[Weekly Compilation of Presidential Documents Volume 34, Number 8 (Monday, February 23, 1998)]
[Pages 299-300]
[Online from the Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]

<R04>
Videotaped Remarks on Expansion of United Nations Security Council 
Resolution 986

February 20, 1998

    No people have suffered more at the hands of Saddam Hussein than the 
Iraqi people themselves. I have been very moved, as so many others 
around the world have been, by their plight. Because of Saddam Hussein's 
failure to comply with U.N. resolutions, the sanctions imposed by the 
U.N. at the end of the Gulf war to stop him from rebuilding his military 
might are still in place.
    As a result, the people of Iraq have suffered. They are the victims 
of Saddam's refusal to comply with the resolutions he promised to honor. 
The United States strongly supports the U.N. Secretary General's 
recommendation to more than double the amount of oil Iraq can sell in 
exchange for food, medicine, and other humanitarian supplies. We will 
work hard to make sure those funds are used to help the ordinary people 
of Iraq.
    Since the Gulf war, our policy has been aimed at preventing Saddam 
from threatening his region or the world. We have no quarrel with the 
Iraqi people who are heirs to a proud civilization and who have suffered 
for so many years under Saddam's rule.
    From the beginning, the international sanctions that are aimed at 
denying Saddam Hussein the funds to rebuild his military machine have 
permitted food and medicine into Iraq. The United States has led the way 
in trying to make sure Iraq had the resources to pay for them. In 1991, 
with out leadership, the U.N. Security Council encouraged Iraq to sell 
oil to pay for these critical humanitarian supplies. Saddam Hussein 
rejected that offer for 4 years, choosing instead to let his people 
suffer. What resources he had went not to caring for his people but to 
strengthening his army, hiding his weapons of mass destruction, and 
building lavish palaces for his regime.

[[Page 300]]

    In 1995 America led a new effort to aid the Iraqi people. After 
refusing the proposal for a year, Saddam finally accepted U.N. Security 
Council Resolution 986, which permits the sale of oil for food. Then he 
engaged in delay and bureaucratic wrangling for yet another year before 
allowing the resolution to take effect.
    Perhaps worst of all, Saddam deliberately and repeatedly delayed the 
pumping of oil, which held up shipments of food and medicine to the 
Iraqi population. Even so, the international community has managed to 
deliver to the Iraqi people more than 3 million tons of food.
    Just as Saddam deprives his people of relief from abroad, he 
represses them at home, brutally putting down the uprisings of the Iraqi 
people after the Gulf war, attacking Irbil in 1996, and draining the 
marshes of Southern Iraq.
    Saddam's priorities are painfully clear: not caring for his citizens 
but building weapons of mass destruction and using them--using them not 
once but repeatedly in the terrible war Iraq fought with Iran, and not 
only against combatants but against civilians, and not only against a 
foreign adversary but against his own people. And he's targeted Scud 
missiles against fellow Arabs and Muslims in Iran, Saudi Arabia, and 
Bahrain.
    Now, he is trying to rid Iraq of the international inspectors who 
have done such a remarkable job in finding and destroying his hidden 
weapons--weapons he himself promised in 1991 to report and help destroy. 
If Saddam is allowed to rebuild his arsenal unchecked, none of the 
region's children will be safe.
    America is working very hard to find a diplomatic solution to this 
crisis Saddam has created. I have sent my Secretary of State, my Defense 
Secretary, and my Ambassador to the United Nations literally around the 
world to work with our friends and allies. If there is a way to resolve 
this peacefully, we will pursue it to the very end.
    But from Europe to the Persian Gulf, all agree on the bottom line: 
Saddam must allow the U.N. weapons inspectors to complete their mission 
with full and free access to any site they suspect may be hiding 
material or information related to Iraqi weapons of mass destruction 
programs. That is what Saddam agreed to as a condition for ending the 
Gulf war way back in 1991.
    Nobody wants to use force. But if Saddam refuses to keep his 
commitments to the international community, we must be prepared to deal 
directly with the threat these weapons pose to the Iraqi people, to 
Iraq's neighbors, and to the rest of the world. Either Saddam acts, or 
we will have to.
    Saddam himself understands that the international community places a 
higher value on the lives of the Iraqi people than he does. That is why 
he uses innocent women and children as human shields, risking what we 
care about--human lives--to protect what he cares about--his weapons. If 
force proves necessary to resolve this crisis, we will do everything we 
can to prevent innocent people from getting hurt. But make no mistake: 
Saddam Hussein must bear full responsibility for every casualty that 
results.
    To all our Arab and Muslim friends, let me say America wants to see 
a future of security, prosperity, and peace for all the people of the 
Middle East. We want to see the Iraqi people free of the constant 
warfare and repression that have been the hallmark of Saddam's regime. 
We want to see them living in a nation that uses its wealth not to 
strengthen its arsenal but to care for its citizens and give its 
children a brighter future. That is what we'll keep working for and what 
the people of Iraq deserve.

Note: These remarks were videotaped at approximately 4 p.m. in the 
Cabinet Room at the White House for later broadcast, and they were 
released by the Office of the Press Secretary on February 20.