State Department Noon Briefing, September 21, 2000

U.S. DEPARTMENT OF STATE
DAILY PRESS BRIEFING
Thursday, September 21, 2000
Briefer:  Richard Boucher, Spokesman



Q: I have a question on Iraq. Do you feel that the French humanitarian
flight to Iraq today, and last week the Russian flight, is a challenge
to the sanctions regime in place?


MR. BOUCHER: The Russian flight was approved by the Sanctions
Committee. We do feel that all flights need to be looked at by the
Sanctions Committee, need to be approved. We are not opposed to
humanitarian flights when they are appropriate and necessary. The
Russian flight, we were told, was carrying some $260,000 worth of
medicine.


I'm not sure if the French flight was notified to the Sanctions
Committee. The Secretary, when she discussed it with Foreign Minister
Vedrine last week, made clear that we felt that it should be notified,
and I frankly just don't know whether it has or not.


Q: Do you feel at all duped by the Russians? That plane contained, I
think, 10 oil officials from Russia, apparently unbeknownst to you and
the Sanctions Committee?


MR. BOUCHER: I think they had notified the Sanctions Committee that
there were going to be administrative officials on board, and I think
they said one gas - or one gas industry executive on board. At the
same time, this was supposed to be a humanitarian flight. There is a
process by which flights are inspected on arrival and on departure,
and those inspection reports are reported to the UN Sanctions
Committee. So we will look to that to see exactly what the situation
was with regard to this flight and whether the flight conformed to the
notice that they had given to the United Nations.


Q: On that point, does your interpretation of the Security Council
resolution mean that the Sanctions Committee can veto the personnel
who fly on flights to Iraq - assuming that the cargo is legitimate.


MR. BOUCHER: I'm not exactly sure how to assert that. I would say that
we are informed. The Sanctions Committee has to be informed by the
country flying the flight of what they are flying and who is on board,
and one would want to see a report afterwards that said that the
configuration of the flight actually conformed to what they had
notified us of.


Q:  Including the personnel?



MR. BOUCHER: As much of a description as was provided in the
beginning, one would like to see that that was carried out in the end.
So we will look at that when it comes. If there are contradictions, we
will figure out how, and what is the appropriate way to raise those.


Q: I think it would be hard to argue on the basis of the resolutions
that there are any restrictions on the personnel who have can fly on
any flight.


MR. BOUCHER: I'm not arguing that. I'm just arguing that if they
inform the Sanctions Committee of something, what they actually do
should be in conformity with what they told the Sanctions Committee
they were going to do.


Q: Iraq has opened two new small refineries in the context of the
President's program to try and get more oil flowing into the world.
Does the United States support an expansion of oil in - both in terms
of refineries and in terms of exports?


MR. BOUCHER: We haven't been pushing oil from Iraq into the world
market. We don't, frankly, see that that has a significant effect on
prices or the availability of oil. Iraq has been, this year, pumping
about as much oil as they can. Certainly they have been pumping more
than they did before the war, before 1989.


So I'm not aware of this particular refinery issue, but I wouldn't
link that with any - we're not trying to use Iraq one way or the
other. What we are trying to do is to make sure that money is
available for the Oil-for-Food program. And given the fact that Iraq
is now allowed to pump as much as they can, there is plenty of money
available in the Oil-for-Food program, and that money is available to
take care of the Iraqi people if Saddam Hussein allows it to.


Q: But a subset of that is that there is four times as much oil coming
out of Iraq as OPEC has increased in the past year in terms of
production. Obviously, the Iraqi oil exports are very key to the price
of oil. It will probably go up another five or ten dollars if the
Iraqi oil wasn't there. Are you encouraging or discouraging further
acquisition of oil technology by Iraq?


MR. BOUCHER: Let's go back to one of the assumptions in your question.
I think yesterday we dealt with the issue of what if the Iraqis
decided to stop pumping, and I think we think their surge capacity and
reserve capacity to take steps to compensate for that should they try
to do that.


But on the issue of encouraging or discouraging the export of
equipment, certainly the dual-use equipment that is looked at by the
Sanctions Committee has to be looked at carefully because there is no
inspection regime in Iraq to determine that the equipment that is
dual-use is not being put to military purposes. That said, we have
taken a lot of steps this year to expedite the review, and to make
sure that when things can be approved, they do get approved. And we
have actually been able to speed up and work with others to make sure
that dual-use equipment, including that which is necessary for the oil
industry, is sent as necessary.


Q: Have you discussed using that surplus capacity in talks with Saudi
Arabia, specifically in the meeting with the Crown Prince last week?


MR. BOUCHER: I'm not sure if Iraqi cutoffs and surge capacity were
discussed in that particular meeting. Certainly in the President's
meetings with the Saudis and the Secretary's meetings with the Crown
Prince and others, when she met with them the subject of oil does come
up, the general situation with the oil prices. And obviously Secretary
Richardson has also been in touch with his counterpart. So the whole
issue of oil prices, the market, and the need for additional supply
has been discussed with them and continues to be discussed with the
Saudis and others.


Q:  Thank you.



MR. BOUCHER:  Thank you.



(The briefing was concluded at 1:52 P.M.)