Saying “force can never be the first answer, but sometimes it’s the only answer,” President Clinton on Tuesday delivered his sternest warning yet to Iraq’s Saddam Hussein, warning him that military action might come soon.
Speaking from the Pentagon after a briefing by the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Clinton said that if the U.S. fails to act against Hussein’s weapons of mass destruction, “someday, some way, I guarantee you he’ll use the arsenal.”
At the same time, the U.S. joined the four other permanent members of the UN Security Council in approving a trip to Iraq by Secretary General Kofi Annan for a last-ditch attempt to persuade Hussein to allow unhindered searches for chemical, biological and nuclear weapons.
The Clinton administration, wary of any compromise that would embolden Hussein, has sought to limit the UN chief to offering the Iraqi leader little more than a face-saving gesture in negotiations over access for UN weapons inspectors to so-called presidential compounds.
U.S. Ambassador to the UN Bill Richardson said the United States is prepared to reject any negotiation that “is not consistent with the Security Council resolutions and our own national interest.”
In his address, Clinton said a peaceful solution to the crisis is still possible but added, “Let there be no doubt: We are prepared to act.”
Clinton stood in front of bright scarlet curtains in the Pentagon’s Auditorium, with the flags of the five branches of the military behind him to deliver his nationally televised address.
Speaking in slow, almost somber tones, he began preparing the nation for the possibility of U.S. casualties in any strike against Iraq.
“The weightiest decision any president ever has to make is to send our troops into harm’s way,” he said. “No military action . . . is risk-free.”
Before the 25-minute speech, Clinton spent 40 minutes with the Joint Chiefs of Staff and others receiving a briefing on the military situation in the Persian Gulf.
According to his spokesman, Mike McCurry, Clinton received a “report on the status of forces deployed and the projection of our force posture in the region” as well as “scenarios and different outcomes.”
Asked whether Clinton might send in U.S. jets and missiles while Congress was not in session, McCurry replied that the administration has “consulted very broadly with Congress” and had the legal authority to take any military action it deemed necessary.
In his speech, the president set forth what some consider a modest goal for U.S. military action against Iraq.
“We want to seriously diminish the threat posed by Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction program,” Clinton said. “We want to seriously reduce his capacity to threaten his neighbors.”
Clinton has ruled out as a goal what some in Congress are urging: the destruction of Hussein or at least his removal from power.
Clinton did seem to indicate, however, that the future might bring fewer inspections and more bombing raids. He said that if there should be a strike against Iraq by the U.S. and its allies, afterward “we will carefully monitor Iraq’s activities” and if Hussein “seeks to rebuild his weapons of mass destruction, we will be prepared to strike him again.”
Clinton characterized Iraq as a “rogue state” that imperils the world. “We have to defend our future from these predators of the 21st Century,” he said.
The president said that although Hussein had tried to undermine and undercut United Nations inspectors, they had uncovered huge weapons caches in Iraq, including “40,000 chemical weapons, more than 100,000 gallons of chemical weapons agents, 48 operational missiles, 30 warheads specifically fitted for chemical and biological weapons and a massive biological weapons facility . . .”
Clinton also said that inspectors in the past few months “have come closer to rooting out Iraq’s remaining nuclear capacity.”
Any diplomatic solution to the problem, Clinton said, “must include or meet a clear, immutable, reasonable, simple standard: Iraq must agree–and soon–to free, full and unfettered access to these sites anywhere in the country.”
Asked later in the day whether there was significance to the word “soon,” McCurry said, “He said soon, he means soon.”
At the UN, Annan said he will leave for Iraq on Friday.
“I believe I now have a clear basis on which to brief the Security Council tomorrow and prepare to proceed to Baghdad,” Annan said.
But the council’s five permanent members–Britain, China, France, Russia and the United States–pointedly advised him not to stray from the council resolutions requiring that Iraq open all its installations to inspectors without condition.
To protect his own credibility, Annan said earlier that he would not attempt such a trip before his own conditions were met, including a workable proposal to take to Baghdad, the support of the Security Council as a whole and some advance indication from the Iraqis that the trip would be worthwhile.
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