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Below see President's Clinton's statement that "What he [Saddam Hussein] has just done is to ensure
that the sanctions will be there until the end of time or as long as he lasts" and the primary
source from which it came [Note: The President's statement was a response to question#3].
Also included:
* Then-Press Secretary Mike McCurry's press briefing that followed President Clinton's statement
[Note: Begin with McCurry's response to question #1].
* A Reuter's report [originally posted on 9 November 1999 to <soc-casi-discuss@lists.cam.ac.uk> by
Nathan Geffen <ngeffen@yahoo.com> in an E-mail entitled "News for November 3 to November 8, 1999"]
that Vice-President [and presidential candidate] Al Gore also believes that economic sanctions will
remain until Iraq has a different government.
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http://www.pub.whitehouse.gov/uri-res/I2R?urn:pdi://oma.eop.gov.us/1997/11/19/8.text.1
THE WHITE HOUSE
Office of the Press Secretary
_________________________________________________________________
For Immediate Release
November 14, 1997
REMARKS BY THE PRESIDENT IN BILATERAL MEETING WITH PRESIDENT ZEDILLO OF MEXICO
The Oval Office
10:20 A.M. EST
President Clinton's Full Iraq-Related Remarks 14 November 1997, 10:20 pm
Q Mr. President, are you willing to extend the no-fly zone across
the remainder of Iraq?
PRESIDENT CLINTON: Let me first of all say that I believe that
the Secretary General and our team, the United Nations team, made the right decision in withdrawing
the team of inspectors there and not just leaving them there. But the real issue here is, how can
we stop Saddam Hussein from reconstituting his weapons of mass destruction program, and what will
achieve that goal. Any specific tactic will be designed to achieve that goal.
The world has got to understand that he had a weapons of mass
destruction program, that he is one of the few people who has ever used chemical weapons against
both his enemies and his own citizens, and that there will be a big market for such weapons out
there among terrorists and other groups.
This is not just a replay of the Gulf War; this is not throw a man who invaded a country, Kuwait,
out of the country and reestablish territorial integrity. This is about the security of the 21st
century and the problems everybody is going to have to face dealing with chemical weapons.
So, as you know, I don't think it's appropriate for me to
speculate about what we might or might not do with specific options, but I think that we have to
steel ourselves and be determined that the will of the international community, expressed in the
United Nations Security Council resolutions, will have to prevail.
This is simply -- it's too dangerous an issue that would set too
powerful a precedent about the impotence of the United Nations if we didn't proceed on this in the
face of what I have considered to be one of the three or four most significant security threats
that all of our people will face for the next whole generation -- this weapons of mass destruction
proliferation. We've got to stop it.
Q Given that, sir, are you willing to let the situation last where he's able to manufacture weapons
of mass destruction with no one on the ground watching? And if I may ask a second question, sir,
why are you ordering a second aircraft carrier into the Gulf region?
PRESIDENT CLINTON: Well, I'm ordering the carrier in there
because I think it's appropriate under the circumstances. And let me say on the first question
that one of the reasons the United States has supported the U.N. decision to continue the flights
is that if we're not on the ground, it's even more important that we observe what we can in the
air. And we are working this very hard.
We also -- I want to say this is a United Nations endeavor, a
United Nations resolution we want to implement. We want very much to work with our allies. We
want to make sure that we've done all we can to see that they agree with us about the gravity of
the situation, and I expect -- the Secretary of State is meeting with a lot of the foreign
ministers over the next several days, and I will be talking to a number of heads of state, and
we'll keep working this. I don't want to put a
timetable on myself, because it's not just me, but we're working it hard.
Q With the inspectors out, Mr. President, does he have some reason to believe that he's gotten his
way?
PRESIDENT CLINTON: Well, if he does, that would be a mistake.
And, of course, what he says his objective is, is to relieve the people of Iraq, and presumably the
government, of the burden of the sanctions. What he has just done is to ensure that the sanctions
will be there until the end of time or as long as he lasts. So I think that if his objective is to
try to get back into the business of manufacturing vast stores of weapons of mass destruction and
then try to either use them or sell them, then at some point the United States, and more than the
United States, would be more than happy to try to stop that.
But if his objective is to lift the sanctions and to divide the
coalition and get people more sympathetic with him, I think that he has undermined his objective,
because we could never, ever agree to any modifications of the larger economic sanctions on Iraq as
long as he's out of compliance. And by definition, that's the way the U.N. resolution works. When
I say "we" there, I mean the whole world community. So I would think he would not be furthering
his objectives, if his stated objectives are his objectives.
http://www.pub.whitehouse.gov/uri-res/I2R?urn:pdi://oma.eop.gov.us/1997/11/20/2.text.1
THE WHITE HOUSE
Office of the Press Secretary
________________________________________________________________
For Immediate Release
November 14, 1997
PRESS BRIEFING
BY MIKE MCCURRY
The Briefing Room
1:49 P.M. EST
Q: Can you tell us what the President meant when he said that the
sanctions would last as long as Saddam lasts?
MR. MCCURRY: We have long taken the view that there is nothing
about the behavior of Saddam Hussein that indicates that his intent is peaceful and that is intent
is to fully comply with relevant resolutions. In our view, there cannot be lifting of sanctions
until he complies with relevant U.N. Security Council resolutions, and nothing about his behavior
-- in fact, everything about his behavior suggests that he is more interested in wilfully violating
those resolutions.
Q: He seems to -- much farther than he has so far because the
conditions for lifting the sanctions are very specific that are being set by the U.N., and you seem
to be moving the goalposts slightly.
MR. MCCURRY: At this point, the conditions for lifting sanctions
are a moot point when it comes to Saddam Hussein.
Q: This goes to the heart of the debate, Mike. Saddam has always
said that, in fact, the U.S. has no intention of lifting the sanctions. So are you not playing into
his hand by saying so clearly that the sanctions will never be lifted?
Q: MR. MCCURRY: No, he's got it upside-down. The world community has told him there will be no
lifting of sanctions until he indicates his peaceful intentions and complies with the resolutions.
He's not doing so. He's failing to do so and he's more importantly wilfully disregarding the
resolutions that have been passed and the statements that have been made. The lack of relief for
sanctions is his responsibility, not the U.N.'s responsibility.
Q: Is it U.S. strategy now to use this current crisis as a way of dealing with the longer-term
problem of Saddam's leadership of Iraq somehow?
MR. MCCURRY: I don't know what you mean by the question. Our
interests and our work in this episode are to gain the compliance we need and to have assurance
that he is not pursuing weapons of mass destruction programs.
Q: I mean, not just put them in the box as far as compliance with
the UNSCOM mission, but to somehow get past the situation where
episodically, once a year he's provoking crisis?
MR. MCCURRY: Well, we would certainly wish to be in a position
where we are not dealing with this matter regularly, but we have very specific goals, and they have
been publicly stated by the President and others.
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Saturday November 6 6:23 PM ET
Gore Says Iraq Must Change For Sanctions To End
By Todd Nissen
DEARBORN, Mich. (Reuters) - Vice President Al Gore told a group of Arab-American leaders Saturday
that the United States had ``deep sympathy'' for the suffering of Iraq's civilians but would not
end sanctions on the country until there was a change of government.
Gore, who is campaigning for the Democratic presidential nomination, said the United States
ultimately wanted peace with Iraq and its leader, Saddam Hussein. ``We in the U.S. are willing to
look at ways to improve the effectiveness of the
humanitarian programs in Iraq, and we look forward to friendly relations between our two countries
-- as soon as Iraq has a
government worthy of its people,'' the vice president said.
Gore, campaigning in New Hampshire, made his remarks via satellite hookup to about 150 people at
the Arab American Institute's National Leadership Conference in Dearborn, Michigan. Gore pointed to
his contributions to Clinton administration efforts to bring peace to the Middle East and
expressed confidence Congress would approve funding for the Wye River peace accord between Israel
and the Palestinians.
He was applauded when he said he opposed racial profiling and after he spoke of Arab-American
contributions to U.S. cultural diversity.
But after Gore's comments, several members of the audience voiced concern about the toll that the
administration's tough policy toward Iraq had had on civilians. Andy Amid, a Lebanese-American from
Columbus, Ohio, and a registered Democrat, said he wanted to know the administration's plans for
putting a halt to bombing and for lifting sanctions on Iraq. ``I need to see a demonstration from
this administration for alleviating the suffering of the Iraqi people,'' he said. Eric Gustafson,
the founder of Education for Peace in Iraq, a Washington-based nonprofit group, said at least
600,000 Iraqi civilians had
died since the sanctions were imposed.
Several presidential hopefuls or members of their organizations were scheduled to address the Arab
American Institute group this weekend. Arizona Sen. John McCain, who is seeking the Republican
nomination, was to speak by satellite later Saturday. The goal of the nonprofit institute, whose
headquarters are also in Washington, is to get Arab-Americans more involved in the American
political process. The United States is home to
3.5 million Arab-Americans, concentrated largely in the states of New York, Michigan and
California. They include about
1 million eligible voters, or 1 percent of the electorate.
Political pollster John Zogby, a founding board member of the group, said Arab-Americans had no
special tendency to support one political party or another.
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