Status of UN Resolutions on Iraq

If I can start by going backwards, as we usually do around here, the Security Council at the beginning of June, arrived at a very strong political consensus to try to improve the lives of the Iraqi people by allowing them to acquire the civilian goods they needed to build a civilian economy in Iraq, and at the same time, to maintain the proper controls on Iraq's acquisition of weapons and particularly for weapons of mass destruction -- elements, items, that can threaten its neighbors.

There was a very strong consensus reflected in the 15-0 adoption by the Council of Resolution 1352. In that resolution, the Council set itself a 30-day deadline to try to get the work done, the detailed work done that would be necessary to implement this new policy.

We've had a good deal of success in these last 30 days. Four of the five Permanent Members of the Security Council have agreed on the list of goods that would be subject to review. That is the central part, the core, of what needs to be done, although there are a number of other elements that need to be done as well.

Nonetheless, we were unable to obtain Russian agreement to these specifics during this period, despite the fact that Russia had agreed to endorse at the beginning of June the resolution that embodied the political direction.

We believe also that there continues to be very strong support among the non-Permanent Members of the Security Council for going in this direction and for adopting the new specific resolution.

But it's clear that the remaining differences will not be resolved by tomorrow; therefore, we will be joining the consensus for a rollover of the current resolution so that we can continue to work on the specifics, both in terms of getting Russia on board with the goods review list and in terms of working out the rest of the elements of the resolution.

One of the elements of the resolution that needs to be worked out -- there are many in addition to the goods review list, but one of them is to make sure that the concerns of the frontline states are adequately taken care of and dealt with in the new resolution. And that is an example of the kind of the other things that we'll be working on.

So we share the view of many that the revised policy is better for the people of Iraq and better for the people of the region, who can be protected against Iraq's acquisition of weapons.

QUESTION: So you'll be trying to get Russia -- needn't you be more clear about how Iraq will eventually get out from under the sanctions if, you know, everything goes according to plan? I mean, how can you -- is that it, or is there some way you can hone this resolution -- new resolution, or whatever your approach is -- to attract Russia? Or is it just commercial and they won't go along?

MR. BOUCHER: Well, obviously that is the kind of question that Russia needs to address. Is it just commercial and they won't go along? Is there some other concern that they have that we haven't understood properly yet? In our view, Resolution 1284 -- and again, in Resolution 1352, this is cited -- Resolution 1284 provides the process by which Iraq could show, demonstrate to the world, that it is not harboring intentions or harboring programs for the development of weapons of mass destruction. That remains in place. That remains the path by which Iraq would be able to demonstrate to the world that it was not seeking to acquire this capability to threaten its neighbors.

QUESTION: How long a rollover are we prepared to support?

MR. BOUCHER: We haven't decided on the final, in terms of the time frame. I know there's various proposals out there. The British have already spoke about five months. But we will be talking to other members of the Council in terms of agreeing on the time period.

QUESTION: You talked about -- that this suggests the interest of frontline states. Can you expand on that?

MR. BOUCHER: I think the Secretary talked about it a bit when we were in Jordan, or coming out of Jordan. The states that neighbor Iraq have a variety of arrangements -- some of them barter arrangements, some of them pipeline arrangements and other things -- through which they have acquired discounted oil or other goods and been able to trade with Iraq somewhat outside of the monetized escrow system that was set up by the UN. We are aware of the fact that implementing the regulations that Iraq has in the past and in recent weeks threatened these neighboring states with economic harm, should they join the international consensus to help the people of Iraq. The Iraqi Government is threatening people who want to help the civilians of Iraq.

Granted, we think that remains the best course of action, but we also think it is important that they be protected against economic retaliation from Iraq, and so we will have to work out mechanisms in the agreement or work out a framework in the resolution or some other mechanism so that these states are allowed to continue to do what they need to do vis-à-vis their trade with Iraq, and particularly in civilian goods with the people of Iraq, and so that Iraq is not allowed to hold them -- to threaten them with economic retaliation.

QUESTION: Richard, the Secretary was going to talk to Ivanov over the weekend. Did he do that?

MR. BOUCHER: They didn't connect over the weekend. He talked to him this morning. And they discussed the situation with regard to the resolutions. But frankly I don't think there were any -- I don't want to say that we moved it any closer to resolving it.

QUESTION: Originally, the Secretary was talking about revamping the sanctions against Iraq. One of the things he said, besides the consumer goods, was to really tighten up in terms of importing the ingredients or actual weapons of mass destruction. Can you describe at this point what kind of consensus you have within the Security Council on the elements of the sanctions that deal with this question?

MR. BOUCHER: The core of the new resolution, the most important piece, needs to be the list of goods that are subject to review by the members of the Council or by the UN to ensure that they don't -- that they aren't sold to Iraq.
We have reached agreement with four out of the five Permanent Members of the Security Council, after a number of very detailed experts meetings, on that list. And so this so-called goods review list is now agreed among four of the five Permanent Members of the Security Council.

That constitutes the list of goods that could make a significant contribution to Iraq's programs for weapons of mass destruction, and therefore the list of goods that need to be looked at very, very carefully to avoid contributing to Iraq's programs and Iraq's ability to threaten its neighbors.

QUESTION: Can I follow up a bit? But that list is being winnowed down from the current list. Are there new proposals that the US had going into this process that they had hoped would also, I guess, better seal Iraq's borders in terms of those?

MR. BOUCHER: Being winnowed down from the current list in that, as far as I know, the current list is basically everything.

QUESTION: Right.

MR. BOUCHER: What there has been in the United Nations, various lists within the list of everything that would receive more or less scrutiny. What this does is it focuses more precisely on the items that need to be looked at carefully.

That's about as far as I can go based on my own understanding. I would have to look up 1051 lists and the other various procedures in the past a little more to explain it.

QUESTION: Can you give us any idea of the number of items on this list?

MR. BOUCHER: I will see if I can. I don't have it on the top of my head.

QUESTION: How does the United States hope to compensate countries like Jordan, which stand to lose over a billion dollars if they lose access to oil?

And secondly, the British are very concerned about the Russian introduction of its -- the damage to its economy as an issue in any of these resolutions eleven years after the Gulf War, and saying that that's more important than some of the principles of weapons of mass destruction.

How does the United States feel about that?

MR. BOUCHER: I think, first of all, let's remember that this resolution will provide for a freer flow of civilian goods to the Iraqi people. And if Iraq allows the people to take advantage of that, then there will be more sales of ordinary daily use items and civilian goods from frontline states and from other countries.

So if Iraq cooperates with the resolution, then not only should the Iraqi people benefit but people who sell things to the Iraqi people should benefit as well. So generally, there should be a freer economic flow with Iraq as a result of this resolution.

Now, the problem is that certain frontline states have beneficial arrangements with regard to oil, which Iraq has threatened to cut off -- Iraq basically threatening countries that want to help the Iraqi people. And should that happen, other countries will need to make sure that they are supported and that there is a new system that preserves the interest of Iraq's neighbors. How exactly that is to happen will be something that we should work out with other governments over the course of the next period of time.

QUESTION: How about the second one, about Russia.

MR. BOUCHER: I forgot it. Try again.

QUESTION: The British are very concerned that the Russians have introduced the idea of their economy being hurt.

MR. BOUCHER: Oh, yes. I think the overall benefit to people who might be selling civilian goods to Iraq in commercial terms is quite clear, so it has never been clear to us what other governments who don't have this sort of discounted oil arrangement or anything like that, what other governments might fear in terms of providing civilian goods to the Iraqi people. It seems to be Iraq's government that is most concerned that people might actually let the people of Iraq acquire the goods that they need.

QUESTION: Now that the US is supporting a rollover of the current regime, will you be pressuring Syria to get its pipeline cleared through the Sanctions Committee after they promised --

MR. BOUCHER: As we have mentioned before and as I think I mentioned just now, the arrangements for the frontline states is one of the elements that has to be worked out in terms of the new resolution, so that is something that we'll be working on.

QUESTION: And there will be a longer period now, more than 30 days, where the current sanctions would continue and that those states would be in violation of the sanctions. Does the US have any intention of trying to, in that period, keep the frontline states in line with what the UN says they ought to do?

MR. BOUCHER: I think we'll be working with the governments in the region, as well as other governments on the Council, to try to cover this. But how exactly it will be covered, I can't tell you at this point.

QUESTION: I may have missed this -- I'm sure it came up because I went out for a couple minutes. Does the United States have a proposal on how long the rollover should be for?

MR. BOUCHER: No, not at this point. We'll be talking to --

QUESTION: But you're -- what do you think of the five- or six-month proposal?

MR. BOUCHER: As I said in the last ten minutes several times, we'll be talking to other governments about that.

QUESTION: Just sort of picking up on the frontline states, it has been four months since Secretary Powell met with Bashar Assad and was fairly confident after speaking with him that the Syrians were going to cut off that pipeline. Is it fair to say, then, that the State Department is disappointed that, four months later, an assurance that Secretary Powell thought he had gotten is, in fact, not being followed through on? And what is the State Department doing to try to pressure Syria to, in fact, live up to its word?

MR. BOUCHER: I haven't tried to characterize our view of any particular other country, except Russia, at this juncture. I think it's important to remember that the Council has done a lot of the work, a core element of the work that it set out to do, but, as I mentioned earlier, there is still other elements that haven't been worked out yet. So we're going to have to keep working on it.

QUESTION: I was just going to say, this is a fairly serious infraction of the UN Oil-for-Food. I mean, it's millions and millions of dollars that are going into Saddam Hussein's pockets. I understand that the Jordanians are getting cut-rate oil, but, I mean, this is actually potentially --

MR. BOUCHER: I think there was an estimate in the past that there was something like 10 percent or something of the revenue that was in these non-subsumed -- there must be a better way to say it -- that was outside this UN escrow system. I don't know if that still applies. I haven't seen recent figures.

But it's clear that that has to be dealt with, and how we go about making arrangements for these new -- for the frontline states will be something that will be dealt with in the coming period. It's not something that we have resolved at this point.

QUESTION: Do you have any ideas on that front for dealing with the frontline states?

MR. BOUCHER: Yes.

QUESTION: You do? New ideas?

MR. BOUCHER: Let's not go too far. (Laughter.)

QUESTION: Some Arab governments say that Syria has, since that meeting between Powell and Assad, told the United States that it has no intention of cutting off the pipeline.

MR. BOUCHER: Well, I think you have to leave it to the Syrians to talk about their intentions. We think it's important that the Council -- that the governments involved continue to address this issue, and we'll see how it's dealt with.

You're asking me to answer a question that I said up front is one of the questions we can't answer at this point, so I can't go into 20 different aspects of it when I said it's -- you know, here's what we've done, we've worked out a political consensus, we've worked out four out of five of the Permanent Members on the goods review list, now we're going to roll over the current arrangement for another period of time so that we can finish working out these other things that we haven't worked out yet.

QUESTION: But have you not heard from the Syrians since that first meeting?

MR. BOUCHER: We continue to be in touch with the Syrians, but I'm not going to try to characterize their views

QUESTION: Given the delay at this point on completing the sanctions policy in the UN, what impact is this going to have on the other two baskets of Iraq policy that have been under the review right now by the State Department and the rest of the Bush Administration?

MR. BOUCHER: I don't think any particular aspect has been held for the other, so I don't see that it would have any particular effect.

QUESTION: Can we move on?

QUESTION: One more on Iraq. Are you confident that the progress you say it has been made is locked in, or if there is a rollover perhaps of five months that the consensus you already have will start to become frayed?

MR. BOUCHER: There was a very strong consensus at the beginning of June. There were real accomplishments since the beginning of June in terms of working out this very detailed and specific list among four out of the five Permanent Members. So I think we are confident that the members that have joined in this consensus and the members that have worked out the list will continue to push in this direction, that this is the right way to go.

We have said from the beginning, the policy that we had was falling apart; we needed to have a new policy. We found strong political support for a new policy that allows Iraqi civilians to acquire the goods they need and yet which limits the Iraq Government's ability to acquire the material for weapons of mass destruction. That remains the right thing, and we think that that can hold.

QUESTION: Even if you did get five out of the five Perm 5 to support the new resolution, without the support of the frontline states, are you confident that this new policy would work?

MR. BOUCHER: The goods review list obviously would be something in the resolution that everybody would adopt, that everybody would support. Working with the Permanent 5 members, I think, is an important start to that. We think there is support among other non-permanent members of the Council. But in many cases the Permanent 5, and particularly with the more sophisticated items, are likely to find a lot of the manufacturing and production of those items would be in Permanent 5 countries.

So it is a key element in getting started on the list, and having that list adopted in a UN resolution by the entire Council would obligate everybody. So that is the way that it spreads to the whole world.

QUESTION: Okay, but I'm just trying to connect the two, and you are saying that they are not really connected in a sense. If the frontline states are saying that they don't want to support, you don't have the support for the resolution --

MR. BOUCHER: No, if the Council adopts a resolution --

QUESTION: Then they are forced --

MR. BOUCHER: -- then everybody is bound by it, whether you are frontline or not frontline, or back row.

QUESTION: Unless they smuggle.

MR. BOUCHER: Well, that is another part of the resolution, which is working on the smuggling questions.

QUESTION: Can we move on?

QUESTION: Can I try though? If you don't have the support of the frontline states to tighten their border patrols and tighten these military embargos, then you are going to have a whole bunch of goods going into Iraq, and no embargos on the military. So isn't that the kind of lynchpin of the whole new sanctions regime?

MR. BOUCHER: No, the lynchpin of the sanctions regime is not -- in most interdiction regimes where there's drug smuggling or whatever, it's not relying on the inspection containers that the US makes co-border. I mean, that is part of the effort to keep drugs out of this country. But we also have a very strong effort to prevent drug manufacturing, to prevent the chemicals from going to drug manufacturers, to work with governments concerned where these things are produced.

I would say that in any interdiction effort you don't rely solely on the chance of discovering something in a truck as it goes across the border. You have a very broad and widespread effort, and we will have a broad and widespread effort to make sure that manufacturers aren't selling to people who are suspicious, to follow the intelligence on what Iraq is trying to acquire, to work with governments who transit countries, including the question of smuggling and inspection of borders. So it is a much broader effort than that.

And second of all, I would point out that these governments have cooperated and supported UN resolutions in the past through a variety of arrangements, including their own inspections procedures at the borders. To the extent that that is an element of all this, I'm sure that will continue, because they have taken these obligations seriously and we have worked with them in the past.

QUESTION: Can I try to just get back to the Ivanov phone call? There seems to be some uncertainty what motivates Russia to be the obstacle here. Was there any clarification? Did the Russian Foreign Minister make clearer to the Secretary what Russia's objections are?

MR. BOUCHER: Not at this point, no.

QUESTION: Okay. Can we move on?

MR. BOUCHER: Please.