|
It's in the public domain, isn't it? So it shouldn't be a problem reproducing the whole idiotic exchange. Basically Rice does the "intelligence failure side-step," which she ought to have been called on. The memo says that the intelligence was being "fixed." The question, Madame Secretary, is what the fuck "fixed" means. :grr:
QUESTION: Very quickly on that, and I have one other question. And if they don't, is the next stop the UN Security Council on Iran?
And if I could then ask both of you to comment on the very well-publicized British memo that was leaked to the Times of London, or to the London Times. Madame Secretary --
SECRETARY RICE: Which one is that? Andrea, which one is that?
FOREIGN SECRETARY STRAW: Which one is that?
QUESTION: On Iraq. That came out about 10 days ago, 12 days ago. Are you not aware of this memo?
SECRETARY RICE: Well, a lot of them are, unfortunately, out. (Laughter.)
QUESTION: In particular, this memo -- and I can quote -- said that the intelligence -- and this was a memo that was leaked from the minutes of a meeting that took place in July of 2002 with Tony Blair --
SECRETARY RICE: Oh, that one. Okay. Got it. Okay.
QUESTION: -- and some of his military intelligence advisors. In particular, it quotes one British official saying the intelligence and facts that the U.S. was putting forward were being fixed around the policy. We know what the U.S. administration's position is in the buildup to the war on Iraq. It's been made very clear. But could you speak to these allegations in particular, Madame Secretary, and whether or not this is true?
And Mr. Secretary Straw, if you could also speak to the authenticity of this memo and, in particular, you're quoted in here saying that the case was thin, Saddam was not threatening his neighbors and his WMD capacity was less than that of Libya, North Korea or Iran.
Thank you.
SECRETARY RICE: On -- did you say you say you had a follow-up on Iran as well?
QUESTION: (Inaudible)
SECRETARY RICE: Okay, right. Okay. On what comes next, I think we will see what comes next. We've obviously got the Security Council as an option for the international community. We've made that clear. A number of Secretary Straw's colleagues have made that clear. And I would hope that the Iranians understand that this is their chance, they ought to take it and get back on the good side of the international community.
Look, we've gone over and over and over the issue about the intelligence and about the case against Saddam Hussein. Obviously, there were problems with the intelligence. That's now very clear. It's why the President has been very quick to react to the intelligence reform legislation, appointing John Negroponte to really more radically reform American intelligence agencies than at any time since 1947, because we need to have the very best intelligence, particularly when we are dealing with opaque, dictatorial societies like Iraq in which information comes at a premium.
But I would just remind that the information on which we were acting, in part on which we were acting, was information that was gathered from sources from around the world, including reports that UN inspectors had had when they were on the ground in 1998. Saddam Hussein had used weapons of mass destruction and I think people sometimes forget he had used weapons of mass destruction. In 1991, when the Gulf War ended, we found a nuclear program that was farther advanced than what was believed to be the case.
And I just want to remind everyone that at every turn, yes, the weapons of mass destruction were a problem and Saddam Hussein had an inextricable link with weapons of mass destruction, that was made clear by the Duelfer report, which talked about the fact that he was trying to erode the Oil-for-Food -- through the Oil-for-Food program, the sanctions -- was having some success he believed in doing so and was maintaining capability and intent to try to recreate weapons of mass destruction when the world turned a blind eye.
Let's also not forget that this was a bloody dictator in the middle of the Middle East who had invaded his neighbors twice, who had used weapons of mass destruction, who was in a state of continued hostility with the United States and with the United Kingdom, in which he shot at our aircraft on a regular basis trying to patrol no fly zones to keep his air force from harming his own people and his neighbors. This was a bad, bad influence in the Middle East. He was a threat. It is a good thing that he is gone. I am immensely proud of what we did in taking down this dictator, particularly so after having been in Iraq a couple of days ago and seeing that you have, yes, a struggling young democracy there but a young democracy. And what a change for the people of Iraq, what a change for the Middle East. Even if there are terrorists who try on a daily basis through their violence to derail that process, the people of Iraq have a chance now at a decent life under democracy, and that was worth doing.
Mr. Secretary.
FOREIGN SECRETARY STRAW: Thank you. On the issue of Iran, as the Secretary has said, the E-3 has made clear, including in a report to colleague foreign ministers, that we reserve the right to consider reopening the matter before the IAEA Board or referring the matter to the Security Council if we judged that is right and the obligations on both sides of the Paris agreement and other previous agreements have not been met.
The whole purpose of the negotiations with Iran is to try and avoid that circumstance in the context of ensuring that there are objective guarantees about Iran's nuclear intentions.
On Iraq, I don't have the document in front of me. Of all the things I thought I was going to be asked about at a press conference here, that was not one of them. I'd simply say this: that what people forget, too, as the Secretary has been implying, is the context that we were working in, and part of the context in the summer of 2002 was to get the international community to make a judgment about whether Iraq did or did not continue to pose a threat to international peace and security.
It was President Bush who, in September 2002, went to the General Assembly to say I'm putting this back to the United Nations. And it was the Security Council, voluntarily and unanimously, which judged in November 2002 that Iraq, and I quote, "posed a threat," to international peace and security because of its proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, its long-range missile systems and its flagrant refusal to implement Security Council resolutions. And it was Saddam's failure to follow his obligations under what became 1441 that led to the military action. And that was the context in which the British House of Commons made that decision.
And the last thing I'd say is this: I've just come from a pretty difficult but very successful election campaign. Iraq was an issue, not least in my district. One of the striking things is in my district there are Iraqi refugees and it was they who were saying, yes, life had not been easy since the military action but we are now an emerging democracy. One of the most poignant moments of all was when there was a young Iraqi refugee explaining to someone who was skeptical about the military action that his family had been killed at Halabjas and that there weren't going to be any more Halabjas because there was now an emerging democracy.
|
Printer-friendly format
Email this thread to a friend
Bookmark this thread
(1000+ posts)
Send PM |
Profile |
Ignore
