3:00 P.M. EST

Real Audio of Briefing

MR. DENIG: Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen. Welcome to the Washington Foreign Press Center. We're very pleased today that, for a briefing on the important subject of the Coalition Provisional Authority and democracy-building in Iraq, we have our colleague, David Ballard, the Director of the Office of Foreign Press in the State Department, as our briefer.

Mr. Ballard has just returned recently from a several month stint in Iraq. So he has seen the situation firsthand, and so there is really no one better to report on the situation and ongoing efforts there than he.

Mr. Ballard will have an opening statement to make, and after that will be very glad to take your questions.

David.

MR. BALLARD: Hi, good afternoon. I do have a few opening remarks. What I'd like to be able to do today, more than anything else, is to provide a bit of context as to what's happening with the Coalition Provisional Authority and its work in Iraq. All of you are familiar with the policy, all of you are familiar with the news, but there are some aspects of our work there that I think it's worth going into a little more detail on just, as I said, to provide a bit more texture and context for the way we all analyze what's happening in the country.

I'd like to concentrate on three specific areas: One is the role of the CPA, the Coalition Provisional Authority, in general, as the civilian arm of the coalition in Iraq; the second is the international aspect of the CPA's work; and the third is the stirrings of democracy that Iraqis themselves are bringing about in their country, and how they're working with the CPA on that.

Let me start with some comments on the CPA and its work. I think a lot of times, people tend to think of CPA as Baghdad, the green zone, Ambassador Bremer, which is all certainty true, but the CPA has offices in all 18 provinces of Iraq. In Iraq, they're called governorates, but for the purposes of this talk, I'll just call them provinces since it's an easier term.

So in every capital of every province in Iraq, there is a CPA team that is working there with local authorities. It is helping to run local administration, rebuild, reconstruct, rehabilitate parts of Iraq's infrastructure, work on employment and stimulating the economy, and, perhaps most importantly, helping Iraqis prepare for a democratic future.

Each team has significant financial resources, and they approve projects, and they carry out different kinds of projects in the reconstruction area. Each team works with the municipal councils and the provincial councils and the governor's office on all matters pertaining to administrative responsibility for the province and the big cities in the provinces.

For example, just to give you one idea, education issues in any given province will be coordinated with the Ministry of Education representative, the governor's office, local authorities and the CPA team. And, finally, each team has a responsibility, of course, for coordinating with the military side of the operation, the Coalition Forces. So the civilian CPA team must work in close coordination on all sorts of projects, not just security related, but all sorts of projects, with whatever representatives of the Coalition Forces who are there and then report back up their respective chains of command to the civilian and military leadership in Baghdad.

The second area is the international nature of the effort in Iraq. I think, first of all, many of you or all of you represent foreign media so you will have a greater appreciation for this perhaps than many Americans do because, obviously, the American media is more concentrated on the effects of what's happening there on America and Americans working in Iraq. But in addition to a great deal of inter-agency coordination among various American government agencies that are represented there and the obvious coordination that goes on between the civilian side and the military side on everything, there is a lot of international cooperation and coordination. I think in media accounts, even in the foreign media, the words, "CPA" or "Coalition" are often substituted with "America" or "US." I don't think that is a fair characterization, and it is certainly not a fair characterization to those from the many other countries who were there working so hard under the umbrella of the CPA or the Coalition Forces.

Let me give you a few examples. Almost all of those CPA teams that I mentioned are multinational. In fact, I think all of them are. For example, the head of the northern region and the southern region are both British Foreign Office people. The other two regions are headed by Americans.

There are 17 provincial and three regional CPA offices outside of Baghdad. Seven of those are -- sorry; six of those are headed by non-Americans. In other words, the head CPA representative in six of the 17 provinces outside of Baghdad is not an American.

For example, the network of public affairs officers that I worked with in Iraq, one in each province, was American, British and Italian. When I arrived, the majority were not American. Now I think the majority is American, but all the same, it cannot be described as a completely American effort.

One of the examples of what all this means in the country, which I think is kind of fascinating to see and it certainly was fascinating to witness for us, was that the Japanese troops were deployed in January and then more, the larger group, came in February, to the town called Samawah, which is the capital of Al-Muthanna Province in Southwest Iraq. Samawah is not a very big town, but because of the deployment of Japanese troops outside of Japan for the first time since World War II, over a hundred Japanese media descended on that town and camped out there for several weeks to cover the activities of their countrymen who were working on reconstruction -- water sanitation projects, for example.

Let me comment on the military side because, again, I think sometimes this context is not properly appreciated. Our CPA teams in the provinces worked with Japanese, British, Dutch, Polish, Bulgarian, Hungarian, Ukrainian, Salvadoran, Filipino -- many, many other nations in addition to Americans. And that's on the military side.

In Baghdad, for example, in the CPA headquarters, you will see mostly American military uniforms, but you will see military uniforms representing all of the other nations who are in the coalition. Once outside of Baghdad, there are certain places where you will never see American uniforms, or almost never. If you go to Hila, for example, it's the Polish troops who are in charge. If you go to Nasiriya, it's the Italian army and Carabinieri who are in charge. If you go to al Kut, it's Ukrainian forces.

So the idea that, again, replacing the concept of “coalition forces” with “American troops” is unfair to the efforts of the many other nations who have their military forces represented there.

Let me give you just a personal note from Nasiriya, where the security arrangements are taken care of by the Italian army and the Carabinieri. You will recall that in November of last year there was a terrible attack, car bomb attack, on the Carabinieri headquarters there, and some 19 Italians were killed. Well, I had a chance to go there and visit and to meet the Italian commander, and I have to say that that was a very emotional experience for me to see that our allies in the coalition, the Italians, had given so many lives in the service of the people of Iraq and to promote what the coalition and the CPA are hoping will be the bright future for Iraq.

The final area I'm going to talk about before I take your questions is what I call the sort of stirrings of democracy. I use that word, "stirrings," deliberately because what's happening in many ways can be described as sort of a stirring of a nation right now. In every town and province in Iraq, local authorities are learning for the first time what it is like to run things locally. In a country that is used to a very strong central government tradition that dictated all policy and appointed all leaders that told everybody what to do all the time, local authorities are realizing that they are responsible for the future of their communities and their provinces and that they have an opportunity to imagine that future and then make it happen using their own resources and helped by the CPA officials in each town.

Iraqis are concerned and worried about the future of their nation. They are often motivated by a natural instinct to think about what they, themselves, and the groups that they belong to need. That being said, time after time, in meetings with representatives of different groups of Iraqi society, I saw them acknowledge and respect the concept that the greater good of the nation required an understanding of, respect for and accommodation of others' priorities, concerns and rights.

The same feeling that stirs them to demand that their priorities be taken seriously leads them to understand that there is room for other's priorities. Iraqis always say that they want democracy. All of them, all of the time. They are constantly saying this whenever anybody asks them. Their definitions of this concept and understanding of what it means and what it will take vary; but it is a strong current that stirs beneath all the schisms, divisions, disagreements and contention that sometimes characterize Iraqi society today. It is, in my opinion, a current of genuine hope and desire for a country that offers freedom, choice, and justice to its citizens. Most Iraqis call those ideas democracy. Despite their differences, all of them agree that it is what they want and they all agree that they can achieve it.

I'll stop with a little story that I hope will illustrate those three points. One of the things that I did in Iraq was to help people in different regions and provinces prepare for town hall meetings which were meetings that were held with various members of communities anywhere to discuss the political transition agreement, to inform the population about it; and then to listen to people's concerns; and finally, to encourage them to participate in this transition process in order to have an influence on the future of their own community, and more importantly, the future of their nation.

The last trip I made when I was there was to help al Kut, which is in East Central Iraq. The team that I was in charge of was made up of British and American, military and civilian officials. Our host was a civilian British Public Affairs Officer, yet his assistant for the purposes of this was a Ukrainian military officer. The democracy expert, who came and helped us with some of the training programs that we were doing, was a Gambian, and all of the participants, of course, were Iraqi.

They were a group of about 35 local leaders drawn from all over the province, who were there to hear us talk about these meetings and what they might use these meetings to accomplish, and frankly, to ask us a lot of questions about things they were unclear about. So for about two hours, they argued with us, they criticized things, they made comments, and we tried to answer all of their questions and their concerns as best we could.

But when we finished with that part, I wasn't convinced that they accepted our explanation, or that they found what we had said to be valid; then we moved on to a phase in which they had to practice being a town hall meeting. So some of them agreed to be the panel that would make the opening statements and answer the questions, and some of them agreed to be the audience that would ask all of the questions and make comments.

Well, the amazing thing was that those people who were the panel, the same people that had been there for two hours complaining to us and criticizing and finding everything wrong with the process, began to defend the process very clearly, and they explained it and they said, in very clear terms, what it was, what would happen, and they tried to encourage.

And it was just a tremendously interesting experience to see the same people that had been seemingly very critical of the entire thing, defending it far better than we could because they knew the local context, they knew the concerns of the citizens and they knew how the different aspects of the political transition process would respond to those concerned.

So that's it, and let me see if I can help answer any questions that you might have.

Yes, ma'am.

MR. DENIG: Please use the microphones, as usual, and identify yourself and your news organization.

QUESTION: Cyrille Cartier with Reuters.

A few quick questions: One, do you expect that the military, the Iraqi military and police, will be up and running by the time the transition comes? Has there been a decision made as to whether the State Department or the Pentagon will control the transition? And what are the greatest obstacles faced as we near the transition?

MR. BALLARD: Okay. On the first, the Iraqi military forces and other security forces already are up and running. They're a significant number and the number keeps growing. And that number includes elements of the new Iraqi army, it includes the Iraqi police, of course, border guards and other security services. So that's something that's already going and they are taking increasing responsibility for internal security in the country as well, of course, as defending the borders.

On the second question of the transition process, naturally, the Department of State will be represented in an embassy in a normal bilateral relationship. That's no secret. And there, of course, will be a continuation in some form on the military side with the coalition forces under a security agreement with the future Iraqi government. That's nothing new.

And pardon me?

QUESTION: The Pentagon?

MR. BALLARD: I don't know what you mean by that.

QUESTION: Well, is the State Department going to be in charge of the transition or --

MR. BALLARD: The Iraqis are in charge of the transition. Of their country? Yes, I mean, they will have a sovereign government as of July 1st.

There was a third part. I'm sorry. Oh, obstacles. Well, obviously, now the one that comes to mind and which everybody acknowledges is there are continuing security concerns in the country. As Ambassador Bremer mentioned yesterday, there will be in this period of time before the transition, I mean the turnover of sovereignty on the 30th of June, there is a likelihood of continued pressure and continued terrorist acts. So that is a concern, obviously, that has an effect on everything else that happens in the country.

On the other hand, things are moving forward despite that, and they're moving forward all over the country.

Yes, sir.

QUESTION: Chong Hyuk Kim, Joong Ang Ilbo, Korea.

I have two questions. One question is, as you know, the more than 3,000 career soldiers will be dispatched to Iraq in coming June and it is reported that the South Korean Government and the U.S. Government are talking about changing the location. It was suppose to be Kirkuk, but that they are going to change that location.

Do you happen to know where it will be?

And the second one is how dangerous it is for the foreign soldiers to be there in Iraq. Do you think it is natural for Korean people to expect some casualties and loss of Korean soldiers once they will dispatch into Iraq?

MR. BALLARD: Okay. On the first question, I don't know. I simply don't have an answer to that at all. On the second, obviously military forces in Iraq of all nationalities who are working there are exposed to some danger and under a threat of terrorist attacks. On the other hand, they are all doing a good job of dealing with that, both the exposure to threat and also on the offensive side, going after those terrorists and trying to disrupt them before they can make attacks. So that is really all I can say about that.

Hoda.

QUESTION: Mr. Ballard, I have three questions. First, with all the countries you mentioned in Iraq, I didn't hear any Arab countries, so are they completely absent? The second question is about the new accords, the military accords the Administration wants to make with the new Iraqi government. You call it a sovereign government. We don't know yet if it will be a sovereign government. And what makes us sure that the new government will really make this new military accords? And is it going to be on you because the United States and the Iraqi government or the whole of the coalition, also troops? And we hear that some are going to withdraw and don't know. And the third I forgot.

MR. BALLARD: Okay, on the first question, are you speaking in terms of military forces on the ground or working in --

QUESTION: You said the CPA and all the activities.

MR. BALLARD: And the other activities. I honestly don't know. I would imagine there are some citizens of Arab countries working with the contractors and things like that; but, as far as an official representation of an Arab government, I don't know of any. Secondly, on the military force, that's a military question and I really can't --

QUESTION: You just mentioned military.

MR. BALLARD: The agreement that will take place, but I mean what the details of that are is really a question that should be asked of military folks.

QUESTION: But it is taken for granted that it will be agreements.

MR. BALLARD: Some sort of agreements, yes.

QUESTION: Yeah. And is it only between the United States?

MR. BALLARD: I can't -- I don't know. Sorry.

QUESTION: Okay, thank you.

QUESTION: Giampiero Gramaglia, Italian News Agency ANSA.

You described the organization of the CPA in the provinces. What will happen to these organizations after the 1st of July? And you feel very confident that there will be an Iraqi government after the 1st of July. Which kind of government do you foresee?

MR. BALLARD: Okay. Well, as far as the first question, it is sort of a two-part answer, which is obviously that each individual nation that is participating in the Coalition will have to establish its own diplomatic representation to Iraq in the same way that the American government will have normal bilateral relations through an American Embassy. Other nations will have to do that.

And what they do in terms of representation outside of Baghdad, obviously, each nation will decide how they want to do that. Yet, there are a number of ongoing projects that will require a lot of attention and help, so there is likely to be some sort of follow up in a way that can ensure that the great deal of money that Congress has appropriated, for example, as well as other nations and other organizations, that those kinds of projects have some sort of oversight. What that exactly is right now I can't say.

And the second part about the Iraqi government, again, those are ongoing issues, what exactly the form will be other than what we know that has been outlined in the Transitional Administrative Law.

QUESTION: May I follow up just -- did the Americans already decided what they have to -- if they stay in any province or not? You thought that was a national decision. Did the Americans already decide that?

MR. BALLARD: On the American side, it hasn't been decided. I don't think it has been completely decided, but it is certainly something that we have a number of people working on right now.

Rich.

QUESTION: Thank you, David. On -- looking at the media in Iraq, can you comment on the prospects for, and the value of, private media in Iraq? Right now, the only channel that exists is Iraqia, the official government channel, broadcasting out of Baghdad.

And also what role do you see is private media playing, in terms of the town hall meetings or other ways that the private local media can participate in the democracy building process?

MR. BALLARD: Right.

QUESTION: And third, since everyone is asking three questions, has the CPA established a Foreign Press Center in Baghdad that allows for permanent broadcast facilities for a private channels outside of the CPA?

MR. BALLARD: Right. For the first answer, there are a lot of private media in Iraq right now. Many of the private media belong to a political party or belong to a religious organization, for example, but, in fact, on the press side, all of the media are private. On the television side, there is the Al Iraqia TV station, but there are also plenty of other television stations that are local in nature. In fact, I think it's something like over 80 television stations have registered to, you know, wherever they are.

So there is a lot of that going on right now, and it will be immensely important. It already is very important. Because just to see the Iraqi consumption of news, they have this incredible opportunity now to read hundreds of different publications -- well, not in every place, but there are so many opportunities and so many different sort of voices and points of view out there, that it's a very interesting time, and the importance of the private nature of this media really can't be overestimated.

And the third one was about the international press center: There is a CPA sort of international filing center, press center, right now, and it does have facilities for broadcast as well.

QUESTION: Can private channels established permanent -- in private channels established permanent broadcast from the center?

MR. BALLARD: Well, there are -- if you mean private Iraqi channels, or private --

QUESTION: International.

MR. BALLARD: There are international channels that are already working there, yeah.

Khaled.

QUESTION: Hi, Khaled Abdul-Karim, Middle East News Agency of Egypt.

I hope my question was not covered before I come, but let me just go along with a three-part question. Let me just cut it in pieces.

The first one is about the security. I understand that your assignment in Iraq was public affairs and public diplomacy, right?

MR. BALLARD: Right.

QUESTION: How did security make your life miserable to work in public -- security in public affairs? How did you have a chance to interact with Iraqis while the Americans were afraid of the Iraqis, and the Iraqis, some of them, at least, were afraid of the Americans?

So this is the first part. Let's start with it, and then -- okay.

MR. BALLARD: Well, I don't think I scared anybody, actually, and I don't think anybody was afraid of me when I was there. Although maybe, I don't know, in retrospect.

No, you're right -- the security is a challenge and it depends, obviously, from place to place. In many places, you know, our teams go out there and work in an almost normal environment. Obviously, everybody takes security precautions.

But the key thing I think is that regardless of whether the situation is very tense or if people feel threatened or more threatened or less threatened, they're still out there. I mean, all of these people who are working in the CPA, from whatever country they're in, have chosen to go do this. On the military side, obviously, people are assigned in ways, but civilians who are working there have chosen to do this and they've taken into consideration the threats that they might encounter and they've decided that it's worth it.

And yes, of course it is part of the context of the way you're working, but I traveled all over. I think I visited 10 of the 18 governorates of Iraq and everybody else, people who were working wherever they're working, go out every day to meet with their Iraqi colleagues, to follow up on projects, to talk to reporters. And so it's just something that you overcome.

QUESTION: Okay. Second part is really about the sentiments, the reality of sentiments of Iraq. You know, we have different arguments. We have on about the -- most of the U.S. officials trying to paint the picture of Iraq as welcoming those liberators to Iraq, and we have another picture sometimes 100,000 Iraqis shouting anti-U.S. slogans. And I am sure reality is somewhere in between these two pictures.

You spent some time there. How did you feel? Are the Iraqis happy with, you know, U.S. forces being there? Are there still anti-Americans? Are they that kind of people who really welcome occupation?

MR. BALLARD: Well, I don't think that I'm really in a position to speak for the Iraqi nation. On the other hand, the thing I guess to say about the Iraqis is they're working towards building their country. Regardless of individual feelings one way or the other in one place or another regarding one instance or another, they're moving ahead. They're moving ahead in building things locally. They are moving ahead in thinking about what the big picture is nationally. The economy in most places appears to be booming in ways that it had not for a long time. Commerce is really quite -- it's really quite astonishing to see the range of products and where they're available. People are making more money. They're planning for the future.

There are certainly plenty of polls that talk about the way Iraqis feel about this or that, but it's very difficult to generalize, I think, other than to say that they're moving ahead, they're hoping for a better future, they're building that better future. And that's the key thing.

QUESTION: But did you have any evolution of sentiments over this --

MR. BALLARD: Any what?

QUESTION: Evolution of sentiments. I mean, did they change their attitudes vis-à-vis the U.S. occupation forces over the time you spent, or it has been just like the same since you started and then since you left the country? Any change in between you started your mission over there until you came back?

MR. BALLARD: Yeah, I think that's a very general thing to be able to talk about. You know, it would depend on the place, again, the circumstances, what was happening there, whether people in a certain town or region felt there were particular setbacks or that things were going much better than they had been. So I wouldn't want to try to generalize on that.

QUESTION: Okay. The last one.

MR. BALLARD: 14(b)?

QUESTION: The second one was a follow-up to the second one. So the last one, it's about the -- you know we got about true stories about the painful mass graves in Iraq during the Saddam time and the thousands of people killed either among the Shiites or among the Kurds. They are Iraqis, after all. But the --

MR. BALLARD: Well, among all Iraqis.

QUESTION: The point is we have daily record of U.S. soldiers killed in fighting or in non-combat operations day by day.

MR. BALLARD: Right.

QUESTION: So far after the passage of one year, we don't have even approximate figures from the Pentagon, from the State Department, any U.S. agency, telling us how many Iraqis were killed either in combat operations before May1st or either in the past, you know, year or so since the U.S. started that occupation -- regardless of who is to blame.

But at least is there any effort on the part of the U.S. Government representatives over there to make -- to give us some figures, how many Iraqis were killed over that year?

MR. BALLARD: Again, that specific question is one, if you're talking about with as a result of military action that is a question that you'd have to ask the Pentagon. It is my understanding they do not keep those figures, but I would say that the best thing to do is to ask them directly.

Now, I would say one thing, though, which is if you are going to try to equate that with mass graves --

QUESTION: David --

MR. BALLARD: -- that is a very, very different --

QUESTION: No, no, I --

MR. BALLARD: -- type of thing.

QUESTION: No, no. I said regardless of who is to blame for what. But I said we just need to know facts, figures, on the ground.

MR. BALLARD: Right. Except for the numbers and the intentions are --

QUESTION: I'm not saying that you killed anybody. I'm just talking about numbers.

MR. BALLARD: Those are two completely different stories --

QUESTION: Yeah, sure. Of course.

MR. BALLARD: -- and I don't think warrant any type of comparison at all.

Yes, ma'am.

QUESTION: Joyce Karam from Al Hayat newspaper.

I wanted to ask you how has the Palestinian-Israeli conflict played in Iraq basically? And if we see an escalation now, after the Yassin's death, do you think that --

MR. BALLARD: An escalation of what?

QUESTION: In the conflict there of --

MR. BALLARD: In Iraq?

QUESTION: No. In the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

MR. BALLARD: Oh, okay.

QUESTION: Would you see that, you know, causing troubles in Iraq before the transition happens?

MR. BALLARD: Well, I can't really speculate on that. I can say that in working with the Iraqis, they are very much focused on their country and its needs and its future right now. I'm not at all pretending to speak for them and I would not want to say that they don't have an opinion or think about, but in our direct work with them it's very much about what's happening in the country now and how to move that country forward.

So that tends to be the focus, in partial answer to your first -- I mean, I can't give you, what Iraqis think about Israeli-Palestinian issues. It wouldn't be fair for me to try to do that. But it was not the focus of conversations I had or work that many of us were doing there.

Yes, sir.

QUESTION: Thank you. Dmitry Kirsanov, TASS.

I very much would like you to give us the name of the chief of mission when the CPA will be transformed into the embassy, but I don't imagine you can do it.

MR. BALLARD: No, I have actually no idea about that.

QUESTION: Can you at least narrow the circle; tell us how many candidacies are being, you know, looked upon?

MR. BALLARD: No, I can't.

QUESTION: Things like that?

MR. BALLARD: That's a decision, first of all, that the President makes and the White House makes. I can tell you it'll be an American. (Laughter.)

Go ahead. Yes, sorry.

QUESTION: I need to ask you if there is more information about the military agreement with the Iraqi government. And does this agreement include establishing military bases in Iraq?

MR. BALLARD: I can't answer any questions about that.

QUESTION: Okay.

MR. BALLARD: It was not anything I had to do with, and I wouldn't have enough facts to begin to answer that question for you. I'm sorry.

QUESTION: Would you wait until the merging of a new elected Iraqi government to sign the agreement, or will you sign it with your assigned government? Do you know that?

MR. BALLARD: Do you mean would it be before?

QUESTION: Before the election or --

MR. BALLARD: Again, that's part of whatever is happening in that process that I'm not familiar with.

QUESTION: Okay, thank you.

MR. BALLARD: Is that it? Well, thank you very much.
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