Middle East Digest: March 27, 2008Bureau of Public Affairs The Middle East Digest provides text and audio from the Daily Press Briefing. For the full briefings, please visit http://www.state.gov/r/pa/prs/dpb/. From the Daily Press Briefing of March 27, 2008: View Video QUESTION: Do you have any update for us on the attacks in the Green Zone? Do you have any injury updates, any -- MR. MCCORMACK: Let me give you what I know as of now. I'll go back a few days here. And please excuse me if you've heard this from our Embassy, but this is information that we've received in from the Embassy. We've seen rocket attacks on March 23rd, March 25th, March 26th and March 27th. Rockets were fired into the International Zone and I don't have anything more than extremist criminal elements. During this period, a total of five U.S. Government employees have been injured seriously. One of those five has died from his injuries, and that was on March 24th. And beyond that, I don't have a whole lot more substantive information. I mean, I have some actual -- some times during the day, but that's really the broad outlines of it, as I have it right now. QUESTION: The one who died was one of the five who was injured? MR. MCCORMACK: Correct. QUESTION: What about anything from today's attacks? Do you have anything else? MR. MCCORMACK: I don't have anything new, new today. QUESTION: Okay. QUESTION: Do you have any breakdown of those injured? Are they Embassy personnel, are they military personnel, are they contract personnel? MR. MCCORMACK: Well, the individual who died, I think, was a contract personnel, under contract to the U.S. Army. I don't have any further breakdown. I'll try to find that for you guys. Goyal. QUESTION: A different question. Anything on the U.S. strikes in Pakistan? MR. MCCORMACK: Any -- QUESTION: Any strikes there -- some military strikes inside Pakistan. MR. MCCORMACK: I'm not sure to what you're referring. QUESTION: As far as al-Qaida and terrorism is concerned, there's some strikes have taken place. MR. MCCORMACK: I'm not in a position to confirm any such thing. Yes. QUESTION: A report released by the commander of U.S. forces in western Iraq, Major General John Kelly, released a report saying that there's unbelievable overcrowding, minimal levels of hygiene, food or water, ventilation for prisoners being held in Fallujah, Anbar and different areas in Iraq. He says that these jails should only hold about a hundred prisoners, but they’re crowding over a thousand people -- MR. MCCORMACK: Are these Iraqi jails? QUESTION: Yes, Iraqi jails. MR. MCCORMACK: Okay. QUESTION: And he says that they’re not receiving any support from the Iraqi Government or from U.S. forces in other areas. Is the U.S. -- are they planning on taking care of this situation? MR. MCCORMACK: I’m happy to ask the question. I’m not aware of these reports. I haven’t seen his comments. Happy to look into them for you. As a general statement, we would, of course, urge humane treatment according to international standards for any criminals -- prisoners that are being held by the Iraqi Government or any other -- or any other entity in Iraq. Yeah. QUESTION: Can we go back to Pakistan? Do you have any update on Boucher and the Deputy Secretary’s visit? Who are they -- who have they met with this week and what -- what do they -- MR. MCCORMACK: Well, he just gave a press conference there, as promised. You guys doubted not only me, but the Deputy Secretary that -- QUESTION: No, we weren’t doubting you. MR. MCCORMACK: -- that he would have a press conference. He did. I believe it was in Karachi. And I have not had a chance to see a transcript of the press conference, so I would refer you to the transcript of the press conference for any impressions that he might have had about his visit. I don’t have the full list of people with whom he met, but he met with political leaders, Mr. Nawaz Sharif. I know that he met with Prime Minister Gillani, met with President Musharraf. I believe he met with General Kayani. But again, I don’t have a full list. We’ll take a look and see if we can post one up for you. QUESTION: But would you say the goal of this visit is simply to get a handle on the new government and to reach out to the new government, or -- MR. MCCORMACK: At its core, yes. There is a new government in place. They just came into -- I don’t even know if they have the full cabinet in place this week. But just this week they came into being. Prime Minister Gillani was chosen -- selected and sworn in. And very basically, at its core, this was a mission to start a dialogue with this new government, to talk about what our interests happen to be, to hear from them what their plans are going forward, and certainly to talk about areas of mutual interest overlap. And fighting terrorism is one of those. QUESTION: It just seems like Pakistani newspapers and -- you know, are playing the visit as, you know, U.S. interference or that it’s come so early. And I’m just wondering if there’s any concern that this new government is going to distance itself a bit from the United States. MR. MCCORMACK: Well, you know, there’s your first mistake is actually believing what you read in newspapers. QUESTION: But sort of -- you know, it’s sentiment and opinion. So is there -- MR. MCCORMACK: I don’t -- QUESTION: Is there any concern that -- MR. MCCORMACK: Look, you know, I’m sure the Deputy Secretary took the opportunity to provide his views, his thoughts, on the trip. I haven’t had a chance to talk to him, so I don’t know what he has taken away from his meetings. So I’m not in a position, really, to try to, you know, expand on what it is that he has said. Look, I’m sure anywhere around the world you’re going to find editorials on both sides of whatever issue happens to be at hand. We are going to do what we think is right in pursuing our national interests, and also in working with this new Pakistani Government to help them in some of their stated objectives: to expand political and economic reform in that country; to fight terrorism. Those are interests that we share. We’re going to do what we can to help in those regards. Fundamentally, that is a Pakistani project and that is something that they are going to have to really shoulder the burden to try to accomplish. That doesn't mean we are not going to try to help them out. And at the same time, we are going to pursue our national interests as we form our policies and we work with that new government. QUESTION: Anything new on Libya from this morning about the substance of the talks between David Welch and his Libyan counterpart? MR. MCCORMACK: I have a couple points that folks have given me to help describe what it is that we are trying to accomplish. Let me just run through these. Libya has promised to respond to the American court cases brought against it in good faith, and we expect that Libya will honor this commitment. Libya has retained legal representatives and is fully participating -- fully -- and is participating fully in the U.S. judicial process. Recently, however, Libya has raised concerns of its own and suggested a way to expedite resolution of these cases through a comprehensive settlement agreement. The Administration is exploring this possibility with Libyan representatives to determine if it would help American victims receive fair compensation in the shortest possible time and with greater certainty. We remain committed to helping American victims of terrorism attain justice through fair compensation. So that’s the half of the issue that David Welch was dealing with in London. That’s just -- this has been provided as a brief description as to what he was trying to accomplish there. He’ll report back to the Secretary when -- I think he arrives back today, and he’ll talk to her either today or tomorrow. The second part of what we’re trying to do has been reported as well, is the letter that’s been signed by the three cabinet secretaries -- Secretaries Rice, Gutierrez and Bodman -- up to the Hill to talk -- to start a dialogue with the Congress to try to get at this issue of the Congress writing into law the provision for a waiver that would allow us to determine in our national security interest for -- that we can provide a waiver for states that are no longer designated as state sponsors of terrorism. Now, the way this is worded and the specific conditions in this case, it would only apply to Libya, although one can imagine other cases down the road in which the condition would (inaudible). That was the same case for Iraq as well, but because of the need to quickly pass a legislation that contained this provision for an Iraq waiver, we moved forward with the Congress on that. Now, we’re trying to go back and address the specific case of Libya. So we’re trying to work both halves of the issue: work with the Libyan Government on this idea of a fair, just, efficient, speedy, comprehensive settlement for victims of terrorism and their families; and working with the Congress as well so that, on the other side of the equation for the Libyan Government, there’s some certainty about this particular issue looking forward. QUESTION: Okay. QUESTION: So how recently is this? MR. MCCORMACK: The letter? QUESTION: No, how long -- how long have you been exploring this comprehensive settlement idea? MR. MCCORMACK: I don’t have the exact timeline, Matt. I think it’s been something they’ve been thinking about -- certainly, while they’ve been working on settlements in each of these -- QUESTION: Right. MR. MCCORMACK: -- in these cases for quite some time, I can’t tell you what the particular origin in time is of this idea on the Libyan side. So you’ll have to ask them about what their thinking was. But it’s something that, in the interest of getting some compensation and justice for these American citizens, we thought it worthwhile exploring with them. QUESTION: Who did he meet with? MR. MCCORMACK: I don’t know exactly with whom he met. We can try to find that out for you. (Inaudible) MR. MCCORMACK: Yeah. Nina. QUESTION: Anything new on this congressional delegation to Iraq a few years ago? Any more information? MR. MCCORMACK: Right. Well, I did look into this, and we don’t -- I guess I don’t have, like a complete answer. What folks have told me is that certain activities with a country under U.S. sanctions, and at the time Iraq was under U.S. sanctions, that certain activities might have required a license from the Office of Foreign Asset Control at the Department of Treasury -- Treasury. Typically, OFAC asks the State Department for foreign policy guidance before issuing such a license. We are looking into whether the State Department played any role whatsoever in this trip. So it require -- you know, faces, names and faces have changed since then, so we have to go back and take a look in the archives. But if we’re able to dig up anything that provides a more definitive or clearer answer for your question, then we’ll provide that. QUESTION: Can you take it as a taken question? MR. MCCORMACK: Yeah, we will. And since it requires people looking back through the records, it might take a little bit of time. But we’ll provide an answer for you. QUESTION: Thank you. MR. MCCORMACK: Yeah. Farah. QUESTION: The person who was indicted in this issue -- Al-Hanooti I think is his name -- is the registered lobbyist for Iraqi Vice President Tariq al-Hashemi. Does the indictment prevent him then from speaking on behalf of the Sunni party? MR. MCCORMACK: I’m not going to have any comment on any individual that’s under indictment. QUESTION: But you don’t know whether it prevents him legally from representing -- MR. MCCORMACK: You can talk to the Justice Department about those questions. Yeah. QUESTION: Since the Secretary is going tomorrow to Israel, what about Prime Minister Olmert’s vow to continue the settlement-building process? MR. MCCORMACK: You know our views on this matter. The President has spoken to it. The Secretary has spoken to it. We expect that both sides would comply with their Roadmap obligations. And there are obviously provisions within the Roadmap concerning settlements and outposts, and we would expect that both sides -- Israel and the Palestinians -- comply with those obligations. You recently heard from us that we didn’t think either side was doing enough to comply with the Roadmap obligations. So I expect that during this trip, the Secretary will talk not only about the political process with both sides and how that is proceeding, what we can do to help them move it forward, but also talk about the importance of moving forward with compliance on the Roadmap obligations. QUESTION: Thank you, Sean. Yeah, Farah. QUESTION: Just on Guantanamo. It seems like the State Department has been given the tough responsibility of persuading countries to accept the cleared Gitmo detainees that can’t go home, like the Uighurs, and there are others. And I’m just wondering how – is this effort stalled or – you know, can you give us a sense of how many – you may not be able to answer this now, but how many countries have been approached and how recently, because there are some who feel like this effort is stalled. MR. MCCORMACK: Right. Let me – I don’t have the figures in front of me. And off the top of my head, I can’t offer anything authoritative. Let me do this, let me talk to the people who are involved in this effort, Clint Williamson and others, to see if they might talk to you about where we stand, because there – I know generally speaking and you can also get this from DOD -- there has been progress in reaching agreement with countries to have detainees that were held at Guantanamo transferred. Now, I know you’re asking a separate question about those who - QUESTION: The Uighurs and the -- MR. MCCORMACK: Right, exactly. QUESTION: Right. MR. MCCORMACK: But it’s -- I think it’s worthwhile probably talking about the entire situation and the efforts there and some other qualitative changes that have taken place in terms of the numbers and people overseas because, look, we have no desire to be the world’s jailor as you know and we look forward to the day Guantanamo is shut down. And part of that solution is working with other countries to take people back under the right circumstances. So let me see if we can arrange something for you in that regard. QUESTION: I appreciate that. MR. MCCORMACK: Yeah. Yes, ma'am. QUESTION: Your comments on President Bush’s speech in Ohio today, regarding the recent violence in Southern Iraq. MR. MCCORMACK: I thought it was a great speech. (Laughter.) QUESTION: Well, it’s mainly in regard to the surge contributing to stabilization in Iraq and helping with the reconstruction efforts. But two weeks ago, the commissioner of the CPI in Iraq, Judge Radhi Hamza confirmed that there is no reconstruction effort. It’s been completely devastated because of the level of corruption and money embezzlement and a list of other things in his testimony here. He’s -- MR. MCCORMACK: I haven’t seen the testimony, but I think – look, you know, I’ve been on the ground in Iraq myself and I’ve seen evidence of reconstruction and the aid money put to good use in Iraq. So I’m not sure exactly to what he is referring without having had a chance to look at it, but I can assure you that taxpayers’ dollars are being put to good use in Iraq. In those circumstances where there have been problems, where there has – if there have been problems of corruption or mismanagement, we are committed to seeing that those are rooted out and that anybody who is responsible for those who have broken rules or laws or regulations are held to account. QUESTION: Okay. I have one last question regarding that same speech. He mentioned that a lot of the militias fighting, U.S. forces and Iraqi forces, are funded by the Iranians. Do you guys have any evidence for that claim or is -- MR. MCCORMACK: Yeah. We do. I’m certainly not in a position from up here to detail that for you, but you know, our commander -- you’ve heard recently from General Petraeus reaffirming the fact that Iran continues to fund some of the militias at a relatively steady rate. So you know, MNFI and others are probably in a better position than I am to detail that evidence. But I can tell you from what I have heard that people are quite certain of what they have seen. QUESTION: Thank you. |
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