Exerpts: September 10 Press Briefing

Question: Isn't it a bit strange that none of the places in the Middle East have decided to close? I mean, I understand that they're under review and the list could change, but wouldn't those be perhaps some of the posts that would proactively decide they're not going to take any --

Mr. Boucher: Manama is closed today and tomorrow.

Question: Yeah, one of the NEA countries.

Mr. Boucher: There is any number of factors involved here and embassies look at their overall security situation. It may be that embassies in the Middle East have already done so much over so many years to improve their security posture that they feel comfortable operating as they normally do. Embassies sometimes restrict public access anyway in high-security threat posts.

So these are not just decisions about the kind of information or threat that we may have, they're decisions about how well protected they feel they are and how well they feel they can protect the public who may come to visit them at the embassy.

__________________________________

Question: Is Secretary Powell in touch with other foreign ministers regarding the speech President Bush is going to deliver on first day to the UN on Iraq?

Mr. Boucher: I don't want to start predicting that we're briefing anybody in particular on the speech the President might give; but I would say the Secretary is in touch with other foreign ministers. About the situation in Iraq, I think he talked to Foreign Minister Fischer this morning about it. He talked to Foreign Secretary Straw yesterday. So he's been keeping in regular touch and he will also expect to see many of them in New York over the next few days. He met with the Bulgarian President yesterday afternoon. They talked about Iraq a bit, as well.

Okay. Let's go work our way that way.

Betsy.

Question: Can you say in general what the response has been from the people that he has talked to?

Mr. Boucher: I think I'll leave it to others to make their own public statements. As you know there are many in the international community that agree that Iraq's development of weapons of mass destruction is a serious danger for all of us; particularly when we've met with neighboring countries, they have made quite clear that if Iraq were to be able to us weapons of mass destruction it would be a serious threat to everybody in the neighborhood.

Second of all, I think UN Security Council members agree that Iraq has been consistently in violation of the resolutions that have been passed and which Iraq accepted. So there is appreciation of the fact that Iraq's confrontation is with the world; Iraq's defiance is of the world. And so on that basis, we're continuing our discussions about how the world should deal with it.

Question: Can you say whether these people seem to generally agree that this should be a UN-solved situation?

Mr. Boucher: Again, I don't think I want to characterize their views so much as just describe the atmosphere that we're working in now. There are a lot of people who want to see the UN take various kinds of specific action and the President is considering a lot of the consultations that he has had and a lot of the views that we're getting and a lot of the need to deal with the issue. And we'll hear from the President in only a day or two, so let's not try to get ahead of that.

Question: Do you have any reaction to the French plan or the French outline that was given yesterday?

Mr. Boucher: No. Didn't yesterday, don't today.

Joel.

Question: Any reaction by the State Department to Saddam Hussein's statements and bellicose words concerning the United States and Israel? And also there were protests in Gaza where an American flag was trampled and it was a pro-Iraqi type of rally.

Mr. Boucher: I didn't notice the protest in Gaza. I think we've seen things like that before. I think the only point I would make, and I don't want to get back into where we were in the Gulf War where the Iraqis would say something, an hour later we'd stand up to say something and, you know, we're sort of playing ping pong.

The fact is, the Iraqi regime is threatening Arabs, its own people, its neighbors; they've killed thousands of Muslims with gas; used gas on fellow Muslims in the Iran-Iraq War; murdered the Shi'ites. There is no question that the threat to the Muslim world, in part, emanates from the Iraqi regime. And the world needs to deal with this fact: with the oppression, with the threat that this represents, with the development of weapons of mass destruction that will threaten many, many more people in the Middle East, who I think need to realize that we'd all be better off, the whole world, but especially the Muslim world, would be better off without him. I'll leave it at that.

Terri.

Question: I have another question on the Middle East. Last week Deputy Secretary Armitage called Hezbollah the A-team in terrorism and al-Qaida only the B-team. But I now hear that there's some discontent in Jerusalem because the US Ambassador to Lebanon said a recent Hezbollah attack was not a terrorist attack. The Jerusalem Post wrote an article about this. How can you say that they're the A-team in terrorism, but their attacks would not be terrorist attacks?

Mr. Boucher: Well, I'm not going to -- I can't assume that everything you say is true. Let us check the quotes on the US Ambassador to Lebanon before I start comparing and contrasting. Okay?

Question: Okay. Would you take it as a taken question.

Mr. Boucher: I'll take it as a taken question. Hezbollah is a very serious organization, a serious issue for us all, including our ambassadors overseas. And I know that the US Ambassador in Lebanon spends a lot of his time working on the dangers that Hezbollah represents to all of us and to the region, as well.