For Immediate Release
Office of the Press Secretary
March 21, 2002
President, Vice President Discuss the Middle East
Remarks by the President and the Vice President Upon Conclusion of Breakfast
The Oval Office
8:16 A.M. EST
THE PRESIDENT: Good morning. Thank you all
for coming. I just had a breakfast with Vice President
Cheney, and as you all know, he's returned from a lengthy and
successful trip to the Middle East -- the first
trip I asked him to go on. I sent him to the region because
this is an incredibly important part of the world and it's a turbulent
part of the world, and the Vice President took a lot of messages on
behalf of our administration and made some really good
progress. I'm really proud of how he handled himself and how
he delivered the message.
As a result of this trip, and as a result of working with General
Zinni, there is some progress being made in the Middle
East. And I want to thank the Vice President for being very
firm and deliberate, and convincing both parties that the Tenet plan
and, ultimately, the Mitchell plan is a way to achieve what we all want
in the world, which is a peaceful resolution to this longstanding
conflict.
But, Mr. Vice President, welcome back. Thanks, you did a
great job.
THE VICE PRESIDENT: Well, thank you, Mr.
President. It was a good trip. And as you say,
there are a lot of issues on the agenda right now that are important in
that part of the world. I talked extensively with our
friends about the ongoing campaign in Afghanistan and the war against
terror that affects all of us, and everybody in the region.
Spent a lot of time on the Israeli peace problems and
propositions -- the conflict between Israelis and the
Palestinians, obviously. A lot of time on the Iraqi
situation, and Saddam Hussein's development of weapons of mass
destruction. But I found at virtually every stop that the
United States has great friends and allies in that part of the
world. I also had the opportunity to visit with a number of
our military personnel that are conducting active operations or
supporting those operations in Afghanistan and the
region. So, all in all, it was a great trip. I'm
ready to go back there --
THE PRESIDENT: Questions?
Q Mr. President -- interested in your own
calculations when the Vice President called to discuss the possibility
of the Arafat meeting; your calculations in making the decision to
change slightly the administration's standard for opening the door to a
meeting with him. And, Mr. Vice President, do you believe
now that meeting will happen? Is Mr. Arafat keeping his end
of the bargain?
THE PRESIDENT: Well, first of all, I've always been one
that trusts the judgment of people I send on a mission. And
the Vice President called me, with General Zinni by his side, and said,
there's a chance that we can get into the Tenet security agreement, and
if that were to happen, in my judgment, I think it would be best if I
would then go see Mr. Arafat.
And I trust the Vice President's judgment. He's a man of
enormous experience who's got a good feel for things. And we
both trust General Zinni. And so the definition of whether
or not he is going to see Mr. Arafat depends upon the feel for our
negotiator, General Zinni. But I think it was the right
thing to do, obviously.
We've set some strong conditions, and we expect Mr. Arafat to meet
those conditions. I, frankly, have been disappointed in his
performance. I'm hopeful, however, that he listens to what the Vice
President told him, and said that in order for us to have influence in
terms of achieving any kind of peaceful resolution, he must - he, Mr.
Arafat -- must do everything in his power to stop the violence.
THE VICE PRESIDENT: Well, as I've said before, John, the
key here will be General Zinni. And he'll make his judgment
based on whether or not Arafat is, in fact, implementing Tenet, not
just promising to implement, but implementing Tenet. If he's
doing that, if he's living up to those requirements, and General Zinni
signs off on it, then I'm prepared to go back almost immediately for a
meeting. But it will depend on whether or not Arafat is
complying.
Q Mr. Vice President, on Iraq, the other
main item on your agenda, you said we have a lot of allies out
there. But I haven't noticed any of the Arab
states -- maybe they say things privately that
they don't publicly, we've long been told
that -- supporting strong action against
Iraq. They seem to want diplomacy to be given a chance,
Annan's efforts, sanction changes, et cetera. What kind of
response did you get?
THE VICE PRESIDENT: Well, I
think -- I guess the way I would characterize is
they are uniformly concerned about the situation in Iraq, in particular
about Saddam Hussein's failure to live up to the U.N. Security Council
resolutions, especially number 687, that he pledged to at the end of
the war, that said he'd get rid of all of his weapons of mass
destruction.
And they are as concerned as we are when they see the work that he
has done to develop chemical and biological weapons, and his pursuit of
nuclear weapons; the past history that we all know about, in terms of
his having used chemicals. If you haven't seen it, there's a
devastating piece in this week's New Yorker magazine on the 1988 use by
Saddam Hussein of chemical weapons against the Kurds. If the
article is accurate -- and I've asked for verification, if we can find
it -- he ran a campaign against the Kurds for 17 months, and bombed
literally 200 villages and killed thousands and thousands of Iraqis
with chemical weapons.
That's not the kind of man we want to see develop even more deadly
capacity -- for example nuclear
weapons. And my experience is that our friends in the region
are just as concerned about those developments as we
are. And I went out there to consult with them, seek their
advice and counsel, to be able to report back to the President on how
we might best proceed to deal with that mutual problem, and that's
exactly what I've done.
THE PRESIDENT: I think one other point that the Vice
President made, which is a good point, is that this is an
administration that when we say we're going to do something, we mean
it; that we are resolved to fight the war on terror; this isn't a
short-term strategy for us; that we understand history has called us
into action, and we're not going to miss this opportunity to make the
world more peaceful and more free.
And the Vice President delivered that message. I was
grateful that he was able to do so. It's very important for
these leaders to understand the nature of this administration, so
there's no doubt in their mind that when we speak we mean what we say,
that we're not posturing. We don't take a bunch of polls and
focus groups to tell us what -- how
to -- what we ought to do in the
world. When we say we want to defend freedom, we mean
it. And the Vice President did a fine job of delivering that
message.
Part of any foreign policy -- good foreign
policy -- is to consult with our friends and
allies. We've told our friends and allies we'll do so on all
kinds of issues. And the Vice President did that in a really
good way.
Q Mr. President, different part of the
world. A car bomb exploded in Lima last night, killing nine
people. Are you concerned about your safety?
THE PRESIDENT: No, I'm still going. I'm sure
President Toledo will do everything he can to make Lima safe for our
trip. Two-bit terrorists aren't going to prevent me from
doing what we need to do, and that is to promote our friendship in the
hemisphere. Our neighborhood is important to us, Peru is an
important country. President Toledo has been a reformist,
obviously worked within the democratic system. And you bet
I'm going.