Real Audio of Briefing

       SR. ADMIN. OFFICIAL: Good afternoon. I'd just like to offer just a brief synopsis of what's in the report and then proceed to questions.

       The manipulation of public opinion is a high priority for Saddam Hussein's regime. Some of the Iraqi government's efforts to influence world opinion over the last 12 years are documented in the White House report "Apparatus of Lies: Saddam's Disinformation and Propaganda." This report takes a broad look at Iraqi deception, illustrating Saddam's commitment to deception and his contempt for the truth. It provides facts and contexts that should be applied to the statements and images forthcoming from the Iraqi regime.

       The world must decide whether to believe statements made by the government of Iraq. Experience has taught us to be extremely skeptical.

       Now the "Apparatus of Lies" discusses Iraq's disinformation and propaganda campaign in four broad categories. The first is what we call crafting tragedy, and this is where the Iraqi government places innocent civilians, both Iraqi and foreign, near legitimate military targets. It has also placed military equipment next to or inside mosques and ancient cultural institutions.

       And in one of the pictures you can see within the publication, for example, shows Iraqi fighter planes placed near the famous Ziggurat in Ur in 1990-91 in an attempt to prevent allied air strikes from harming these aircraft.

       Another broad category that we discussed is exploiting suffering. This is perhaps the most well-known, where the Iraqis, for example, have been able to successfully manipulate this tragedy that's occurred to their people as a result of the U.N. sanctions, where they've been able to successfully re-define the blame as due to the sanctions and not to the government of Iraq's policies to either not abide by its obligations in Resolution 687 or, when available, use its own resources to feed its people when it could.

       A third category is exploiting Islam. And this is one where Saddam both uses the symbols of Islam to further his regime's goals or manipulates the message of Islam to profit himself.

       And lastly, corrupting the public record, where Saddam outright lies, uses false news, press placements, staged interviews, forged documents, all to prove to the world his version of the truth and not reality.

       So again, this is a very brief overview of what you'll find contained in the report. And I'm happy to take questions.

       MODERATOR: Let me remind you to please use the microphone and identify yourself and your news organization. We'll start with Michael.

       Q I'm Michael Backfisch from Handelsblatt German business daily. You mentioned a quote from the Iraqi director of the biological weapons program in 1998, you know. It's not a lie when you are ordered to lie.

       SR. ADMIN. OFFICIAL: Mm-hmm.

       Q The key in the current discussion is evidence of weapons of mass destruction. So the question is, where is the evidence of today, when will the U.S. government reveal it, and will it be revealed sometime after Saddam Hussein will be removed out of power?

       SR. ADMIN. OFFICIAL: Thank you. Two responses. The first is that in general it's not up to the United States or the rest of the world to demonstrate evidence about the existence of Saddam's weapons of mass destruction. It is up to the government of Iraq to actively cooperate, as Resolution 1441 calls for. And it is in their own interest to present to the world everything that is necessary to demonstrate that it has, indeed, given up and forsworn the use of weapons of mass destruction. And that is the real issue in terms of what is available to prove what Iraq has. It's not up to us to prove this; it's up to them to show us, and then it is up to Chairmen Blix and ElBaradei to then verify that they, indeed, have divested themselves of all their weapons of mass destruction as called for by the U.N.

       The second part of the answer is that we have, indeed, shared more intelligence with the United -- relevant United Nations authorities to help them pursue their mandate. And we will continue to support them to the best extent possible.

       And as the resolution calls for, not just us, but for the rest of the world, to make available their own intelligence information to the U.N. to enable them to pursue the mission.

       Q Yoshi Komori, the Japanese Newspaper Sankei Shimbun. I have a question regarding the nature of this document. Is this -- the objective of this document is strictly to inform the international public, or will it be used for some U.S. government official purpose, such as being submitted to the IAEA or United Nations?

       SR. ADMIN. OFFICIAL: No, this is just for the purpose of informing the world community about the record that this regime has demonstrated in the last 11 years, and we feel it's important to make clear the lengths to which this regime is prepared to go in order to both corrupt the public record, to actively spread lies and falsehoods, and to exploit the suffering of its own people to the -- you know, to the point that it will again endanger them in the likelihood -- if there is indeed a need for armed force to disarm Saddam. We already see, for example, that Tariq Aziz is calling for foreign volunteers to come to Iraq in order to protect Iraqi facilities from what they term U.S. aggression. And this, again, fits in well with the pattern of what we've seen in the past and to us, dramatizes the need to alert the world to the kinds of tricks, evasions, lies that this -- Saddam Hussein's regime is prepared to go to to achieve its own ends.

       Q My name is -- (name inaudible) -- from Egypt's Al Ahram newspaper. I was just wondering, what's new in this report? Or is it just a collection of a variety of all things that we've already known about before?

       SR. ADMIN. OFFICIAL: You will find in the report there is some new information based on some previously classified intelligence information in some of it. The rest is the result of the research of others. For example, there's the research work conducted by the English physician from Liverpool who had gone to Northern Iraq to begin the kind of in-depth examination of what are the long-term consequences of Iraqi use of chemical weapons against their own population? And -- so Dr. Gosden's work is presented in here and, hopefully, given a more wide distribution and view than it had in the past.

       And that is, I think, extremely interesting. And also as well the kind of work the Iranians themselves are doing on their own population in terms of long-term health consequences; that's not in here, but in terms of the kind of work that is out there that hasn't been given wide publicity. So it's both looking at previously classified information, drawing in open-source information that may not have been given wide dissemination, and then compiling the record and focusing in on this one issue.

       Q (Name inaudible) -- from the Finnish TV. About this evidence issue, one more question. We have heard from the American authorities that there is positive knowledge here that Iraqi scientists have -- some Iraqi scientists have told that there are mass-destruction-weapons programs going on in Iraq. And we know that some arms which should be there are unaccounted for, but we still, in a way, lack the evidence that the international community would like to have, before it says okay to an intervention, that there are ongoing mass-destruction-weapons programs, there are those weapons present which also present a clear danger to the world. Does the United States government have that knowledge?

       SR. ADMIN. OFFICIAL: Well, there's a number of ways one can approach that question. First of all, can look back at the factual record based on just what the U.N. itself has discovered, go back to the 1999 UNMOVIC declaration of outstanding issues. And they detail there a large amount of materiel, whether it's unaccounted-for warheads, unaccounted-for mustard-filled bombs, unaccounted-for biological growth media, unaccounted-for biological agent.

       The U.N. itself has documented that there are indeed inside Iraq weapons of mass destruction that they could not account for and believed existed, and also a handful of Scud ballistic missiles. That is what the U.N. itself can substantiate and they believe.

       Have we seen anything since 1999 to show one way or the other that this list is still relevant? Well, nothing from the government of Iraq has invalidated those conclusions; that Chairman Blix has said the Iraqis have not accounted for these outstanding issues. One way to answer the question is, look at what the U.N. says itself.

       The other path to knowledge, perhaps, could be the words of the Iraqis themselves, especially those Iraqis who have left the country who had knowledge of the programs inside Iraq. I could point you towards Khidhir Hamza, the Iraqi nuclear physicist who fled Iraq in the mid-1990s and has since published a book, given testimony in a number of places. As a person who was inside the program, had knowledge of the details of it, no better person to ask did they -- does Iraq have a nuclear weapons program. Well, they did up until the time he left, and based on everything he knows, they continue to do so to the best extent they can.

       You take that knowledge from the 1990s, you combine it with, for example, information we've made public about Iraq's efforts to procure high-strength aluminum tubes that to us seem to be for a uranium enrichment program, it shows a continuing and enduring interest on the part of the Iraqis to pursue a nuclear capability. All these things to us suggest that this is a present capability and something that will only get worse in the future.

       Q Michael Backfisch again, Handelsblatt. But again the question, what is the evidence of the year 2003? I mean, you're referring to the record of Saddam Hussein the last 12 years has been a record of deception, of lies and all this stuff. But what is the evidence of the year 2003? At least theoretically, it could be that he has destroyed all weapons of mass destruction. So the question is, where's the evidence? Where's the proof? And when will it be revealed and open to the public?

       SR. ADMIN. OFFICIAL: Again, I -- you repeated the question. I don't -- I mean, the answer does not change, in terms of, again, it's not up to us to prove that Iraq has weapons and where they are. The resolution calls on the Iraqis to demonstrate they have destroyed or disposed of their capabilities, that the U.N. itself declares that they have. And this they fail to do to date. And as we've seen with the discovery of the warheads for the tactical rockets that are capable of carrying sarin, that there's still much yet to be discovered inside Iraq that the Iraqis are actively working to hide from us. Again, the resolution calls for their active cooperation. And even both the heads of the U.N. organizations have clearly pointed out that this is not so.

       So it's not our responsibility to provide evidence. We are indeed providing support to Chairman Blix and Mr. ElBaradei in the pursuit of their missions. But it's up to Saddam to demonstrate that he has divested himself. And everything he's done shows that this act of cooperation is not in the offing, whether it's his desire to put conditions on U-2 flights to support UNMOVIC, which Chairman Blix has pointed out are unacceptable; whether it's his continuing efforts to frustrate their ongoing mission inside the country, for example, by preventing them from flying their helicopters in places. So this lack of Iraqi -- it's not only lack of active cooperation, but now positive attempts to frustrate UNMOVIC's ability to carry out its mission. Again, these are Saddam's responsibilities and obligations.

       Q If I can just follow that up with a clarifying question. Would it be correct to say that given how tightly controlled and organized the entire Iraqi regime and government are, that no one would imagine that anyone would carry out destruction of weapons of mass destruction unless they were clearly ordered to do so? And it's precisely that paper trail of orders from the highest levels of the Iraqi government that were -- that the international community expected Iraq to deliver to the U.N. that they have not delivered?

       SR. ADMIN. OFFICIAL: That's a good point, especially in the recent U.N. -- the IAEA effort to go to the nuclear scientist's house where they discovered 2,000 pages of documents relating to Iraq's enrichment effort. It shows, on the one hand, that the Iraqis were meticulous paper-keepers; that they kept extensive records, they kept -- and they kept these records for quite a long time. And that it also shows the lengths to which they are going to make sure that the records are kept safe. In this case, there was intelligence information that they were hidden in a scientist's house. This information someone provided to the IAEA and they acted upon it and then seized the documents. Again, it shows both what Iraq -- the potential is there; that their -- probably, the Iraqis could demonstrate; that they have gotten rid of their weapons of mass destruction programs, but they choose not to. And the only conclusion we can come to is that these programs still exist and they have a capability in which to protect them.

       Q (Name inaudible) -- from Turkish television, TRT Public Television. Do you think it would be convincing the international community when their governments are not convinced yet?

       Yesterday at the U.N. Security Council, Germany openly said it opposes war with Iraq, and we know what France said. And why this timing, I mean, to issue this document -- the timing? (Chuckling.) Do you think it's the right time? Why now? Why not before? Let me put it this way. Thank you.

       SR. ADMIN. OFFICIAL: Mm-hmm. Well, there are important -- this sheds light on some important decisions and actions that are coming up. And we felt that in our overall concentration on improving public awareness of Saddam's regime, this was a good time.

       And while -- as has been said before in reaction to what the French foreign minister said, it is also -- it is clear that while we have differences in judgment, most governments accept the fact that Iraq does indeed have a weapons of mass destruction capability now, despite what the U.N. has attempted to impose on Iraq in the last decade, and that it's more a judgment of what do we do about it and when.

       So I think that in terms of where's the evidence, I think governments, at least, implicitly recognize that Iraq has now a capability and it has not complied with U.N. obligations, or we wouldn't have gotten the unanimous resolution vote for 1441. So those things are points of agreement. We differ on potentially what should we do and when should we do it.

       Q Hi. Dana Boderi (sp) from Al-Jazeera. I want to ask about the rhetoric of the American administration. There has been a shift in the past few weeks, and there has been greater emphasis on the issue of cooperation on the side of Iraq, rather than looking for the smoking gun. And why is that?

       And secondly, what does the American administration want, regime change or disarmament? They are used interchangeably, and they're sometime confused with one another.

       SR. ADMIN. OFFICIAL: I think we've -- our president has been very consistent in what he's called for from the Iraqi regime. When he went to the U.N. General Assembly and gave his speech, it was very clear that it's Saddam's obligation. It's not up to us to do anything. It's up to him to show the world that he is indeed complying with the demands placed before him by the United Nations, both for weapons of mass destruction and for the other resolutions that call for return of missing Kuwaiti people, missing Kuwaiti property, to account for other foreign nationals missing in Iraq, and for Iraq to end its repression of its own people.

       So we've been clear in our demands of what we hope that this regime can do. And it must do all those things. And I'm not sure I would agree that we have shifted our argument to -- in any way, that we've consistently said this must be up to Iraq to actively cooperate. Nothing else will work. The record of the last 10 years has shown that he, Saddam, can frustrate any foreign attempt to prove that he does or does not have weapons. It's -- 200 men cannot overturn the work of the entire Iraqi regime.

       Q My question is, in the absence of a smoking gun, would the issue of lack of cooperation be used as a peg to justify the use of military action in Iraq?

       SR. ADMIN. OFFICIAL: Well, I think you need -- we need to go back and look at the language within 1441 and what it defines as "in material breach". And it's -- Iraq was declared in material breach then. And then it -- in terms of the language in 1441. And then it defined what constituted further material breach. And I think that, you know, in toto, some of the actions that Iraq has done could point to that. And that's, I think, some of the reasons behind Chairman Blix himself using some fairly serious language when he talks about Iraq and the consequences of its lack of cooperation. But what the United States president decides to do about material breach at the -- you know, some point in the future, no decisions have been made about that yet.

       Q Just to refer to my colleague's question, you didn't make more sense -- and I think it does make more sense to the rest of the world, since you are making the claim, you are the ones that have to provide the evidence. I mean, you're the ones who are saying they own -- possess weapons of mass destruction. So, I mean, if you are going to call -- claim something against another party, you are the one -- you are now the prosecutor role. So, I mean, the rest of the world is not convinced. Don't you think you should reveal something?

       And then the second question is, even if Iraq has, like, 14 missiles and some bombs and all this stuff, does this justify re- occupying the country and -- or, occupying the country and bombing it and killing thousands of civilians, in your assessment?

       SR. ADMIN. OFFICIAL: The situation to us is that the regime's record, this man's record since 1979 shows a regime that is in -- committed to aggression, committed to develop -- developing weapons of mass destruction to further its own aims. And then, when it defines a requirement, it's committed to using these weapons, whether it's against the Iranians or other neighbors potentially in the future, as they threaten to do against the Israelis, or against its own population, as it used against the Iraqi Kurds in 1998.

       So from our point of view, this is a regime that presents a threat not only to its own people, to the region, but also, potentially, to the United States as well, whether it's in the hands of Iraqis themselves or if Iraq decides in its own interests to give this capability to others who have a similar agenda of hostility with the United States. So these are, to us, compelling reasons why action is necessary now and that waiting is not in anyone's interest. As our president said, inaction is not our policy.

       Q (Off mike.)

       SR. ADMIN. OFFICIAL: No, it's Saddam's job to demonstrate that --

       Q (Off mike.)

       SR. ADMIN. OFFICIAL: I'm sorry?

       Q (Off mike) -- you're the one making the claims, so the one making the claim provides evidence, like you did in Cuba in 1962. You know, you went and you showed the world pictures. You said, "These are the missiles and this is what we have."

       SR. ADMIN. OFFICIAL: It -- the U.N., not us, has made the charge that Iraq has these weapons, and it must verifiably disarm itself. That's the root of this. They themselves have documented Iraq's failure to do so, and they have listed the things that Iraq must do, at a minimum, to show that it is at least taking what they think are the necessary steps for disarmament. They have not done that, at -- I mean, as a minimum case. So I think that the requirement falls on them at least to meet that goal.

       And as far as evidence, we have indeed made -- you know, shared things with the United Nations. We've shared things with our -- allied and friendly governments around the world, to demonstrate why we feel that this is the necessary course of action. And in publications like this, we're showing more of the kinds of things that we believe are important to consider in these decisions.

       MODERATOR: Okay. The last question -- oh, two more, then. The gentleman -- (off mike).

       Q Yoshi Komori of the Sankei Shimbun again. Recently a number of Japanese news networks, news media, in television networks and newspapers, have managed to send their reporters to Iraq, obviously with the approval of the Iraqi government or at the invitation of the Iraqi government. And they came out with reports on how so-called ordinary Iraqi citizens, some on the street or some of them in their school or hospitals, in fear or with concern are reacting to the expected American military attack against their country.

       And even if -- though the whole thing might have been arranged or staged by the Iraqi government, consequent reports are very appealing and sometimes compelling. So what would you say as an advice to those of us who are thinking going there or sending our colleagues to the country? And secondly, maybe you can tell us some of the most prominent features of the Iraqi government's most recent policy toward receiving international journalists to their country.

       SR. ADMIN. OFFICIAL: This report shows that they have a very dedicated program to making sure that foreign media forms a pro-regime opinion, whether it's false information supplied to you; or they make sure that you only talk to the correct people, whether it's a government official pretending to be a civilian, or civilians who have been educated -- before they talk to a journalist -- about what the correct responses are. And that -- you know, that is a very important part of Iraq's effort to make sure that only the correct message is given to the outside world.

       I would refer you to the International Crisis Group in Belgium. They published a report in the recent past on attitudes inside Iraq towards a number of things, among them the prospect for regime change through military invasion. And at least this report concludes, based on their own clandestine polling data, that most Iraqis would welcome such a move. That while they are not looking forward to damage and destruction and death that could result from such operations, they saw the need for it, and that endurance of short-term pain was in their long-term benefit. So there are other points of view out there from -- and this is a neutral group, has no ties to the U.S. government.

       For reporters operating inside Iraq, I think the -- for those who are Arabic-speaking can find situations where they can not be in the company of Iraqi minders while they are in the country. That has the best opportunity to get the true opinion of Iraqis.

       There are still -- the more ordinary Iraqis begin to see that Saddam is not going to be part of their future, the more they are likely to start talking about what they really think. At least we get more reports of that, where they are far more willing now to begin speaking their minds about life after Saddam than they were six months ago, for example, because now it's beginning to dawn on just ordinary Iraqis that Saddam is history and now we must begin thinking about the future for Iraq without him.

       Q Mik Crawford, Finnish TV again. Well, Hans Blix said during his trip that he will need several months more of time to establish what the real situation is and we hear from the Americans that time is running out. When is the time out?

       SR. ADMIN. OFFICIAL: We'll have to wait and see what he reports on the 27th, and then the Security Council can debate its interpretation and what it believes should be done next. But is the 27th a trigger for war? No. I mean, as I've said, our president has made no decision regarding that. And it will be based on our discussions with our friends and allies around the world about an appropriate course of action to achieve the -- Iraq's disarmament.

       Q Are you in the administration at all worried what might be the adverse results of a probable occupation in case of military occupation and that it could turn into a quagmire, like it did for the Israelis in 1982 in Lebanon?

       SR. ADMIN. OFFICIAL: Are we committed to -- ? Of course there is a -- many people are quick to point out that there are many reasons to believe that Iraq could -- many bad things could happen in Iraq immediately after Saddam is removed through military attack. At the same time, there are -- is great potential in the Iraqi people. And we have great hope for their future after Saddam and what they and we working together can achieve for Iraq. And we think that that future is a good one and one that we should both work for, and that we are taking seriously the kinds of things that would be necessary both for the immediate humanitarian relief inside Iraq should military operations be necessary at some point, and also the kinds the things that we would need to begin the reconstruction within Iraq and to help the Iraqi people on the path towards democracy and a better future for themselves. So we take that -- the whole issue very seriously, and we are looking at that very hard.