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STATE DEPARTMENT BRIEFING ON IRAQ
(October 6, 2000)

THE FOLLOWING IS AN EDITED TRANSCRIPT OF A BACKGROUND BRIEFING ON IRAQ GIVEN BY SENIOR STATE DEPARTMENT OFFICIALS ON SEPTEMBER 14, 2000 (This briefing was held in New York following a meeting between the U.S. Secretary Of State, Madelene Allbright and delegation of the INC that was meeting with UN representative missions).

Senior State Department Official: Good evening, ladies and gentlemen. Welcome I would like to introduce Senior Official Number Two. He's going to give us a rundown of the meeting the Secretary just had with the Iraqi National Congress, and then after that I'll give you a little bit of update on the Middle East peace process and we'll talk about planning.

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Let me start off, first, with who these Iraqis were and what they're doing in New York. The eight who have just arrived are the first team of a rotating delegation of free Iraqis who will be in New York over the next month or so. Their purpose is to advocate the interests of the Iraqi people and to disseminate the truth about Iraq as Iraqis experience it. The delegation is sponsored by the Iraqi National Congress, but it includes independents and members of other groups not formally under the INC umbrella. The delegation today did not include members of the INC Leadership Committee, for example, though some of those leaders of that organization may turn up to help with this mission in the coming weeks.

The eight Iraqis in this first team are quite representative of the ethnic and sectarian diversity of Iraq itself. They include Arabs and Kurds, a Turkoman and an Assyrian, from all parts of Iraq. They also include Sunni and Shiite Muslims and a Christian, Islamists, secularists, civilian and the military. [& ]

Most of these visitors in today's group are in the Iraqi National Congress or otherwise support it from outside. One member who was from outside the Iraqi National Congress who is here today is Dr Hamid Al-Bayati, who is the representative in London of what is called the Supreme Council of the Islamic Revolution in Iraq, also known as SCIRI by its acronym.

Q He was here?

SECOND SENIOR STATE DEPARTMENT OFFICIAL: Yes, he was here. He joined the group. What did we discuss? The secretary's statement, which I think you all have, lays out the main points. Besides those, on our side, the Secretary reassured these representatives of the Iraqi people that US interests in Iraq are durable and will persist well into a successor [& ] administration. She made clear that these interests include supporting the Iraqi people's aspirations for a change to a new government. Americans think that Iraqis deserve what they say they want: new leaders who will move Iraq toward democracy and the rule of law and who will restore their country to them. In fact, I believe the Secretary's exact words on this point about containment and regime change were . it's not enough just to contain Saddam Hussein with the Iraqi people stuck in the same cage with him; Saddam has got to go. . The Iraqis presented very thoughtful ideas - very articulately and very passionately-and I know they will be glad to present them publicly to any of you who are interested for themselves, and in great detail. And you can debate them with them. They are difficult in some cases. They are not easy. They were kind enough to invite the Secretary to Baghdad once it's free.

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Q First just a small question. You're damned if the answer is yes, damned if it's no, but do these people come from Iraq or are they living in Paris and London, Vienna and other wonderful places?

SECOND SENIOR STATE DEPARTMENT OFFICIAL: Some come from Iraq.

Q All right. So if they come from Iraq ---

SECOND SENIOR STATE DEPARTMENT OFFICIAL: One Came from Erbil in the past couple of days.

Q All right. If they come . do you see what I mean? You can't win this one.

SECOND SENIOR STATE DEPARTMENT OFFICIAL: Sure I can.

Q If they come from spas, then I got a question how in touch they are and how serious they are. If they come from Iraq, I got a question how repressive the regime is if people can come back and forth and plot the overthrow of Saddam Hussein.

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SECOND SENIOR STATE DEPARTMENT OFFICIAL: These people should not be mocked.

Q I'm not mocking them. I said if they're ex-patriots living well ---

SECOND SENIOR STATE DEPARTMENT OFFICIAL: They're not.

Q I got to wonder if they're in touch. If they're in the country and they can get in and out, then I got to wonder how repressive is Saddam Hussein.

SECOND SENIOR STATE DEPARTMENT OFFICIAL: Let me tell you the story of one of them, and you can talk with him if you can get an interpreter.

SECOND SENIOR STATE DEPARTMENT OFFICIAL: But I'll mention one, and he is cited in the Secretary's press statement. One is a general who left Iraq under duress a couple of years ago and has been living in a neighboring Arab country as a refugee, not a spa.

SENIOR STATE DEPARTMENT OFFICIAL: He has been writing about the causes of the Iraqi people's suffering. He wrote a book about the uprising in 1991. For this he's been getting threatening phone calls.

In June, he got a message in this Middle Eastern city he was living in . from which he has now been ejected, so he's twice a refugee . and the phone call said, come on down to the bus station, there's a package for you, there's a gift for you from Iraq. He got the gift, brought it home, went to show it . he sat down in his living room with his wife and his kid to watch it and realized something was wrong. This was not a family home video. He sent his wife and kid to bed and then he saw what it was. It was from the Iraqi intelligence service and it was a video of a female relative being raped. I listened to the . we know it was that because I also listened to the telephone conversation from the Iraqi intelligence officer telling him, we have this little gift for you. And if you don't desist, there will be more of that. So this is the kind of person we have . high caliber, serious people, in touch with what's going on inside and who pay a price for it.

Q But some have managed to . despite it all . to come here and they'll go home, right?

SECOND SENIOR STATE DEPARTMENT OFFICIAL: Some are established outside Iraq, yes. There is at least one American citizen among them who is established in this country for many years. I don't think he'll ever go back to Iraq. He is part of an Iraq . a sort of free Iraq lobby that is starting to take some root around the world. There are some people like that. You're absolutely right.

Q Can you be a little more specific from the Secretary's statement on what the proposed ways to ease Iraqi suffering? And then the second part, how much of the money that Congress allotted to you, or to your office, has actually been now distributed?

SECOND SENIOR STATE DEPARTMENT OFFICIAL: Okay, we discussed with them how go about developing greater world support for a tribunal or investigation for war crimes and crimes against humanity. We recognize some of the practical difficulties in doing that. What I would like to do is refer you to Ambassador David Scheffer, who is the czar of war crimes tribunals and crimes against humanity. He will speaking at the National Press Club on Monday in Washington. And he can go into great detail . he will go into great detail on our strategy and what we hope to do and how to do it. From the side of the Iraqi visitors, they simply urged more activity from the United States and they said they would be urging more activity from other countries here at the United Nations.

Q Wait, hold on. More activity . what does that mean? Collecting and compiling evidence?

SECOND SENIOR STATE DEPARTMENT OFFICIAL: Getting more diplomatic support in this case was most of the topic today. There is work along those lines that the Iraqi opposition is doing and that the United States Government is supporting other NGOs in doing. That's going on. You can check some websites, in fact, that have some of these Iraqi intelligence documents on torture.

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On sanctions, they have a specific proposal on that, about keeping Oil-for-Food, strengthening it, protecting the portion allocated to the north, where it's working very well since it's out of Saddam Hussein's control, and getting more international oversight to prevent Saddam Hussein from abusing it for his ends.

On the amount of money to the opposition. Let me clear one misconception that people persistently have. The Iraq Liberation Act does not provide money. There is no appropriation under the Iraq Liberation Act. The Iraq Liberation Act provides this famous figure that everyone has - $97 million worth . or the authority to the President to draw down $97 million worth of goods and services from the Defense Department in support of the Iraqi opposition.

We have begun the pipeline of trainees against that $97 million worth of authority. You would have to check with the Pentagon to get the latest and most precise figure, but in ballpark terms we've got the pipeline rolling with something under 200 training candidates named to us, and most . if not all of them . slotted into courses from now through the coming year. Of those, over 40 have either begun or completed their training. So that's underway. I couldn't put a dollar value on it.

Q What are they training to do?

SECOND SENIOR STATE DEPARTMENT OFFICIAL: It's being offered by the Department of Defense. The course subject matter are things like logistics, medicine, non-lethal sorts of stuff. Not combat arms.

Q Why . Why not lethal?

SECOND SENIRO STATE DEPARTMENT OFFICIAL: Let me finish this and I'll get to that. War crimes investigations. They're taking JAG courses, judge advocate general courses, laws of war, so that they, too, will learn to respect laws of war in their fighting. And they're coming to know American military officers in the process. So we're developing a relationship with these Iraqis, who include Kurds and others, much as we develop relations with Arab military officers who come to the United States for training in the same sorts of courses.

There is money, however, that is being spent to support the Iraqi opposition outside the Iraq Liberation Act. There are congressional earmarks. I can go into tedious detail for you or I can give you a fact sheet when we get back to Washington.

Let me, in nutshell, tell you that we have provided the first direct funding to the Iraqi National Congress, $268,000, to get them up and running administratively, do information programs, advocacy programs. And to develop a solid proposal for their next grant, we are working hard with the Iraqi National Congress now to conclude an $8 million grant agreement we hope to have in the coming weeks.

In general terms, and they will announce and we will announce what that's all about. In general terms that's to support administration, information efforts . two . way information. I'm not talking about propaganda. I'm talking about getting information out of the country: video, tapes, documents, reporting, humanitarian relief inside Iraq and to Iraqis on the periphery and so forth. So the money is flowing now and it just takes a while to get it started. Did that answer all your questions?

Q Can I just follow up? It seems that if you wanted to roll back Saddam Hussein's regime you would need to give them like surface to air missiles and other kinds of military training? What's been the holdup on that? I mean, why . why has . I mean, how . if you're supporting this group, why are you not giving them the kind of guns and military support that I believe that they've said that they need all along?

SECOND SENIOR STATE DEPARTMENT OFFICIAL: Our policy is not to rule out where we might get in the future but, for the moment, not to supply weapons, lethal aid.

Q Why?

SECOND SENIOR STATE DEPARTMENT OFFICIAL: Several reasons, the main one of which is they're not there yet. We're not interested in getting Iraqis killed needlessly, pointlessly, helping more blood flow among Iraqis. We want to see this organization grow and develop, be seamlessly linked between the forces inside that are dying and suffering and shedding their blood daily and those outside who can speak freely and who can meet freely. That organizational nexus has to grow and develop. And it's starting. It's hard to do. You have to overcome exile politics and the difficulties of communication, but they're getting there.

Q When you said they're not there yet ---

SENIOR STATE DEPARTMENT OFFICIAL: Let me add one pint on that. The subject of military assistance didn't arise from either side at the meeting.

SECONDE SENIOR STATE DEPARTMENT OFFICIAL: Exactly right. They didn't ask. They're not asking for any.

SENIOR STATE DEPARTMENT OFFICIAL: They didn't ask, and we didn't make any special .

Q At that meeting they weren't asking, but I think .

SECOND SENIOR STATE DEPARTMENT OFFICIAL: No. You can go back a year ago when they came to New York and had their General Assembly, they made very clear afterwards, we are not at this time asking for lethal aid from the United States. That may be part of the long-term plan for some of them.

Q On the tribunal, I seem to recall that another senior official remarkably like you told us . gave us a time frame for setting this up. And it was a matter of months. And that was several months ago. Is this something that's imminent? [& ] Are you preparing some resolution? Or am I mistaking you for ---

SECOND SENIOR STATE DEPARTMENT OFFICIAL: I think you're mistaking me for Mr. Scheffer. Don't recall any senior official of the United States Government predicting a time line. Again, David Scheffer is speaking on the record on Monday and can give an idea .

Q Let me put it this way. Are you getting closer towards preparing a tribunal or an indictment?

SECOND SENIOR STATE DEPARTENT OFFICIAL: Let me put it this way. There are different dimensions to this. On the dimension of collecting evidence, translating it, analyzing, protecting it and seeking national cooperation, as opposed to multilateral United Nations cooperation, there has been progress. Some of that you can see on the websites of various of these Iraqi organizations.

The Iraq Foundation website, for example, has some of these documents. And if they don't already have it . it depends on them fixing software glitches . they ought to have, I think, 400 original Iraqi documents in Arabic captured from the intelligence services which are intended to be used as evidence. Those have been translated into English and will be available for scholars. There has been a lot of hard, slogging, quiet work accomplished in this period. There is some work with other foreign prosecutors as well that they will not publicize, and rightly so.

Q But it would be UN . attached or UN . linked?

SECOND SENIOR STATE DEPARTMENT OFFICIAL: As David Scheffer, I think, will explain, we are working on a couple of different tracks at the same time. There is the multilateral UN sort of track, which is hard slogging, and then there is some individual work with other countries where there are Iraqis and where prosecutors are interested in following this up. But I don't think we're going to name those countries.

Q What were the historical ideas that you said were present?

SECOND SENIOR STATE DEPARTMENT OFFICIAL: On sanctions, how to make them work better.

Q You said that they presented a lot of thoughtful ideas, presumably about regime change and what they would like to see go forward.

SECOND SENIOR STATE DEPARTMENT OFFICIAL: Yes. In those three major areas, I guess I would say. On sanctions . on how to make Oil for Food work for the Iraqi people even better than it is now --

Q No, I understand those topics. I want to know what the ideas were, what they suggest.

SECOND SENIOR STATE DEPARTMENT OFFICIAL: It wouldn't be fair to me to present them to you in detail. They can. In general terms, on Oil for Food they were pushing the idea of an international body that would direct the use of this multi billion . I think it's $8 or $9 billion escrow fund and get that out of the control of Saddam Hussein's government . It isn't under the direct control; it's a UN escrow account, but Saddam's government chooses who gets the contracts and thereby buys a certain amount of influence. That's one thing.

On the tribunals, we talked about how to approach tribunals and investigations. On humanitarian relief, they are pushing for humanitarian relief to the Iraqi people beyond UN programs. And, again, they can tell you about that.

Q Very quickly, you mentioned this website. Is this the kind of thing that's being supported by the US in terms of .

SECOND STATE DEPARTMENT OFFICIAL: It is the kind of thing that is being supported by the United States. Again, we can give you a cheat sheet on the various grants we are giving out under different earmarks for economic support funds over the past couple fiscal years. We are working with a number of international non-governmental organizations, the Iraq Foundation, the Human Rights Association, which will be here in New York in ten days holding a conference, the Middle East Institute, others. They have websites. They're getting this information out. The Iraqi National Congress has a grant form us. They have a website. They're getting this information out.

Q Why is it so difficult to get a tribunal for this? I mean, during the war in Kosovo there was like a lickety . split indictment of Milosevic. You said you have 400 original documents here. You've got eyewitnesses.

SECOND SENIOR STATE DEPARTMENT OFFICIAL: Sure. It's a great question, I don't know. I mean, it's probably a long answer. Scholars ought to study it. But it's something for David Scheffer.

Q Put it on television

Q It's not visible.

SECOND SENIOR STATE DEPARTMENT OFFICIAL: You've got a great correspondent in Baghdad. She's not allowed to go and see the bombed out villages. We can show . on our website you can look and see a village that existed one day in June last year, and in July there was shrubbery there, and in September, the shrubbery was gone. You can see it in our satellite photographs. But you can't see that on the ground there. We have another set of satellite photographs .

Q What does that indicate with the shrubbery being gone?

SECOND SENIOR STATE DEPARMENT OFFICIAL: That there isn't a trace of human existence there any more. It's flattened so completely that there isn't even that .

Q Why?

SECOND SENIOR STATE DEPARMENT OFFICIAL: Because it was a village that had risen up against Saddam Hussein.

Q And this is recently?

SECOND SENIOR STATE DEPARTMENT OFFICIAL: Yes, it was a year ago. And there is another one from . there is another one we just put out, in fact, in a whole different village where you see . I forget the dates, I'm sorry . I think it was April . where the village exists one time. We checked some reporting from the Iraqi opposition that there was trouble there, that they had protested or risen up or rioted, and Saddam had gone in and obliterated it. We checked and . what do you know . the Iraqi opposition wasn't just passing rumors. You look at the satellite photos and you see there are no roofs there any more and the walls are down.

Q Have you released these photos?

SECOND SENIOR STATE DEPARTMENT OFFICIAL: Yes.

Q To us?

SEOND SENIOR STATE DEPARTMENT OFFICIAL: Yes, they're on the State website.

SEOND SENIOR STATE DEPARTMENT OFFICIAL: I think David Scheffer will have them at the Press Club on Monday, too.

Q What the INC is doing, what it wants to do and what you're doing with them does not seem at all commensurate with the severity of what you say exists in Iraq. It seems like there is this great imbalance. I mean, how are you going to combat these things with a group that's not armed and there's tons of in-fighting and it's going at a snail's space, seemingly? And then you cite all these brash and extreme examples that I don't doubt you on, but id doesn't seem like there is any commensurate force to stop that, at least in this sort of forum.

[..]

SENIOR STATE DEPARTMENT OFFICIAL: This is not the sole aspect of our policy. The Secretary made quite clear today . she made quite clear to them . she said our policy remains the same . containment and regime change. Iraq is subject to a whole series of international sanctions, no-fly zones, careful controls on purchases and things like that, which are all designed to at least reduce Saddam's ability to do these sorts of things. So this is . whatever he is able to do is done within the serious confinement that exists not only so that he doesn't threaten his neighbors but also that he doesn't threaten his own people.

Q I know there is probably a conviction that nobody could be worse than Saddam Hussein, but are you convinced that these people have democracy in mind or are they just- or are they mostly-opponents of Saddam Hussein, some democratic and maybe some not? Some of us remember the Afghan freedom fighters, and some of us were suspicious even then. But it was anti-Soviet so anything you did was fine in those days. I mean I don't know that you can put a litmus test on it, but do you think we have liberal democrats here?

SECOND SENIOR STATE DEPARTMENT OFFICIAL: I think we have liberal democrats here, yes, who speak from conviction. But I think your question really is what are the prospects for democracy really in Iraq?

Q Would these people, should they succeed ---

SECOND SENIOR STATE DEPARTMENT OFFICIAL: Sure. Let me make clear . we've said this before . we're not dealing with the Iraqi National Congress or those who work with them as necessarily the next government of Iraq. We know the next government of Iraq is going to come from inside. We know it's going to be . and we have to presume it's going to be a very difficult situation for that government, wherever it's going to be.

But we've made clear through the Iraq Liberation Act and all our policy statements, and the direction that we'd like to see the future government of Iraq go if it is to have international support, and especially American support. We speak with a lot of Iraqis. Many of them don't know what democracy really means. They've heard about it. They've never experienced it if they are fresh from inside Iraq. There are other Iraqis in their Diaspora who know what democracy means, really believe in it, believe their countrymen can develop it, can get there eventually, and be held up as an objective. And there is nothing wrong with that. It will be hard to get there. We're not dreamy idealists. It won't be easy. But if you don't state it as an objective and support it as an objective, you won't get it.

Q Could I ask you one other thing? I know you used . humanitarian. and you used it in a real sense, like decimating villages. But, again, I have a little bit of a problem. Albright speaks of there's enough food, the caloric intake is . by letting Iraq sell all the oil it can pump, there is no reason anybody should go hungry, in fact, children are better off than they were at the time of the Persian Gulf War. I guess that can co-exit with killing people and blowing up villages, but I can't get a fix on what the US appraisal is of the humanitarian situation in Iraq. Well fed but repressed? Not well fed? Opposition villages are certainly not well fed?

SECOND SENIOR STATE DEPARTMENT OFFICIAL: Here is where we see exactly eye to eye with the Iraqi opposition people we speak with. Humanitarian relief, in our view, is not just food and medicine. People should live free. They deserve to be able to run their own affairs. They deserve to be treated with dignity by their own government, for heaven's sake.

We believe that just feeding them and letting them have medicine is not nearly enough. When the Iraqi opposition tells us we're not animals who just need food and medicine, we're people who need freedom, we salute that. We support that and that's what we want to see as relief. That kind of relief we think can only come with a change of regime.

SENIOR STATE DEPARTMENT OFFICIAL: Let me say one other thing on our question, that what the Secretary pointed out this afternoon is that in the north where the government does not impede the Oil . for- Food program that there is relative success. As a matter of fact, that's what these guys said. It's relative success in the north and that people are living better, and that's what the Secretary said this afternoon.

The problem is in the parts of Iraq where Saddam is able to control what's purchased and distributed, where there is suffering. And we have every sympathy with the suffering of the Iraqi people in that situation, both on the freedom side but also on the food and productivity side. The problem is when people sit down and start to address the issue, well, how do you relieve that suffering of the Iraqi people, frankly, it's not by easing sanctions. And that's what these people said today. Easing sanctions would be, in fact, counter-productive. If they're actually trying to take care of the Iraqi people, the only way to do it is to prevent Saddam from impeding the money from going to what the Iraqi people need.

Q So they say no easing sanctions, they say?

SENIOR STATE DEPARTMENT OFFICIAL: That's what they say, very clearly, Make them tighter.

Q I just have what is probably a very silly question, but if you're saying that the Iraqi National Congress is probably not going to be the next government of Iraq, and we're not arming the Iraqi National Congress or members of them to overthrow Saddam Hussein, what is the purpose of supporting them?

SECOND SENIOR STATE DEPARTMENT OFFICIAL: And maybe this also gets to your question in the back: Why are we doing it, what's the strategy? We want to encourage the forces of change in Iraq to know that there is a tomorrow after Saddam Hussein. There are even some Iraqis who think that after Saddam, the deluge. You know, those who are in positions of privilege feel that after he goes, they all go. The Iraqi National Congress could well play a role in the future of Iraq. Who knows? They do have representation inside. We don't treat the INC as an exile political group. Some of them . those you can talk to and I can talk to you . live in freedom, they can meet with each other, they can talk to you, they can talk to me. But they do have people inside as well, who can get information out to us, who can hear information from the outside world.

They may well play a role in a future government. We believe they can play an important role in promoting the transition itself, moving it forward, making it turn out right. We think they can do that by serving as a voice for the Iraqi people, telling people at the United Nations what it's really like, what the Iraqis really want, on the one hand, and then telling the Iraqi people inside . whether in the military or elsewhere . there is support for change. The world is not propping up Saddam Hussein. When Saddam Hussein goes, the United States and other countries will be there to try to help, provided you're not another Saddam Hussein, provided you want to move the country toward peace with its neighbors, towards respect for its own citizens, and at least toward . they use the word democracy. Why not? It might be a stretch, but that's the word they use.

So to have Iraqis saying those kinds of things presents a very positive vision for the future. We think it will encourage people on the inside. And someone has got to present that kind of vision. Somebody has got to work to make it happen. They hold it out. They're working hard. None of them are getting rich. Some of them are sacrificing their personal fortunes. A lot of them are getting threatening phone calls for doing this kind of work and worse, as I just mentioned that one case. They're well worth supporting.

Q Why does that same logic not apply to a place like Serbia where we have made no secret of the fact that we want to get rid of Slobodan Milosevic? We're supporting the opposition on the inside. Why are we not doing something similar outside?

SENIOR STATE DEPARTMENT OFFICIAL: I mean, you deal with the situation where you are. Some of the things that are lacking in Serbia, like information, are also lacking in Iraq. Some of the additional things that are lacking in Iraq like .

Q Elections.

SECOND SENIOR STATE DEPARTMENT OFFICIAL: Elections, they're available in Serbia. So, you know, you use the tools that are available.

Q Well, but you got a shot.

SECOND SENIOR STATE DEPARTMENT OFFICIAL: No, but is provides an opportunity for the opposition to turn out and to show how much real opposition there is to Milosevic. So, you know, you use the tools that are available and you make up ones of your own.

Q Did any of the people that came from Iraq say whether they thought Saddam was stronger or weaker than .

SECOND SENIOR STATE DEPARTMENT OFFICIAL: Especially the people who live under his shadow worry all the time. You know, it's like being a canary in a cage next to a cat all the time. They're just jittery. They're always worried about him being stronger or what he's going to do when. But, no, they did not offer an assessment today of whether he's stronger or weaker or so forth.

Q That ILA was passed when,' 98?

SECOND SENIOR STATE DEPARTMENT OFFICIAL: October 31 st., 1998.

Q Last time when the members of the National Congress were here and talked to Gore up in the State Department --- SECOND SENIOR STATE DEPARTMENT OFFICIAL: Right

Q And at least one of them marched right over to Capitol Hill and testified with Richard Pearl . Do you remember that testimony .

SECOND SENIOR STATE DEPARTMENT OFFICIAL: Vividly. June 28th.

Q I don't think it's credible to say that they aren't asking for weapons. Maybe not as a group. But there's obviously a lot of divisiveness within the group because they said . this guy sat up there and said, I can't believe they're not giving us weapons. They're not helping us at all. This is ridiculous just giving us . you know, teaching us how to use fax machines. I mean, you heard all that. Some of them obviously want weapon.

SENIOR STATE DEPARTMENT OFFICIAL: That's true. All we said was it . it didn't come up today.

SECOND SENIOR STATE DEPARTMENT OFFICIAL: It didn't come up today, and they did not ask for weapons when they saw the Vice President. And in their public statements elsewhere they have said, . We're not now asking for weapons. .

[& ]

SECOND SENIOR STATE DEPARTMENT OFFICIAL: Dr. Ahmed Shalabi [sic] wouldn't . has not now said that he wants us to deliver weapons. We're working with him on a methodical road map to strengthen his organization inside Iraq, outside Iraq and get them to a point where they can do more. Fore now we're starting with humanitarian relief, information work . two ways, each way . and just institution building, organization building.

Q back to regime change, though, how do you . I mean what's the plan for regime change? Do you really think that web sites and grants and these sorts of things are going to lead to regime change? Or do you have something else that you're thinking?

SECOND SENIOR STATE DEPARTMENT OFFICIAL: The change has got to come from inside. There's any number of scenarios that I hear talked about at conferences among scholars, Iraqis and outside. This isn't one of those seminars. I don't want to get into it.

Q When you say inside, do you mean within Saddam's Imperial Guard? Within, you know, the Ba'ath Party there?

SECOND SENIOR STATE DEPARTMENT OFFICIAL: Those are some of the scenarios I've heard. Sure. Could do. But we think this kind of work helps prepare the battlefield.

Q I'm sure again you can't name names. But is this a solo US operation? Or are there Arab countries, for instance, who not only approve of what you're doing . and they don't usually approve of intervention . even against a Saddam Hussein . and they have to be rallied, as James Baker did. Is this a solo US operation? Or is there some participation, or at least rooting interest among Arabs?

SECOND SENIOR STATE DEPARTMENT OFFICIAL: The overt work that we do in support of the Iraqi opposition, the United States stands alone on. We are the only ones who overtly say that the people of Iraq deserve the government they want to have. As far as I know, no other government has come out and said that, nor has any other government overtly.

Q Not Britain . the British, no?

SECOND SENIOR STATE DAPRATMENT OFFICIAL: They have said things like that. But in terms of direct overt support for the Iraqi opposition, as a matter of policy, no. I mean, they allow Iraqis to live there as refugees and live in freedom. That's meaningful support. But in terms of supporting their program, they have not appropriated money, for example, or have been training as we're doing. Q Okay. And can you tell us how the plans for radio transmissions are going? Have they started there and that's going?

SECOND SENIOR STATE DEPARTMENT OFFICIAL: Yes. I'm sorry. When I mentioned that they want to do information work as part of this $8 million program, they want to do television broadcasting via satellite, as well as radio broadcasting, as well as webcasting.

Q As part of the $8 million?

SECOND SENIOR STATE DEPARTMENT OFFICIAL: And publishing a newspaper . yes. And there are lot of ideas we think are great.

Q but what about the $8 million . could you just go over the various things? Because $8 million . this marks a big step .

SECOND SENIOR STATE DEPARTMENT OFFICIAL: Yes, it does.

Q so what else is there .

SECOND SENIOR STATE DEPARTMENT OFFICIAL: We had to have an organization that was organized, that had accountants, that had officers with signature authority to spend it. They now have such an organization. They're working through those kinds of institutional growing pains. We don't have the grant nailed down yet. But we are working very intensively with them on it.

We will be giving the money out in tranches. I believe the notification just went forward to the Congress this week for the first $4 million of the $8 million we intend to release. And there will be sub-tranches of the $4 as each of their program areas comes up, as they hire staff, identify staff to hire; need to buy their transmitting equipment, et cetera. But we'll go into that in greater detail as it evolves.

Q Getting back to the Arab countries, I know they're not giving any financial support, but their attitude traditionally has been. Why should we support these people unless we feel that you're truly serious about overthrowing Saddam? Have you been able to convince these Arab countries in any way that it is worth taking the INC seriously? Particularly Kuwait and Saudi Arabia, which are the . Jordan . which are neighbors?

SECOND SENIOR STATE DEPARTMENT OFFICIAL: None of the Arab countries want to be overtly associated with what they see as an external attempt to change an Arab regime.

Q Okay, but behind the scenes, are they buying your argument that these people are credible spokespeople for the Iraqi people and should be listened to?

SECOND SENIOR STATE DEPARTMENT OFFICIAL: Behind the scenes, some Arab governments are talking with some members of the INC. One of the more . in Kuwait, actually, in May, their parliament had a session with Iraqi oppositionists there, including INC members.

Q Thank You

SENIOR STATE DEPARTMENT OFFICIAL: Okay, thank you.