 16 resolutions spanning over 12 years, the Council offered Iraq one last chance. It is now clear that instead of seizing the opportunity, Iraq tried and is trying to continue business as usual.

Now the list of Iraq's failures to disarm is too long to recite. The Al Samoud missiles are but the tip of the iceberg. Where are the thousands of liters of anthrax and botulinum toxin that we know Iraq possesses? Or, where are his 30,000 chemical weapons-capable munitions? These weapons are a danger to the Iraqi people, to people of the region, and also to the people of the world.

The time has come now for the Council to address the fact that Iraqi non-compliance with Security Council resolutions is something that must be attended to. Failure to do so will send a message of impotence and also a message of a lack of resolve in the face of what the Council has for 12 years seen as a threat to peace and international security. No one has yet stood up in the Council and said that Iraq has fulfilled the terms of Resolution 1441. Only if the international community remains united in its determination, and if that determination is backed up with a credible threat of force can there be any hope of a peaceful solution to this particular problem.

Thank you very much. I'd be happy to take your questions. I would ask now if John Wolf has anything he would like to add?

ASSISTANT SECRETARY WOLF: Thanks. I've been here before, so I'm not going to repeat a lot of the things that I have said to many of you, but I think it's important to say that we started down this path to achieve peaceful disarmament of Iraq and to prove that international inspections could verify that process.

The inspectors were chartered not as detectives. They weren't chartered to go under -- to look under every rock, to look in every dark place, but rather they were chartered to verify Iraq's decision to disarm. You can't verify genuine disarmament without full cooperation -- full, active, and immediate cooperation.

I think if you look at the situation now, you will see that Iraq is again trying to manipulate public opinion; and it's again trying to manipulate the Security Council as it has over the last 12 years. One can expect that in the days ahead they will continue this process. You can expect that they will dribble out a little bit of this, and a little bit of that.

The President talked about the missile issue as the tip of the iceberg. These other things are just chips off the same block. But the real question is whether Iraq had made the fundamental, drastic, dramatic decision to disarm, and it's very clear to us that they have not. Disarmament in its entirety, not a little bit here and a little bit there, is what Resolution 1441 was about. They have failed to take advantage of the final opportunity and the Council needs now to stand up for its resolutions, the 17 resolutions that it has passed on this issue. It needs to stand up for the idea, for the hope that the international community has -- that international inspections can help the United Nations to fulfill its mandate to assure international peace and security. It needs to stand up and to tell Iraq it has failed to take advantage of its final opportunity.

We should take questions.

MR. DENIG: Okay. I want to ask you once again to please use the microphone and identify yourself and your news organization. We'll take the gentleman on the right here.

QUESTION: Yes, Ricardi (ph), Italian News Agency ANSA. I've understood that it is the tip of the iceberg. But if a positive decision will be taken on the Samoud missiles, do think that it could change the timetable? Thank you.

ASSISTANT SECRETARY WOLF: No, the missiles, first of all, these missiles should never have been there. They're just one reflection of the whole variety of disarmament issues that are out there. And Resolution 1441 wasn't about partial progress. Resolution 1441 wasn't about a little bite at disarmament. Resolution 1441 was about a genuine decision to disarm. Destroying the missiles would be good, and it is necessary for Iraq to comply, but that's not disarmament. That's not what 1441 was about, and that's not sufficient.

What is needed, and what was needed, was a decision to disarm in its entirety. It's not missiles, it's as Assistant Secretary Holmes said: It is anthrax, and it is botulinum toxin, it is the unmanned aerial vehicles, it is the mustard gas, it is the chemical munitions, it is the bulk agents, it is the research and development, it is the nuclear program. All of those things are part of a total package of disarmament. That's what Iraq should have declared, that's where they should have cooperated, that's where they failed to cooperate.

ASSISTANT SECRETARY HOLMES: Could I just say a word about the whole idea of benchmarks? There have been numerous benchmarks in the past, in previous Security Council resolutions. There were benchmarks in 1441 about a full and complete declaration. There were other benchmarks in the past. They have failed these benchmarks in the past. So even though we would like to see them destroy these missiles, it's important to keep in perspective that just one more benchmark, or two more benchmarks, doesn't really change the fundamental problem, which is that Iraq is not actively cooperating with the inspectors so we can verify complete and full disarmament.

MR. DENIG: Let's take the gentleman up in the front here.

QUESTION: Fabit al Bardisi (ph) with Al-Jazeera TV. Given the President Bush remarks yesterday and the aims of democratizing the Arab world and regaining democracy in Iraq, is that the goal? And what is the timetable for achieving the new resolution, and also the timetable for the occupation of Iraq afterwards?

ASSISTANT SECRETARY HOLMES: Well, the new Security Council resolution that the British have proposed, and has been co-sponsored by us and by Spain, is very focused on 1441. It asks the simple question, or actually, it poses the simple proposition, I should say, that Iraq has failed the final opportunity to comply with 1441. That's what it says, that's what we're asking the Council to judge -- whether or not Iraq has actively cooperated so it can comply or not comply. That is the question being posed to the Council.

So that -- all these other questions about the larger sort of strategic questions and the questions that are being raised by the President are part of the overall picture. But that's not what is being debated in the Council on this particular resolution. It's simply that we see ourselves as enforcing Resolution 1441, and so therefore, we are trying to uphold the responsibility of the Security Council and to uphold the credibility and relevance of the Council by focusing what people in the past have agreed to do in that Council, and what's binding and obligating on the international community through previous resolutions. That's what we're focused on, that's what we want to achieve.

The timetable, as the President has said, that there's going to be at least tentatively scheduled, there is a meeting on March 7th to discuss Hans Blix's next report --

ASSISTANT SECRETARY WOLF: Or to hear his oral report.

ASSISTANT SECRETARY HOLMES: Or to hear his oral report. The President has said that we may, we hope to see a positive vote sometime shortly after that.

MR. DENIG: Okay. The lady here.

QUESTION: Jill Colgan, ABC Australia. Can you please clarify for us what you believe is at stake here for the Security Council? If in fact the Security Council does not follow through with actions to enforce its resolution, what is the future of the Security Council?

ASSISTANT SECRETARY HOLMES: Well, the President made, I think, a very important decision by bringing the issue from the point of view of U.S. policy to the Security Council, the issue of Iraq to the Council when he came to the United Nations last September.

It showed his faith and hope that the United Nations and the Security Council, in particular, would live up to its obligations. And he challenged the United Nations at that point to enforce its resolutions and he was coinciding U.S. policy with that purpose in a very sincere way.

That is, to my mind -- and I think to the mind of many Americans -- what effective multilateralism is. We were asked by many of our friends and colleagues to pursue this policy. We heard and we brought this issue to the Security Council. We supported the passage of 1441, and now we're asking the Council to basically pass judgment on whether or not 1441 has been complied with.

So we believe that, as I said a minute ago, that there is a large question here of whether or not the Security Council resolutions are going to be enforced or not. And this does, of course, raise the larger question about the credibility and the integrity of the UN. So I think that this is a question that's out there. We hope that when countries and members of the Security Council make their decision to vote, they will look at the future of these very important issues. This was a critically important issue that the Security Council should have been dealing with. And so the world will be watching to see how it does.

ASSISTANT SECRETARY WOLF: Let me add just a little bit to that. I had a European ambassador from a small European country in my office just before I came over here, and he said his country found it difficult to understand what some of their -- his European partners were doing, because for him, for countries like his, the Security Council is important. It's important for the maintenance of peace and security, peace and stability around the world.

And the President went to the Security Council on September 12th with the objective of giving the United Nations a chance to stand up and make a difference, and make a difference on an issue that it had under its review for a dozen years. It's important for the members of the Council to measure: is the Security Council, is the UN system going to be credible in terms of dealing with threats to peace and security? And there are a lot of countries out there which are looking to the Security Council to do that. They're looking to the future of international inspections to help provide the protection, and we have worked actively with UNMOVIC, we've worked actively with IAEA in terms of resources and information.

But it was never their job to uncover the program. It was always in an effort to get Iraq to make the decision to disarm. It's failed to take advantage of the opportunity, the final opportunity that was presented to it on November 25.

ASSISTANT SECRETARY HOLMES: Can I just add one more point very briefly? If the President decides he wishes to go forward with coalition members on an intervention, there could be a very important role for the Security Council and the United Nations in what comes after that. There could be a role for humanitarian [assistance] and reconstruction. There will be questions that the Security Council will have to decide about the future of the Oil-for-Food program. There'll be other questions that have to be solved and the United Nations is an instrument with which we need to solve them, so we need to be able to come together if it does go down that road, to make the United Nations an effective instrument for solving these problems.

So we believe that we are trying to enforce Security Council resolutions. And so we are trying to bring the unity of the Security Council around behind the enforcement of 1441. And so, we hope that other Council members will see the importance of keeping not only the integrity of the resolutions, but also to keep the Council together, so if it does come to an intervention, the United Nations can be an effective instrument afterwards.

MR. DENIG: Let's do the gentleman in the middle, please, followed by the front row, here.

QUESTION: Yes, (inaudible) Newspaper Helsinki (inaudible), Finland. Are you prepared to withdraw this proposal from the Security Council if it looks like, highly unlikely that it's going to pass? And what's the present, tell me, what's your view on the possibilities of this to pass?

ASSISTANT SECRETARY HOLMES: Well, first of all, the President has said that he believes that we do not absolutely require another resolution in order to act. He believes, and we believe, that the authority for that actually resides in Resolution 1441. But it would be very important in order to demonstrate to the world that the United States and other members, and other countries that are supporting this resolution, that we're going the extra mile to try to show that we take the international community seriously, we take the Security Council seriously, to demonstrate that the Council had passed judgment on the obligations that were required of Iraq by 1441.

So, to that extent, we believe we have made this commitment and we hope to see that it comes to a fruitful end sometime in the next few weeks. At this point I really cannot speculate on where the vote tally is. It's only been a couple of days. I really can't say anything about that at this point. I can only say that we are very respectful and mindful of the opinions of others on the Council. We're listening to what they say. We hope they're listening to what we say. We believe we have a strong case to make. We're trying to lay out the evidence. We're trying to persuade them that our case is the strongest case and that this resolution is necessary.

ASSISTANT SECRETARY WOLF: You know, the Secretary said the process of consultations is ongoing. If you had asked a couple of weeks before the vote on 1441 what the final total would be, few of you would have written that it was going to be 15 to nothing. We continue to consult, and we're going to consult actively right up until the day of the vote.

QUESTION: And withdrawing, is that (inaudible)?

ASSISTANT SECRETARY WOLF: That's a hypothetical question.

ASSISTANT SECRETARY HOLMES: It's a hypothetical. I really can't say at this point.

MR. DENIG: All right. Dmitry, up front.

QUESTION: Thank you. Dmitry Kirsanov, Russian News Agency TASS. I have a couple of questions for Secretary Holmes, if I may. First, what do you expect to hear from Hans Blix when he's making his next quarterly report before UN Security Council next week? And secondly, what arguments, what kind of arguments you use to persuade permanent members of UN Security Council to -- quite frankly, to me it looks like it's simply bargaining when you talk to non-permanent swinging members of UN Security Council.

ASSISTANT SECRETARY HOLMES: Well, you want to answer the question of Hans Blix issue? That's your area.

ASSISTANT SECRETARY WOLF: Let me take on the report. I think the report and the written report will be out very shortly, I suppose. It is likely to be a chronicle of developments over the last months since December 6 when he filed his last report. And so it will show a lot of things that have moved forward in terms of process. The inspectors have deployed, they have facilities, they have visited x number of sites, they haven't been blocked in visiting any of the sites.

The interview process has not gone nearly as well as they would have hoped. They've had only a few interviews in the kinds of conditions that would give them some reason to believe that the interview might offer useful information. But I think a lot of the positives have to do with process -- U-2s are flying, et cetera.

But on substance, he will have to say that there has been very little cooperation on substantive disarmament tasks. No material disarmament has taken place. Perhaps there will have been a decision by Baghdad to comply with his demand that they destroy the hundred-plus Al Samoud missiles and the associated parts and production facilities. But even then, people should be very careful to watch how quickly the Iraqis allow that to go forward.

If they say on Saturday, "oh, of course we'll destroy it. Maybe we'll do it, but it may take us six months, a year, two years, to do it." Then you’ll know, once again, [that they are] lying, cheating, and [engaging in] deception. So on substance, I think what he's going to say is what I think he's been saying to the public press over the last couple of days, which is that when you look at the degree of cooperation on disarmament, it leaves much to be desired.

And 1441 wasn't a partial, it didn't have partial measures. It didn't say, "a little bit of progress, a little bit of reward." 1284 said that: It said. "a little bit of progress, a little bit of reward." 1441 said "disarmament, total, in accordance with 687." And on 687, the disarmament in all four or five of the areas set out, they have failed to comply. I think that's what he has to say to the Council on the 7^{th [of March].}

ASSISTANT SECRETARY HOLMES: We're trying to make our case to all members of the Security Council, including the P-5. This is not about bargaining, it's a debate. We're trying to persuade all members of the Council. So we're not making any distinctions at this point about members on the Council. We think we have a strong case to make and we're hopeful that all members of the Council will see the argument that we're making.

QUESTION: So it's not about money with permanent (inaudible) or something like that?

ASSISTANT SECRETARY HOLMES: No.

MR. DENIG: Okay, let's go to the front row here.

QUESTION: Samir Nadir, Radio SAWA, Middle East Radio Network. Today you will be having the semi-annual meeting at State Department with the European Union. Will you be participating in these talks and what do you expect to come out of it regarding the efforts with the Security Council?

ASSISTANT SECRETARY HOLMES: Yes. That is a meeting that's coming this afternoon. I plan to attend that meeting. There will not be any direct discussions, I think, about the Security Council, except in a more general way. It's not a negotiating session. The locus of discussions at this point on the future of this resolution is where it should be. It's in New York in the Security Council.

ASSISTANT SECRETARY WOLF: But, I'm sure the Secretary will lay out for the members of the European troika our thinking, and some of the points that Assistant Secretary Holmes and I have been making, but more importantly, the points that the Secretary has been making publicly as well as in the private telephone calls he has made to most of the people he will be meeting with over the last few weeks and, you should ask us afterwards. We will have a better idea of what he's going to say, but I think he will lay out our position.

But the negotiations on the resolution are not with the EU. Because frankly, most of the EU already agrees. And if you look at the total number of countries that have written letters, that's a big number. But the discussions in the Security Council are necessarily with the members of the Security Council, and they take place here, in capitals, and in New York.

MR. DENIG: Okay, back to Al-Jazeera.

QUESTION: One more time. I have two questions please about the Security Council. If the United States decides that the Security Council is not going to act and they don't need another resolution and go ahead with war, well, again, the vision of the President is that the Middle East will be a democratic place afterwards.

How, did you discuss how the world, after all, will look after that? Does the United States going to war ignoring the UN Security Council? In a way, the Security Council is -- is it a democratic institution or a dictatorship? Will the United States discuss, or did you discuss how the world, what is the world order after that, as you discuss the Arab world order after that?

ASSISTANT SECRETARY HOLMES: That was a number of questions there, some of them hypothetical about what we might do or would not do under certain circumstances.

I think the President made very clear last night that his vision would be for a democratization of the Middle East. He thinks that this would be good for the people of the Middle East, first and foremost, and I think that that's a very powerful message that we would hope that would resonate for the people of the Middle East.

This, after all, has been an important value for the United States and for many years, and I know that we have many friends in the Middle East who, notwithstanding the controversies and debates of the moment, still believe that that's what America stands for. But again, that's not what we're debating on the Security Council. We're debating the question of whether or not Iraq is --

QUESTION: (Inaudible) inside the administration. Are you discussing how the world will look like after you have ignored the will of the world?

ASSISTANT SECRETARY HOLMES: There's lot of discussions, there's lots of planning going on, there are discussions with the United Nations. Yes, of course we are. We're thinking very, very seriously about that. But those are very large questions. I'm the Assistant Secretary for International Organizations, and I'm qualified and competent to speak on this particular issue that I've been talking about, but --

ASSISTANT SECRETARY WOLF: You know, you can take it that we support what the President said last night.

ASSISTANT SECRETARY HOLMES: I hope I made that clear.

(Laughter.)

ASSISTANT SECRETARY WOLF: He spoke for us in detail.

MR. DENIG: Let's take the lady back here.

QUESTION: Hi, I'm Stephanie Mog (ph) with TV Asahi from Japan. This morning, the President spoke with Putin and I just wondered, I know you can't give a tally, but if you could talk about that conversation or tell us how it went and also where the Russians stand and if it has affected the U.S.-Russian relationship?

ASSISTANT SECRETARY HOLMES: I have not had a chance to hear about that yet.

ASSISTANT SECRETARY WOLF: I think we'll defer to the White House and the Kremlin.

QUESTION: Thank you.

MR. DENIG: All right, let's go back to Finland.

QUESTION: Yes, let's go back to this missile issue. Can you elaborate on how this affects, if Saddam says no to Blix and refuses to destroy these missiles, how does that affect the proceedings in the Security Council?

ASSISTANT SECRETARY WOLF: Well, he is obliged, as he has been obliged from the get-go in 1991, not to have missiles that go further than 150 kilometers. The Al Samoud II do go further than 150 kilometers, as in fact they admitted, so do the Al Fatah missiles. So, there really is no choice, and a failure to comply would be simply another breach piled up on top of repeated breaches over the last 12 years.

QUESTION: Would this be the infamous smoking gun?

ASSISTANT SECRETARY WOLF: It's not a smoking gun. It's just one more program he shouldn't have had, that he is obliged, that Iraq is obliged to destroy. But don't lose sight of the whole and focus on just this little tip of the iceberg. The President's concern, our concern, [and] the Security Council's concern should be about whether or not Iraq disarms.

The missiles are one piece, but only one piece of a huge, huge program to collect weapons of mass destruction which have been used against Iraq, Iraqis, against Iraq's neighbors and have the real potential to be used against people anywhere in the world given Iraq's close collaboration with international terrorist groups.

ASSISTANT SECRETARY HOLMES: The members of the Council would have to, it's a hypothetical question, but they would have to make their own determination, obviously.

Some may say, well this is just one more material breach. Others may say, well, this is the material breach that woke us up to the fact that there's been a problem here. It's hard for me to speculate on how different countries, depending on what they're trying to achieve and their points of view, whether or not they would see that as, as a sort of the final thing that would move them finally into the conclusion that they need to support this resolution.

But the point that John is making and the point that I'm making, and the point I made earlier about the benchmarks, there's been adequate -- or more than enough examples in the past of Saddam Hussein not complying with previous resolutions. And the Secretary, when he went to the Security Council on February 5th, provided a lot of evidence about a large number of materials that had not been accounted for, and also examples of Iraqi deception. So I think that the evidence is there, and perhaps it's just a matter of seeing what's before you and drawing the appropriate conclusion.

MR. DENIG: Any final questions? Yes. The gentleman right there.

QUESTION: Soaki (ph), Tokyo Shimbun. May I change the subject onto North Korea, if I may? They have started, reactivated their reactor, and I have two questions on this. First of all, how do you see this? How far is North Korea now from their possible next step, which is to start reprocessing the spent fuels? And secondly, what action do you expect from the United Nations Security Council? It seems that they haven't really started work on this issue. Can UN be an effective body in dealing with this issue, too?

ASSISTANT SECRETARY WOLF: The answer to the first question is that they have the capability to reprocess, to begin reprocessing in a very short period of time. Whether they have decided to reprocess in a very, you know, as soon as the facility has been refurbished, rehabilitated, which could be any time now, is a question that I think you'll need to address to North Korea. As for the question of the Council, I'll bounce that to Kim.

ASSISTANT SECRETARY HOLMES: Well, as you know, the IAEA Board of Governors passed a resolution that referred or reported the issue of North Korea's non-compliance with the safeguards agreement to the Security Council. And now, the issue is there to be looked at and discussed, so it's fresh in the Council.

There are, right now, some consultations and meetings that are going on to decide what to do next. There are a number of options that could be available to the Council. They're mightily preoccupied right now by a lot of things, but the options go all the way from a presidential statement of the Council to something perhaps more. But it's really early to get into any specifics about where anyone would speculate that it could go. But to answer your basic question, is this an issue that the Council should take up, it in fact is already there and will have to be taken up at some point in some form or another.

QUESTION: Can I have a follow-up on this?

MR. DENIG: Okay.

QUESTION: I'm sorry. I would like you to talk specifics about this issue. You said that it is preliminary to talk specifics, but actually I would like to ask you, what is U.S. administration looking for? What do you want the UN Security Council to make with respect to this? Is it presidential statement, or what, specifically?

ASSISTANT SECRETARY WOLF: Experts, that's below the ambassador's level, have met to begin discussions on a presidential statement. And I think the likely first step for the Council will be a presidential statement. But that does not, that doesn't suggest that that's the only step that the Council will make.

What we want, what the international community wants, is what the Secretary talked about during his trip to Asia last week. We want a peaceful, multilateral resolution of this problem. It's not an issue for the United States to solve alone. This is an issue which affects the credibility of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, the credibility of the IAEA, the credibility of the United Nations. And as such, we have had intensive conversations with other permanent members of the Security Council, with Korea, South Korea, with Japan, with the European Union, Australia, and a variety of other countries. And so what we want is a peaceful resolution. And so we've talked about trying to create a dialogue.

What we want is for the international community to send a strong, united message to Pyongyang that it needs to engage. It needs to get back into compliance with its obligations, not only to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, but a host of bilateral arrangements, including several with South Korea, that it has violated by its breach of the safeguards and by its program of highly enriched uranium.

MR. DENIG: Okay, any final questions? All right. In that case, thank you, Secretaries, thank you, ladies and gentlemen.