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“U.N. RESOLUTION” mentioning the U.S. Dept of State was published in the Extensions of Remarks section on pages E1984-E1985 on Nov. 12, 2002.
The publication is reproduced in full below:
U.N. RESOLUTION
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HON. MARCY KAPTUR
of ohio
in the house of representatives
Tuesday, November 12, 2002
Ms. KAPTUR. Mr. Speaker, I would like to insert the following articles into the Record. U.S. Is Putting Heavy Pressure on France and Other Skeptics for a U.N.
Resolution
(By Steven R. Weisman)
The Bush administration is mounting a campaign of public pressure and private diplomatic and economic concessions to persuade France and other skeptical members of the United Nations Security Council to go along with a single resolution threatening military force against Iraq.
With rising concern in Washington that time is short for passage of such a resolution--many experts say military action would be easier in the winter--talks on the resolution's wording are accelerating at the United Nations and in meetings and telephone calls in and between capitals.
``There's no sense that the French don't want to do this,`` an administration official said, referring to a tough United Nations resolution on Iraq. ``But there is a growing frustration that we don't yet have an agreement.''
President Jacques Chirac of France, in another sign of disagreement with the United States, appeared in remarks published today to take issue with President Bush's arguments that Iraq is cultivating links with Al Qaeda and wants, as he said on Monday, to use it as ``a forward army.''
``As far as I know, no proof has been found, or at least been made official, for a link between Iraq and Al Qaeda,'' Mr. Chirac said in the interview in the Beirut-based, French-language newspaper L'Orient-Le Jour. ``Even if certain terrorists could have been able to find refuge in Iraq, we must not mix up the issues. The first objective of action by the international community is Iraq, and that means disarmament.''
Last month, Mr. Bush won praise, especially among war opponents in Europe, for promising to go to the United Nations for approval before taking military action against Saddam Hussein's government in Baghdad.
But after intense discussions and a certain impatience in Washington, now France, Russia and China--which have vetoes on the Security Council--remain opposed to giving the administration an automatic option to use force if Iraq fails to comply with new weapons inspections.
France wants the United States to go to a second stage and get later authorization for using force if Mr. Hussein rebuffs the United Nations inspectors.
France, which has a history of going its own way in NATO and maintains strong links to the Arab world, has emerged as a bigger stumbling block than Russia or China, which do not consider themselves American allies, administration officials said.
American officials express confidence that if they can persuade Mr. Chirac to go along with a single United Nations resolution, Moscow and Beijing will follow suit by either agreeing to it or not vetoing it.
At least so far, officials say, France is resisting an administration proposal to have the resolution threaten unspecified ``consequences,'' rather than a more explicit reference to force, if the inspection process collapses.
Diplomats familiar with the negotiations said the Bush Administration could interpret the word ``consequences'' as tantamount to pre-approval for military action. At the same time, they said Washington was offering private assurances that the United States would not ignore the Security Council.
``This could end up with something that is not a one-stage or a two-stage process,'' said a diplomat familiar with the talks. ``The word is that it will be one-and-a-half stages.''
``The French really do want to be with us,'' a senior State Department official said. ``The French are worried that if the first resolution authorizes all necessary means to enforce inspections, we might go to war without checking with them. What they want is to keep the Security Council in the picture. We believe that can be done in the context of one resolution. That's our goal.''
In a sense, the negotiations at the United Nations are running along the same lines as Mr. Bush's talks with Congress over the last month.
The administration won support of skeptical lawmakers in part because of personal assurances from Mr. Bush that Congress would be consulted in the event of a war. Similarly, the United States is making promises of consultation with United Nations allies if a conflict occurs.
In the background are firm and even threatening words from Mr. Bush, who declared today that the United Nations must
``face up'' to the danger from the Hussein government.
``Those who choose to live in denial may eventually be forced to live in fear,'' he said at a ceremony at which he signed the resolution passed by Congress last week authorizing the use of force against Baghdad. A White House official said he was not referring to any particular nation.
Mr. Chirac, who was in Alexandria, Egypt, today for the beginning of a Middle East trip, reiterated his support for a two-stage resolution process. He said the Security Council should authorize force only as a last resort if the Iraqis were not acting in good faith.
A separate drama is playing itself out behind the scenes, some administration officials said. That is the role of Secretary of State Colin L. Powell, who is the administration's main advocate of diplomacy as a means to address Iraq, rather than simply threats of force.
Vice President Dick Cheney and Secretary of Defense Donald H. Rumsfeld are said to be most skeptical that diplomacy can work. Their fear, according to officials, is that Mr. Hussein can drag out the diplomatic and inspection process.
Mr. Rumsfeld and Mr. Cheney are also the ones demanding a single resolution at the United Nations that explicitly threatens force if the inspection route fails, officials said.
They are also said to want a swift timetable for inspections and additional measures, like armed escorts for inspectors and removing Iraqi scientists and their families from the country for interviews.
Diplomats in and out of the government say France wants to see the United Nations play a continuing role so that the French can remain part of the process.
``The French want to look like they constrained or shaped what the United States ends up doing,'' said Dennis Ross, the former Middle East negotiator in the Clinton and first Bush administrations. ``They want to be relevant and to make sure that the Security Council remains relevant. But they don't want to be left out if the United States goes to war.''
Many experts say France's potential economic interests in a future Iraq are a factor in its wanting eventually to be on the side of Washington if Mr. Hussein is overthrown. Russia also has strong oil interests in Iraq.
``Obviously French oil companies would want to be major players in Iraqi oil fields and in the export and refining of Iraqi oil in a post-Saddam Iraq,'' said Paul Sullivan, a professor of economics at the National Defense University in Washington. ``The French signed oil deals in Iraq, but these deals cannot be implemented until after the sanctions against Iraq are taken off.''
The Bush administration has gone out of its way to assure Moscow that in the event of a ``regime change'' in Baghdad, Russian interests will be looked after.
Recently Secretary Powell told the U.S.-Russia Business Council that the United States fully understood Russia's desire to play a role in Iraq's oil industry. ``We are taking fully into account the interest of the nations in the region and the economic impact such a transition might have on them,'' he said.
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Iraq States Its Case
(By Mohammed Aldouri)
Mohammed Aldouri is the Iraqi ambassador to the United Nations.
After so many years of fear from war, the threat of war and suffering, the people of Iraq and their government in Baghdad are eager for peace. We have no intention of attacking anyone, now or in the future, with weapons of any kind. If we are attacked, we will surely defend ourselves with all means possible. But bear in mind that we have no nuclear or biological or chemical weapons, and we have no intention of acquiring them.
We are not asking the people of the United States or of any member state of the United Nations to trust in our word, but to send the weapons inspectors to our country to look wherever they wish unconditionally. This means unconditional access anywhere, including presidential sites in accordance with a 1998 signed agreement between Iraq and the United Nations--an agreement that ensures respect for Iraq's sovereignty and allows for transparency in the work of the inspectors. We could never make this claim with such openness if we did not ourselves know there is nothing to be found. Still, we continue to read statements by officials of the United States and the United Kingdom that it is not enough that Hans Blix, head of the United Nations Monitoring, Verification and Inspection Commission, and his team of inspectors have unconditional access. They say this is because the Iraqi government may be hiding weapons that will not be found, or is moving weapons from place to place, or is developing new weapons in roving vans or in underground locations.
The United Nations officials with whom our government has worked on these matters know that these concerns have no foundation. In December 1998, when the United Nations weapons inspection team left Iraq on the orders of Richard Butler, the chief United Nations arms inspector at the time, it had exhausted all possibilities after seven years of repeatedly examine all possible sites; only small discrepancies existed.
It is now widely conceded that Iraq possesses no nuclear weapons and that we could not develop them without building facilities that could be spotted by satellite. Since 1999, we have allowed the International Atomic Energy Agency to visit Iraq. If it wishes, it can inspect any building anywhere. The agency's inspectors will find nothing untoward.
Scott Ritter, who led many United Nations inspections, has said that he questions whether Iraq possesses biological weapons. Mr. Ritter also has been on CNN in recent months explaining that his inspection team destroyed plants that could produce chemical weapons. If these plants were reconstructed, Mr. Blix and his team would quickly find them out. Building such weapons costs billions of dollars and requires enormous facilities and huge power sources. The idea that such projects could be moved around in trucks or stashed away in presidential palaces stretches the bounds of imagination.
It is my belief that the American people are not aware of this history because, in my opinion of my government, no American political figure has been seriously interested in discussing these matters with our government. The United Nations was created in 1945 to provide a forum for nations in conflict to come together to work out their disagreements. It was designed expressly for the purpose of making the use of force an absolute last resort.
For more than 11 years, the people of Iraq suffered under United Nations economic sanctions, which have been kept in place largely by American influence. According to statistics compiled by the Iraq Ministry of Health, these sanctions have caused the death of more than 1.7 million of our citizens. The embargo has been so severe that we have been prevented from importing chemicals needed for our sewage, water and sanitation facilities.
At the same time, the last three American presidents have stated that these sanctions could not be lifted as long as our president, Saddam Hussein, remains the nation's leader.
Iraq is not a threat to its neighbors. It certainly is not a threat to the United States or any of its interests in the Middle East. Once the United Nations inspection team comes back into my country and gets up to speed, I am confident that it will certify that Iraq has no weapons of mass destruction--be they chemical, biological or nuclear. Such certification we hope, will remove the shadow of war and help restore peace between our nations.
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