State Department Noon Briefing

U.S. DEPARTMENT OF STATE
DAILY PRESS BRIEFING

WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 28, 2001 - 12:55 P.M.
(ON THE RECORD UNLESS OTHERWISE NOTED)

QUESTION: On the sanctions, could we go through it one more time?
There are three categories: there are consumer goods; there are
military materiel; and there are so-called dual-use things. I take it
while you are easing up on consumer shipments, you say you are
tightening the sanctions overall.

How do you do that if you are going to be easier on dual-use material
-- more permissive on dual-use?

MR. BOUCHER: Let me go back to what the Secretary said to you
yesterday at the European Union. He said we are going to tighten the
sanctions on weapons of mass destruction, tighten the sanctions on
armaments, tighten the sanctions on the sorts of equipment and other
materials that put the people of the region at risk. That is the
direction that we are headed in. That is the direction we discussed
with people in the region, as well as allies when we got to Europe.

That goal, I think that direction, is one that we found a lot of
support for, and it is one that we will work in further detail again
with the people of the region, with the allies, with the Perm 5, as
well as within our own Government as we go forward.

To do that effectively, we know you have to strengthen the controls we
have on the Oil-for-Food money, and part of the Secretary's diplomacy
was to talk to the Syrians and others about bringing some of the
exports that are not currently under the Oil-for-Food money, bringing
that money into the UN accounts so that we have better control on
that.

Part of the effort has to be to tighten up on his ability to smuggle.
The Secretary talked to you about that yesterday, and that will be
another direction that we have to formulate details for.

As you know, the trip was intended to discuss ideas, to hear views, to
gather ideas, and to report back to the President. The Secretary has
talked to the President this morning by telephone to fill him in on
many of the things he heard and discussed during the trip. I think it
is safe to say the President is pleased with where we are on this, and
we will continue working to develop the details.

As for how those details will affect this category, that category or
the other, I am not in a position to come out with lists of prohibited
items or items for further attention or items that are fairly well
assumed to be safe. But those kinds of details aren't developed at
this point.

Q: You have spent most of your answer talking about tighter military
-- the category of military items. We understand that. We were also
told that more consumer goods will be permitted to go to Iraq, and we
were also told that dual-use will be reviewed, with an aim of trying
to take some of the burden - all sorts of heartfelt things were said
on the plane about the way these sanctions are falling on the Iraqi
people.

So I'm asking how you're going to go about being tougher on military
equipment if, at the same time, you're going to take a more lenient
view of dual-use material? Because there's a reason they would do --
there was a reason for this in the first place.

MR. BOUCHER: Let me give you the one-sentence version, the
one-sentence version of the longer answer I just gave you. If you
tighten the controls on the weapons of mass destruction and further
define the dual-use equipment that might be key to that process so
that you can further define it and control those as well, then you can
remove some of your restrictions, make the civilian stuff go more
smoothly. And that will be the direction. But as I said in my previous
answer, the details are not worked out yet.

Q: It sounds like this plan is going to require inspectors on one end
to certify in Iraq what kinds of commercial goods are being brought
in. I mean, how do you expect to get the Iraqis to agree on
inspectors?

MR. BOUCHER: I don't think that's been said that it's required,
necessary, to carry this out. It's up to the Iraqi Government if they
want to invite the inspectors back in and implement the --

Q: I'm talking about inspectors for the actual goods themselves.

MR. BOUCHER: We will take steps to tighten up on his ability to
smuggle. That's clear. There have been cargo inspections in the past,
airplane inspections in the past, and making that process work
smoothly is obviously something we'll want to look at.

Q: On Iraq, do you have more about the kind of support you would be
ready to provide to the Iraqi opposition to carry its activities
inside the country?

MR. BOUCHER: No, I can't really tell you more at this point. We are
discussing with them new licenses, new grant agreements. Haven't
worked out all the details, but continuing to work within the
framework of what we announced in September. So really the September
framework in terms of policy and activities, that remains the guiding
framework. We are working with them on the specifics of the money.

Q: Can you say exactly where things stand after the Secretary's
conversation with Bashar about the oil that's going through that
pipeline?

MR. BOUCHER: That we heard from President Bashar Assad of Syria a
commitment - let me go to my piece of paper here, if I can find it.
Here we go. No, that wasn't it either. There we go. I'm almost there.

For some time, the Syrians have talked about adhering to the UN
practices and sanctions with regard to their interaction, their
economic interaction, with Iraq. They have agreed in principle in
general terms that this pipeline activity should be brought under the
UN Oil-for-Food program.

In the meeting with Secretary Powell, Syrian President Bashar al-Assad
gave a direct commitment to do that. It was quite clear. This will be
a substantial accomplishment for the financial controls on Iraq. As
many of you have discussed, it's not the oil. Last year, Iraq was
pumping as much oil as it could, as it wanted to. The issue is the
money and bringing that money under the auspices of the UN program is
what's important.

The timing of this step will be explored with the Syrians and the UN
Security Council members. The Oil-for-Food resolution gets renewed
every six months. Sometime a few months from now it would normally be
renewed, but whether we and the Syrians and the other Security Council
members want to do that on a different schedule or not is something
we'll have to discuss.

Q: I thought he had denied any circumvention. Your rather gentle
description has him as being in a conciliatory mood all along. If you
want to say that, fine, but there has been --

MR. BOUCHER: No, I didn't --

Q: You said he wants to get along with the - that's what he told the
Secretary now finally. But in the weeks leading up to it, we kept
asking you every day what they say about these reports, and you kept
saying they're checking into it. But they were denying they were doing
anything wrong.

MR. BOUCHER: I think, Barry, you may be confusing apples and oranges.

Q: No, oil. Oil, illegal and legal.

MR. BOUCHER: As far as the facts of what has been flowing through the
pipeline and our discussions, I think I've talked about that quite a
bit. As far as the policy that the Syrian Government has stated all
along, they have indeed stated there was a policy of bringing this
under the UN auspices. The question was whether it was at a point in
the testing or production phase. They talked about doing that when the
production phase was under way, and obviously there has been a lot of
differing information as to exactly where they were.

The point is that now they made a direct commitment to bring it under
UN auspices at whatever phase it is now.

Q: Having talked to these - some of these leaders in the region, not
all of them, Mr. Walker went out to talk to some others - do you know
anything more about leakage? Can this leakage have occurred without
the complicity of the leaders of these countries? Evidently you find a
need to tighten. Tightening means something has been going wrong. It
hasn't been going wrong in a vacuum; it's been going wrong. Is it
because pirates are afoot in the land, or have these leaders been --
have these leaders been conspiring, or the governments conspiring with
Iraq to circumvent the sanctions? And how can you tighten that up by
looking at cargo, is the only example I think you've given?

MR. BOUCHER: There is smuggling. There is private smuggling. Somebody
smuggles something out of Iraq. He makes a payment to the Iraqis for
it, and that money goes in outside of the Oil-for-Food program. There
has been some government-to-government activity, or government
corporate activity like the Syrian pipeline that was not being handled
under the payment system that the UN has set up.

So it is a variety of things. And how do we change it? Some places we
change government policy, sometimes we work with governments to
provide better oversight, and I'm sure we will come up with other
ideas as we work out the details.

Q: A quick question. Has he received any promises --

MR. BOUCHER: Somebody else might ask a question, eventually. But sure,
go ahead.

Q: They'll get their chance. But I'm trying to get direct answers to
problems that you discovered, instead of your forward-looking positive
spin on this.

MR. BOUCHER: I know you're looking for direct answers, but part of
what we are doing now is going to be working out with the other
governments involved with the Perm 5, within our own government, how
to answer some of these questions and how to come up with effective
answers.

Q: Did anybody promise better oversight? Let me just simply ask, did
any leader there - I know about the Syrian part --

MR. BOUCHER: Yes, we have talked about talking with the Jordanians
about this policy, we talked about talking with the Turkish
Government, Foreign Minister Cem in Brussels about the policy. I think
everybody talked about a desire to go in this direction and to make
the controls on Iraq's ability to acquire weapons tighter, better, and
to make sure that Iraq was not allowed to threaten the people of the
region again with weapons and weapons of mass destruction.

In our discussions with people about the direction, they understood
that part of that was going to be getting a better handle on money and
on smuggling, and that those two things would also be part of our
policy. I would say, in agreeing to this direction for policy, people
also understood that we would have to work out more effective measures
to cut down on smuggling and money.