Wolfowitz: Thank you very much. (In Arabic.)
PART2
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Q: Thank you. I am Yasemin Congar with Turkish newspaper Milliyet and CNN Turk. To go back to the question on Northern Iraq, I have a two-part question on -- especially, on Turkey again. I think the first part maybe goes to the General.
General, should we expect a complete withdrawal of Kurdish pesh merga from Kirkuk? Because there has been a pledge to that effect, but the reports from the region is that they are still in the city. They are in very much control of the city still.
And the second part of the question is a little bit broader and it's to you, Mr. Secretary. You talked about the future -- possible future problems in the region. And, as you know, Turkey has said it is a red line not only for the Kurdish pesh merga to take control of these cities, especially Kirkuk, but also for a massive relocation of Kurds to the city. Now you have on one side Kurds who are having good allies to you in this war, who are claiming that they have been relocated by Saddam from their city; that their families have deeds, and they are ready to reclaim their property in the city.
And, on the other hand, you have your good friend and ally, Turkey, who says this is a causus belli, there will be -- thousands and thousands of Kurds are relocating into Kirkuk. How do you reconcile that difference?
Pace: Well, I'll start with the answer to your first question. And that is, as a military person, I, and my compatriots certainly understand the very difficult relationships that exist in Northern Iraq, and the decades of animosities that have grown in the ebbs and flows of power.
We also know, as military men -- and we are talking military-to-military, U.S. to Turk to Kurd to Turkomen -- we all understand that what is best militarily is just to not have one group get greater influence or take advantage over another group. And we have had these conversations before this topic began. We are having them as we speak, and we will continue to have, and because the intent is to have a stable environment.
And the best way to have a stable environment is not to have one group get any kind of advantage over another group, but to give everybody the opportunity inside of a peaceful environment to speak up as individuals, to vote freely, and to have the dialogue that will allow their people to design their own form of government without resorting to weapons.
Wolfowitz: I have another question here. We spend a lot of time -- I have personally -- with Turkish officials talking about the issues of Northern Iraq going back to -- in most recent episode -- going back to July -- actually, in my case, going back over many years. And we understand Turkey's very legitimate concerns about Northern Iraq. And I would say, particularly the concerns Turkey has is a result of the fact that terrorists who had sanctuary in Northern Iraq killed thousands of Turks during the course of the 1990's.
I think it's worth pointing out that in the war against those terrorists, not only were the U.S. and Turkey close allies, but enormous help came from the two main Kurdish groups in the north, the KDP and the PUK. The question you raised specifically has to do with this issue of disputes over who owns which houses in those major cities, and probably elsewhere in Northern Iraq.
My understanding is there was a fairly systematic and ruthless kind of ethnic cleansing that the old regime undertook to remove Turks, as well as Kurds, from their houses and bring in Arabs. These issues are real, but they cannot be settled by violence, and they cannot be settled by vigilante justice. They have to be settled in an orderly legal process, and we will work [on this]. It's going to take some time, but I think it can be done. And I would say that so far all the parties have behaved pretty responsibly.
Q: Samir Nader, Radio Sawa. Mr. Secretary, what about -- if you can tell us something about General Garner. Is he still in Kuwait? And, if so, when do you expect him to go to Iraq, and what will be his priorities -- like what first resolution -- what relief workers first on as priorities?
And the second question to the General, if you can -- if we can learn your assessment on the disappearance of Saddam and the senior leaders. All of them, as they go, do you feel that they were killed, or fled, or if you can tell us anything about this? Thank you.
Participant: Please donÕt say, "I don't know."
Wolfowitz: Finally, a new way to say I don't know. (Laughter) Mr. Garner retired from the Army a few years ago. He is a civilian. I am not sure when he is going to go back in, to be quite honest. In spite of some of what you read a couple of weeks ago, this plan is proceeding much faster than anyone expected, and he is going to have to move into Iraq sooner than anyone expected. His main priorities when he gets back in are going to be things like water, sewage, food, medicine -- basic essentials of life.
Pace: With regard to the question about Saddam and the leadership of the regime, the intelligence that we had the night that we made the first strike where we thought he was, was very, very good intelligence corroborated by several different means, and all that told us that at that point and time he was in that location. Since that time, all of our intelligence has not shown him to be alive any place. That does not mean that he is dead. It just means that the same intelligence that led us to believe he was alive in a particular location before we struck does not point us to any new locations for him, so he has disappeared. He either disappeared because of the bombs that helped him disappear, or he is still alive. And if he is still alive, he has proved himself to be one of history's worst generals.
Q: My name is Adu-Asare, Africa Newscast, Ghana. In order not to upstage my Middle Eastern colleagues, I am going to ask a general question. You, Dr. Wolfowitz, come from the academic background, from the academic world. In recent times -- I mean, in the past couple of days, the most ardent critics of U.S. action in Iraq have come from your former colleagues in the academic world.
You have told us that U.S. is not going to stay any time longer than is necessary in Iraq. But the critics on the radio and in the press have indicated that you have a plan advising the President to use the victory in Iraq as a spring board to restructure the political dynamics in the Middle East; and that after that it is going to be a focus on U.S. led world imperialism. I would --
Wolfowitz: Let me stop you. I can't -- I can't respond to every piece of nonsense that is written by thousands of academics. I think on the basic question you asked, we have academics saying one thing, we have the Iraqi people saying something else. I think the Iraqi people are the authorities, and tell you how to think about quite a bit of the nonsense that we have heard over the last few weeks, or months actually, or years, for that matter.
Iraq is -- with the possible unfortunate exception of North Korea -- unique in the way it mistreats its people. It's unique in the way it has defied some 17 UN Security Council resolutions, or it was. I think it's a real mistake to generalize. I think every country is different. Every country has to be approached differently. I think people who try to generalize from this Iraqi case are making a mistake.
Ross: Salameh, back there.
Q: Thank you very much. Dr. Wolfowitz --
Ross: Identify yourself please.
Q: Yes, my name is Salameh Nematt, Al Hayat newspaper and LBG TV. People are wondering in the region when they are going to start seeing an Iraqi face to the new Iraq. People were shown on television today because of the looting, and because of the food and water shortages, they are appealing to the President, the U.S. President, to come and save them. They don't have an Iraqi reference point.
All the talk is about the Iraqis determining their own future, yet there is no Iraqi partner in this campaign, basically to address people, to handle political issues. The ambassadors of Iraq abroad, many of whom today were shown basically speaking on behalf of the Iraqi regime. Who takes a decision on the foreign diplomats that represent Iraq today? This is one question.
The other question: Did you watch the movie, "Lawrence of Arabia?" If not, do you intend to, and what do you think of it?
Wolfowitz: No, I haven't. And after that question, I think maybe I'd better not.
But, on the first part, which is -- it's a very important serious question. But let's remember, as General Pace has said a couple of times, there is still a war on; there is still even the possibility of chemical or biological weapons being used; there is still execution squads out trying to kill Americans, to kill civilians, to kill Iraqis.
This whole thing has happened with extraordinary speed, and while the questions you ask are legitimate ones, the expectation that these issues would be resolved at this point is totally unreasonable. That's point number one. In fact, I mentioned -- I made an allusion to our own history and I hope things will go fast in Iraq, but just think about how long it took the United States to get its act together after a revolution. And you can go back and read about stories of scores being settled and people driven out and so forth. There will be some messiness, no question about it. But on this issue of "an Iraqi face," which is very important, there is a dilemma here.
On the one hand, we'd like an Iraqi face. On the other hand, every time somebody thinks that somebody is the American choice to be the Iraqi face, we immediately get accused of imposing a government on Iraqis. We want the Iraqis to pick an Iraqi face, and that means we have to try to create conditions for a process in which Iraqis can begin to talk with one another in a way that, except in the north, they haven't been free for 30 years to do, to identify what the issues are, to put forward positions. And let's see what positions Iraqis generally applaud and what positions they generally boo.
Did someone get up and demonstrate that he can be an effective speaker, an effective leader, or someone get up -- else get up and try to be a leader and have everybody say yes, but I know he's a criminal who executed prisoners? Those are the kinds of things that can only happen in the course of a process. We're trying to get a process organized.
But I think, people, it will help -- that's why I sort of talk about the premise of your question -- if you who write about this situation and the people in the region and people outside calibrate their expectations to understand this is an extraordinary historical event, incredible things are happening every 24-hour period. You can't expect everything to gel and solidify in a short period of time.
Q: I'm Perez Trut with the Parasuram of India. Supposing that non-Arabs are also interested in Iraq, and one question I want to ask is different kinds of democracy. The British parliament, this is termed (inaudible) system. And I want to ask you whether Iraqi democracy will (inaudible) constitute an assembly, or go to an institutional arrangement for establishing democracy.
Wolfowitz: You know, I'm the wrong person to ask that because you'd have to ask an Iraqi, and all you'd get is the opinion of one of 20 million, which is why I talked about the need for this process. But I appreciate the question very much because I think one of the sort of myths we've been coping with for the last year or more, or even longer, I would say, is this idea that there's only one system of democracy, it's the Anglo-American system. The truth is, that's already an acknowledgement of two different systems, because we don't have the same one.
I know quite a few Asian countries that are democratic. Every one of them has a different version of democracy. If you look at the newly liberated countries of Central/Eastern Europe, you will find that almost every one of them has a different system.
This is an opportunity for the first time, with the tragic partial exception of Lebanon, for Arabs to make decisions about what kind of democracy they want -- excuse me, for Iraqis -- for Iraqis to make decisions. Some of them are Arabs, some of them are Turks, some of them are Kurds. And they may make decisions that people in another Middle Eastern country will say, well, we don't like that Turkish -- that Iraqi system, we like ours.
The essence of democracy is that people choose their system, but that they are free to choose their system; that the system respects their rights, that torture and evil practices of that kind are gone, that people have freedom and they have freedom to change and redirect their government. I think that's the heart of it.
Q: My name is Tamar Alabarazi from Alwatan Alarabi Magazine [Egypt]. Sir, when you said every country will choose its own democracy, now we see -- I mean, like what happened in Najaf yesterday, killing of al-Khoei by reported -- we don't know if we are sure -- by Hakim group, you know, the people who Ayatollah Baqir Hakim, they accuse him.
So now what we are seeing that people want maybe their democracy replacing (inaudible) Saddam now (inaudible) Hakim, so it will be another ayatollah --
Wolfowitz: That's not what democracy --
Q: No, no, but will you accept that, I mean, if they choose that?
Wolfowitz: I think that the essence of a democratic process is that people resolve issues and debates peacefully and not through the use of force and violence.
The killing of -- the murder of Ayatollah Khoei is a tragedy and all the more so because I think he was a moderate leader of enormously important standing. We still don't know the circumstances exactly or who was responsible or whether he was the main target or a regime cleric was the main target. It's a setback, there's no question. There may be other setbacks.
But I think the essence of what we hope can happen, and many people around the world have demonstrated they're capable of it, is to put behind the era when politics is decided by bullets and go to an era when politics is decided by ballots.
Q: Thank you. The question is for Dr. Wolfowitz. I'm Shafaq Mehraliyera with Azer TA News Agency. Dr. Wolfowitz, what do you see as a role for Caucasus countries, and particularly for Azerbaijan, as an active member of coalition? What are your expectations from them in Iraq's reconstruction stage?
And I know that this month Defense Minister of Azerbaijan Abiyev visiting Washington on the invitation of Secretary Rumsfeld. Is this issue going to be one of the items on the agenda of negotiation?
Wolfowitz: I know Azerbaijan is one of several Muslim majority countries that have offered to assist in what we call stability operations, the need to provide some safety and security in the post-Saddam era. And I think particularly given the possible sensitivity of issues like protecting religious sites, it will be particularly helpful to have the assistance of countries like Azerbaijan.
I think you should have the next question go to General Pace. He's getting off too easy here.
Ross: One more for General Pace and one more for Deputy Secretary Wolfowitz. Right there.
Q: Thank you. Just to follow up the previous question about the fate of President Saddam, I mean, we're not -- sorry, my name is Khaled Dawoud from Al-Ahram Newspaper, an Egyptian. My question is not just the fate about President Saddam, but we are talking about a whole government. We're talking about his deputies, ministers, everybody. Just to be able to get a whole picture, where did these all people go and did you expect that, you know, people in our part of the world -- and I'm sure Mr. Wolfowitz knows that -- are already speaking about a deal of some sort. So if you can just give us a picture.
And for Mr. Wolfowitz, for you, sir, what does it represent the fact that for the first time an Arab country is being occupied by the United States? What does that mean for you? Thank you.
Pace: From the standpoint of the leadership, and where they are right now, not only with Saddam but with the top leadership of his regime, we have tracked them very, very closely, as best we could, with various means of intelligence. They are military targets, may have been attacked militarily. It's going to take us a while to sift through all the rubble where they used to be to find out whether or not we actually killed them.
But the point of the matter is that the regime itself no longer is commanding and controlling, and that the Iraqi people are beginning to emerge as free people. And as they do, they will point out to us what has happened to the leaders whose bodies we don't have. But right now, our focus is on the military battle. The leadership is part of that military battle. When we know where they are, we target them with our weapons, and when we have the stable operations inside of which we can do so, we will determine what their fate was.
Wolfowitz: We are not occupying -- let me say very clearly -- we are not occupying an Arab country. We are removing a regime that is a threat to the United States, a threat to the world, and has clearly been a threat and an abuser -- that isn't even an adequate word -- of the Iraqi people for decades. We're not yet finished with that job. When we are finished, we'll leave as soon as we can.
And if you have any doubt about it, we liberated Kuwait and we left. We liberated Northern Iraq in early April of 1991. We left on September 1st of 1991. We will leave as soon as we can because, believe me, we don't need extra work to do. But if we leave too soon, everyone will say you left the place in chaos and created more suffering by departing too quickly. We will leave when there is a legitimate government of Iraq to hand over to.
Ross: This is the last question. It's right there.
Q: Savas Suzal from the Turkish daily VATAW Journal. Is Turkish officers in the Northern Iraq, are they the observer will be, or the liaison officer?
Pace: You may be making a distinction that's not perfectly clear to me. First of all, as you know, there have been Turkish officers with some small units in Northern Iraq for many, many years. The ones that --
Q: I am talking about Secretary Powell and the Secretary -- the Turkish Foreign Minister Gul, they reach an agreement that some kind of Turkish officer will be (inaudible) under the control of the American commander in the Northern Iraq.
Pace: I do not know what the Prime Minister -- excuse me, the Foreign Minister -- and my Secretary of State talked about. I can tell you what we know on the ground militarily, and that is that there are military officers from the Turkish armed forces who have come to locations like Kirkuk who are observing what is happening so that there is no doubt to the Turkish government that, in fact, we are all playing on a level playing field and that we are all working together, as we promised each other we would, to assure that nobody takes advantage. So whether or not you call them liaison officers or observers, I'm not sure of the distinction you're making. But what they're doing is observing what is going on, reporting back to their government, and assisting all of us in making sure that each group that has interests, has visibility on what's going on, so there are no surprises, and no one is taking advantage of a particular situation.
Wolfowitz: Thank you. General Pace will be glad to come back another time.
Pace: Thank you all.
Wolfowitz: Thank you very much. (In Arabic.) |
