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29–792 PDF 2006

U.N. SANCTIONS AFTER OIL-FOR-FOOD: STILL A

VIABLE DIPLOMATIC TOOL?

HEARING

BEFORE THE

SUBCOMMITTEE ON NATIONAL SECURITY,

EMERGING THREATS, AND INTERNATIONAL

RELATIONS

OF THE

COMMITTEE ON

GOVERNMENT REFORM

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

ONE HUNDRED NINTH CONGRESS

SECOND SESSION

MAY 2, 2006

Serial No. 109–175

Printed for the use of the Committee on Government Reform

(

Available via the World Wide Web: http://www.gpoaccess.gov/congress/index.html

http://www.house.gov/reform

(II)

COMMITTEE ON GOVERNMENT REFORM

TOM DAVIS, Virginia, Chairman

CHRISTOPHER SHAYS, Connecticut

DAN BURTON, Indiana

ILEANA ROS-LEHTINEN, Florida

JOHN M. MCHUGH, New York

JOHN L. MICA, Florida

GIL GUTKNECHT, Minnesota

MARK E. SOUDER, Indiana

STEVEN C. LATOURETTE, Ohio

TODD RUSSELL PLATTS, Pennsylvania

CHRIS CANNON, Utah

JOHN J. DUNCAN, JR., Tennessee

CANDICE S. MILLER, Michigan

MICHAEL R. TURNER, Ohio

DARRELL E. ISSA, California

JON C. PORTER, Nevada

KENNY MARCHANT, Texas

LYNN A. WESTMORELAND, Georgia

PATRICK T. MCHENRY, North Carolina

CHARLES W. DENT, Pennsylvania

VIRGINIA FOXX, North Carolina

JEAN SCHMIDT, Ohio

——— ———

HENRY A. WAXMAN, California

TOM LANTOS, California

MAJOR R. OWENS, New York

EDOLPHUS TOWNS, New York

PAUL E. KANJORSKI, Pennsylvania

CAROLYN B. MALONEY, New York

ELIJAH E. CUMMINGS, Maryland

DENNIS J. KUCINICH, Ohio

DANNY K. DAVIS, Illinois

WM. LACY CLAY, Missouri

DIANE E. WATSON, California

STEPHEN F. LYNCH, Massachusetts

CHRIS VAN HOLLEN, Maryland

LINDA T. SANCHEZ, California

C.A. DUTCH RUPPERSBERGER, Maryland

BRIAN HIGGINS, New York

ELEANOR HOLMES NORTON, District of

Columbia

———

BERNARD SANDERS, Vermont

(Independent)

DAVID MARIN, Staff Director

LAWRENCE HALLORAN, Deputy Staff Director

TERESA AUSTIN, Chief Clerk

PHIL BARNETT, Minority Chief of Staff/Chief Counsel

SUBCOMMITTEE ON NATIONAL SECURITY, EMERGING THREATS, AND INTERNATIONAL

RELATIONS

CHRISTOPHER SHAYS, Connecticut, Chairman

KENNY MARCHANT, Texas

DAN BURTON, Indiana

ILEANA ROS-LEHTINEN, Florida

JOHN M. MCHUGH, New York

STEVEN C. LATOURETTE, Ohio

TODD RUSSELL PLATTS, Pennsylvania

JOHN J. DUNCAN, JR., Tennessee

MICHAEL R. TURNER, Ohio

JON C. PORTER, Nevada

CHARLES W. DENT, Pennsylvania

DENNIS J. KUCINICH, Ohio

TOM LANTOS, California

BERNARD SANDERS, Vermont

CAROLYN B. MALONEY, New York

CHRIS VAN HOLLEN, Maryland

LINDA T. SANCHEZ, California

C.A. DUTCH RUPPERSBERGER, Maryland

STEPHEN F. LYNCH, Massachusetts

BRIAN HIGGINS, New York

EX OFFICIO

TOM DAVIS, Virginia HENRY A. WAXMAN, California

R. NICHOLAS PALARINO, PH.D., Staff Director

ELIZABETH DANIEL, Professional Staff Member

ROBERT A. BRIGGS, Clerk

ANDREW SU, Minority Professional Staff Member

(III)

C O N T E N T S

Page

Hearing held on May 2, 2006 ................................................................................. 1

Statement of:

Bolton, John R., Ambassador, Permanent U.S. Representative to the

United Nations .............................................................................................. 64

Christoff, Joseph A., Director, International Affairs and Trade Team,

U.S. Government Accountability Office; Carne Ross, director, Independent Diplomat; and George A. Lopez, senior fellow and professor of

political science, the Joan B. Kroc Institute for International Peace

Studies, University of Notre Dame ............................................................. 103

Christoff, Joseph A. ................................................................................... 103

Lopez, George A. ........................................................................................ 147

Ross, Carne ................................................................................................ 124

Letters, statements, etc., submitted for the record by:

Bolton, John R., Ambassador, Permanent U.S. Representative to the

United Nations, prepared statement of ...................................................... 69

Christoff, Joseph A., Director, International Affairs and Trade Team,

U.S. Government Accountability Office, prepared statement of ............... 105

Kucinich, Hon. Dennis J., a Representative in Congress from the State

of Ohio:

H.R. 282 ..................................................................................................... 7

Prepared statement of ............................................................................... 58

Various articles .......................................................................................... 26

Lopez, George A., senior fellow and professor of political science, the

Joan B. Kroc Institute for International Peace Studies, University of

Notre Dame, prepared statement of ............................................................ 149

Ross, Carne, director, Independent Diplomat, prepared statement of ......... 127

Shays, Hon. Christopher, a Representative in Congress from the State

of Connecticut, prepared statement of ........................................................ 3

Waxman, Hon. Henry A., a Representative in Congress from the State

of California, letter dated April 15, 2004 .................................................... 92

(1)

U.N. SANCTIONS AFTER OIL-FOR-FOOD: STILL

A VIABLE DIPLOMATIC TOOL?

TUESDAY, MAY 2, 2006

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES,

SUBCOMMITTEE ON NATIONAL SECURITY, EMERGING

THREATS, AND INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS,

COMMITTEE ON GOVERNMENT REFORM,

Washington, DC.

The subcommittee met, pursuant to notice, at 10:03 a.m., in room

2154, Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. Christopher Shays

(chairman of the subcommittee) presiding.

Present: Representatives Shays, Kucinich, Van Hollen, Lynch,

and Waxman, ex officio.

Staff present: R. Nicholas Palarino, Ph.D., staff director; Robert

A. Briggs, analyst; Elizabeth Daniel, professional staff member;

Phil Barnett, minority staff director/chief counsel; Kristin

Amerling, minority general counsel; David Rapallo, minority chief

investigative counsel; Andrew Su, minority professional staff member; and Jean Gosa, minority assistant clerk.

Mr. SHAYS. A quorum being present, the Subcommittee on National Security, Emerging Threats, and International Relations

hearing entitled, ‘‘U.N. Sanctions After Oil-for-Food: Still a Viable

Diplomat Tool?’’ is called to order.

There is no guarantee United Nations management reforms will

ensure future sanctions will succeed, but the lack of management

reforms will certainly guarantee they fail.

U.N. Security Council Resolution 661 imposed comprehensive

sanctions on Iraq after the 1990 invasion of Kuwait. Over the next

4 years, proposals to ease, rather than enforce, the sanctions dominated deliberations of the 661 committee composed of all permanent and rotating Security Council members.

From its inception in 1996, the United Nations Oil-for-Food Program was susceptible to political manipulation and financial corruption. The program lacked United Nations oversight and accountability, and trusted Saddam Hussein with sovereign control

over billions of dollars of oil sales and commodity purchases. This

situation, of course, invited illicit premiums, kickbacks and other

forms of corruption.

How is a well-intentioned program designed and administered by

the world’s preeminent multinational organization so systematically and thoroughly pillaged? The answers emerging from investigations by the Volcker Commission, the Government Accountability Office and from this committee and other congressional commitVerDate 11-MAY-2000 13:51 Oct 05, 2006 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00005 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 D:\DOCS\29792.TXT HGOVREF1 PsN: HGOVREF1
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tees point to a debilitating combination of political paralysis and a

lack of oversight that metastasize behind a veil of official secrecy.

Two years ago, this subcommittee first heard how Saddam Hussein’s regime manipulated the Oil-for-Food Program. Our second

hearing addressed problems the Oil-for-Food contract inspectors

faced in dealing with both the Hussein regime and the United Nations. The third dealt with internal deliberations at the U.N. and

willful ignorance of the Security Council members toward the corruption taking place.

At today’s hearing we will consider implications of this scandal

for future U.N. sanctions.

In the wake of the Oil-for-Food program scandal we ask, how can

the U.N. be expected to properly administer future sanctions

against states such as Sudan or Iran which commit vicious crimes

against their own people and threaten international peace and stability?

Sanctions are essential measures used to maintain or restore

international peace and security. Sanctions are an alternative to

armed conflict. The penalty or price applied to a state must outweigh the advantages of wrongful behavior and lead the target

state to rescind its behavior.

No sanction program is effective unless its objectives are widely

shared and supported among key U.N. member-states. And we

have learned from the Oil-for-Food scandal oversight of any sanction program is absolutely essential.

The GAO noted the U.N. Office of Internal Oversight Services,

the Inspector General of the United Nations, must be an independent operation and autonomous. Aggressive independent oversight

ferrets out waste, abuse and fraud in huge bureaucracies and uncovers illicit activities.

Secretary General Kofi Annan, in March of this year, issued a report setting out sweeping administrative reforms. If these reforms

fail in the face of opposition, the U.N. is vulnerable to continued

scandal. If implemented, these and other reforms will lend credibility to the United Nations and its ability to enforce its sanctions regime.

We are joined today by our Permanent Representative to the

United Nations, Ambassador John Bolton, who will share his views

on prospects for U.N. management reform. We are eager to hear

his views about how sanctions worked in Iraq and how they will

work in the future, particularly in confronting the genocide in

Sudan and deterring Iran’s nuclear program.

On our second panel, the Government Accountability Office, the

former U.N. diplomat and an advisor to the U.N. will provide their

perspectives and recommendations. We look forward all their testimony.

I will just again say, Mr. Bolton, it is an honor to have you here,

and I’m going to call on the other Members for their statements.

Mr. Kucinich.

[The prepared statement of Hon. Christopher Shays follows:]

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Mr. KUCINICH. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman, for holding

this hearing.

I want to acknowledge the presence of our ranking Democrat for

the full committee, Henry Waxman, and thank him for the cooperation and honor that he has given me of my being the ranking member of this subcommittee.

Welcome, Mr. Bolton.

As you know, a few days ago, the Congress of the United States

passed H.R. 282, the Iran Freedom Support Act, which essentially

articulated structured sanctions to be imposed on Iran. I am going

to ask that this be submitted to the record as part of the presentation that I am making.

Mr. SHAYS. Without objection, so ordered.

[The information referred to follows:]

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Mr. KUCINICH. We’re at a critical moment for U.S. policy at the

United Nations, particularly regarding Iran. Just last Friday

marked the Security Council’s deadline for Iran to freeze all nuclear fuel enrichment and the beginning of an inevitable struggle

at the Security Council over what to do to contain Iran’s nuclear

ambitions.

We’ve seen this kind of struggle at the Security Council before.

The United States spent much time in 2002 pressuring the Security Council to take action against Iraq to contain its supposed

weapons of mass destruction. Finally, on November 8, 2002, the

Council approved Resolution 1441, which imposed tough new arms

inspections in Iraq and promised serious consequences to be determined by the Security Council if Iraq violated the resolution.

Even though Iraq did submit a weapons declaration and began

destroying its Al Samoud missiles as instructed by U.N. Inspector

Hans Blix, serious consequences were imposed on the country anyway.

It was the United States, however, and not the Security Council,

that determined those consequences for Iraq when President Bush

went to war against Iraq on March 20, 2003.

Experience in Iraq has proven that this administration will act

unilaterally outside the mandate of the Security Council, thereby

rendering the work of the Council almost irrelevant. At the same

time, however, experience has indicated that this administration

will use the U.N. to make its case for war to the world community.

In the coming weeks and months I think it is fairly predictable

that we will see the United States’ case for war against Iran unfold

at the U.N. I think it is highly probable that the administration

has already made the decision to go to war against Iran. There are

already U.S. troops inside Iran.

I want to repeat that: There are already U.S. troops inside Iran.

On April 14th, retired Colonel Sam Gardner related on CNN that

the Iranian ambassador to the IAEA reported to him that the Iranians have captured dissident forces who have confessed to working with U.S. troops in Iran. Earlier in the week Seymour Hersh

reported in the New Yorker that a U.S. source had told him that

the U.S. Marines were working in the Baluchis, Azeris and Kurdish regions of Iran. On April 10th, the Guardian reported that Vincent Cannistraro, a former CIA counterterrorism chief, said that

covert military action in the form of Special Forces troops identifying targets and aiding dissident groups is already under way and

that it had been authorized.

And Mr. Chairman, I have these articles that I’ve cited for the

record, if I may insert them without objection.

Mr. SHAYS. We will insert them in the record without objection.

[The information referred to follows:]

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Mr. KUCINICH. We also note from the reports that the United

States is supporting military activity in Iran by Iranian

antigovernment insurgent groups, some of which are operating

from U.S.-occupied Iraq, such as terrorist group Mujahedin-e

Khalq, MEK. An article published by Newsweek magazine on February 14, 2005, confirms cooperation between U.S. Government officials and the MEK. The article describes how, ‘‘The administration is seeking to call useful MEK members as operatives for use

against Iran.’’

Furthermore, an article by Jim Lobe published on antiwar.com

on February 11, 2005, claims that according to Philip Giraldi, a

former CIA official and source about this subject in the American

Conservative Magazine, U.S. Special Forces have been directing

members of the MEK in carrying out reconnaissance and intelligence collection in Iran since the summer of 2004.

Even a statement attributed to Ambassador Bolton, which I

would like elaboration on today, seems to confirm the U.S. policy

for Iran is war.

According to an article published April 10, 2006, in the Guardian, Ambassador Bolton told British parliamentarians that he believes military action could halt or at least set back the Iranian nuclear program by striking at its weakest point.

U.S. policy for Iran advocates regime change, not behavior

change. We should expect that even if Iran decides to negotiate

with the United States Or other Security Council members over its

nuclear program, U.S. policy promoting war in Iran will remain

steadfast. When Iraq destroyed its missiles and submitted its

weapons declaration, abiding by Security Council Resolution 1441,

the administration decided to unilaterally attack Iraq anyway. This

administration is reckless in this regard.

It is imperative that Congress exercise its oversight on the administration’s plans for war with Iran before our country is immersed in another quagmire, with more U.S. casualties, diminished

national security and a greater financial burden. I think, therefore,

this committee, this oversight committee, is privileged to have Ambassador Bolton with us here today. I have several questions for

him today regarding the administration’s plans for Iran, and I look

forward to his candid answers.

I want to thank the Ambassador for being with us, thank Chairman Shays for holding this hearing. If we’re going to determine the

effectiveness of sanctions, we also need to look at those sanctions

in tandem with the U.S. policy with respect to the use of our military. Thank you very much.

[The prepared statement of Hon. Dennis J. Kucinich follows:]

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Mr. SHAYS. I’d like to thank the gentleman.

I think, Ambassador, you know that you’re here for the Oil-forFood Program and the United Nations, but it might go in other directions; and obviously you should feel free to respond to any questions that you feel that you have knowledge about or expertise.

Mr. Waxman has told me he’d like to add 3 minutes to his 5-

minute questioning by forgoing his statement. I’ll just acknowledge

that the ranking member of the full committee is here, and then

at this time would——

Mr. WAXMAN. I just welcome Ambassador Bolton.

Good to see you.

Mr. SHAYS. And at this point, the Chair would recognize Mr.

Lynch from Massachusetts.

Welcome, Mr. Lynch.

Mr. LYNCH. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I want to thank you. I

know this is the fourth hearing we’ve had on this issue.

I also want to thank Ranking Member Waxman, and Mr.

Kucinich as well, for staying on this issue.

Mr. Ambassador, thank you for your willingness to help this subcommittee with its work. And at the outset, I’d like to say that

there have been grave disclosures in terms of our failings at the

U.N. with regard to the Oil-for-Food program. And it depends on

whose figures you follow.

GAO has estimated that $10 billion in illicit revenues, kickbacks

and so forth went to the Iraqi Government under Saddam Hussein.

As well, the Congressional Research Service determines that about

$12.8 billion went to the same regime. And there are great misgivings about our ability to use sanctions as a proper tool for

statecraft in the future.

We don’t have a whole lot of options here; we don’t have a whole

lot of tools to use in terms of an alternative to military intervention. So this causes us great concern that the United Nations, in

administering this program, in doing oversight of this program, allowed this to happen, and that perhaps it was from the very outset,

by giving Saddam Hussein so much power, we empowered his regime to choose those countries whom he would deal with; we allowed him to negotiate the price of these contracts; we put him in

a position where he was able to steal and skim from these contracts.

What we’re looking for here is an answer to the question of

whether or not, in the future, sanctions such as these in the Oilfor-Food program are at all salvageable or at all usable, and whether enough reforms have been adopted by the U.N. In light of what

has happened here with the Iraqi Oil-for-Food program; whether

those reforms will be effective to prevent the collapse that we have

seen and the tremendous cost not only on the Iraqi people, but on

U.S. taxpayers, and the U.N.’s credibility most of all.

I yield back. Thank you.

Mr. SHAYS. Thank you. I thank the gentleman.

At this time, the Chair would recognize Mr. Van Hollen.

Welcome, Mr. Van Hollen.

Mr. VAN HOLLEN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I want to thank

you for holding this hearing, and also thank Mr. Kucinich and Mr.

Waxman for their leadership.

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Welcome, Ambassador Bolton. It’s good to have you here, and I

look forward to your testimony. I’m interested in some of the issues

that have already been raised by my colleagues here, especially the

extent to which you think sanctions can be effective in the case of

Iran and Sudan.

I think experience tells us that sometimes sanctions have been

successful as a tool of foreign policy and sometimes they haven’t.

It’s been on a case-by-case basis, depending on the circumstances,

including both whether or not we’re able to get the key trading

partners of a particular country to cooperate together, and the extent—of course, the extent to which the country which we seek to

impose sanctions on, the extent to which that country is vulnerable

to sanctions and their economy.

And I guess one of the questions that I hope you will answer either in your testimony or your answers is, if we’re not successful

in the case of Iran in getting the Security Council to take some action that would authorize collective action, economic sanctions,

what are the prospects of getting a group of countries together outside that framework to impose sanctions; and how effective would

it be in the absence of an official Security Council action?

The same holds true with Sudan. If we’re unable to get sanctions

imposed on Sudan because of the reluctance of the Chinese or the

Russians—those two players are, of course, key in the Iran case as

well—how successful do you think economic sanctions could be if

you put together a so-called ‘‘coalition of the willing for sanctions’’

in the case of Sudan?

So both the case of Sudan and Iran I’m interested in, and hopefully we will get collective action at the Security Council level. But

if that fails, how effective do you think economic sanctions could

be?

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. SHAYS. I thank the gentleman.

At this time, seeing no other Members, we will invite the Honorable John R. Bolton to give testimony.

As you know, Ambassador, we swear in all our witnesses. There

is only one person we never swore in and that was Senator Byrd,

and I chickened out.

[Witness sworn.]

Mr. SHAYS. Ambassador, ordinarily we would have a 5-minute

rule, but all the Members want you to make your statement to the

extent that you want to make it, and we don’t have a clock on.

STATEMENT OF JOHN R. BOLTON, AMBASSADOR, PERMANENT

U.S. REPRESENTATIVE TO THE UNITED NATIONS

Ambassador BOLTON. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.

I would ask that my prepared statement be submitted for the

record, and perhaps I could try and make a few remarks effectively, in summary.

Mr. SHAYS. Well, with that in mind, then, let me just take care

of this business right now and ask unanimous consent that all

members of the subcommittee be permitted to place an opening

statement in the record, and the record will remain open for 3 days

for that purpose, and without objection.

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And I ask further unanimous consent that all witnesses be permitted to include their written statements in the record; and without objection so ordered.

Say whatever you would like, sir. Thank you.

Ambassador BOLTON. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.

Let me begin, if I could, by thanking you and the subcommittee

for holding this hearing. I think, Mr. Chairman, that your leadership in pursuing the implications of the Oil-for-Food scandal

through the work of the subcommittee has been critical in helping

to uncover some of the aspects of how the program was administered and, indeed, affecting even the investigation that former Federal Reserve Chairman Paul Volcker undertook. And I think it’s

been a very valuable example of effective congressional oversight,

and I welcome the fact that you’ve held this many hearings.

I hope that you and the subcommittee will continue your work

because the exposure of some of these problems, which in many respects seem technical and complex and hard to understand, I think,

is important for the American people so that Congress’ efforts to

penetrate some of these problems can be quite important.

The issue of the Iraq sanctions is something that has been a matter of concern to me for a long time; in fact, since I was Assistant

Secretary of State for International Organizations during the Bush

One administration when the Security Council adopted Resolution

661, and then a few days later adopted Resolution 665, authorizing

the use of force to ensure that Iraq complied with the sanctions.

And even after President Bush left office, I continued to watch

the development of the sanctions program and the Oil-for-Food Program as well.

So I think that this is an important case study. You don’t often

get in international affairs such a clear example of a program that

started off in one direction and that veered badly in the wrong direction and eventually ended up not only not providing the kind of

consequences that were originally envisioned for it, but actually

ended up perversely supporting Saddam Hussein’s regime and exposing the U.N. to well-justified criticism for mismanagement and

corruption.

And we start from the proposition that the President’s efforts at

reform at the U.N. are designed to fundamentally change the way

the organization operates, to make it possible for the United States

and other governments to entrust the United Nations with important responsibilities in international affairs.

Louise Frechette, the former Deputy Secretary General of the

United Nations, who just recently left office, said last year, ‘‘Personally, I hope to God we never get another Oil-for-Food program

or anything approaching that kind of responsibility.’’

Let me say, we don’t agree with Deputy Assistant Secretary

Frechette. It may well be necessary for the U.N. to administer a

complex program of sanctions in humanitarian assistance.

We’re looking now at the extension of the U.N. mission in Sudan

to the Darfur region, what will result in substantial enhancement

not only of the size of the peacekeeping operation, but in efforts to

undertake more effectively the humanitarian and relief operations

and, eventually, the reconstruction and development operations

that the Darfur region so desperately needs. We need an effectively

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functioning U.N. We need a U.N. that can handle major sanctions

programs. We need a U.N. that can carry out relief and development.

That’s why the President has laid the emphasis that he has on

reforms. So that this question of sanctions and the question of the

Oil-for-Food program are very much on the table right now; and it’s

important we understand the implications of the Oil-for-Food program scandal and what that means for the future.

And I really think that the work that Chairman Paul Volcker did

is important not only for the mismanagement and corruption that

he uncovered in the Oil-for-Food program, but the lessons and the

insights that Chairman Volcker derived from his work. And I’ve

had the occasion to speak with him several times on this subject,

and I think it’s fair to say—and I think Chairman Volcker said

publicly—when he undertook the responsibility for looking into the

Oil-for-Food program, he did not anticipate the extent of the problems that he found.

And when his commissions were concluded, he has said publicly,

testified in Congress on a couple of occasions, that he came to understand that the mismanagement and corruption that he found in

the Oil-for-Food program didn’t spring out of thin air. Just as the

Oil-for-Food program emerged from the United Nations Secretariat,

it used U.N. Secretariat employees, it followed Secretariat procedures and practices; the deficiencies of the Oil-for-Food program

really highlighted the problems that were inherent, that already

existed in the U.N. structure itself, so that the solution to Oil-forFood lay not only in how that program was run and was not carefully supervised by the United Nations, but in the basic culture of

the U.N. itself; and to prevent future Oil-for-Food scandals required fundamental change in that U.N. culture.

On one occasion, when he testified up here, a Member of Congress asked Chairman Volcker if he thought there was a culture of

corruption at the United Nations, and Mr. Volcker responded, ‘‘No,

I don’t think there is a culture of corruption, although there is corruption. I think there is a culture of inaction, a culture of inaction.’’

and I think that’s a very powerful descriptive phrase for the difficulties we see in the U.N. structure.

And not just the United States, Mr. Chairman, but Secretary

General Kofi Annan himself, who recently submitted a report to

the U.N. General Assembly called ‘‘Investing in the United Nations,’’ where he suggested a series of far-reaching management

changes in procurement systems, in personnel systems, in auditing

and accounting systems and information technology. The Secretary

General himself said that what we needed at the U.N. was a radical restructuring of the Secretariat, a refit of the entire organization to fit the tasks that member-governments were imposing upon

it.

And I think it was very significant that the Secretary General

himself, who has spent much of his career in the U.N. system, was

the one who used the phrase ‘‘radical overhaul’’ or ‘‘radical restructuring.’’

Certainly we have not agreed with each and every one of his recommendations, but we absolutely agreed with the thrust of what

he was trying to do, and in many cases, on the management side,

67

we would be prepared to go further. But I have to tell you, Mr.

Chairman, on Friday the Secretary General’s proposals for reform

suffered a significant setback in New York when the General Assembly 5th Committee—this is the committee that deals with

budget matters—adopted a resolution which, for all practical purposes, tanks the Secretary General’s reform proposals.

We opposed that. We worked with the other major contributors,

we tried to find a compromise with the Group of 77—the G–77,

which actually has 132 members—the developing countries of the

United Nations, because we wanted to support the thrust of what

the Secretary General had come up with. And many of these reforms that the Secretary General proposed were in direct response

to Paul Volcker’s reports and the investigations of this committee

and others in Congress to try to minimize the possibility in the future of the kind of mismanagement and corruption that we saw in

the Oil-for-Food.

So we were disappointed at the outcome of the vote, which was

108 in favor of this G–77 resolution, 50 against, 3 abstaining, 30

countries not voting.

It’s a very significant split between the countries that voted in

favor of the G–77 and those who voted against. The 108 countries

that voted to effectively sideline the Secretary General’s report contribute about 12 percent of the U.N. budget. The 50 countries that

voted against their resolution, the 50 countries that voted in favor

of reform, contribute 86.7 percent of the U.N. budget. So I think

the disjunction between voting power in the General Assembly and

contributions to the U.N. system have probably not been so graphically exposed in recent years.

We’re going to continue our efforts, Mr. Chairman, on management reform, and not just management reform, but program reform, reviewing the nearly 9,000 mandates that the U.N. Secretariat currently operates under, to find outdated, outmoded, ineffective, wasteful and duplicative mandates and programs, and eliminate them. Because the objective we have is to get to a point where

we could turn to the U.N. if we needed another Oil-for-Food program or needed another program of comparable size.

We have a number of other reforms that we’re pushing as well,

the deficiencies of which were also highlighted in the Oil-for-Food

scandal.

For example, we are of the view that the existing U.N. Office of

Internal Oversight Services [OIOS] which was set up at the suggestion of the United States in the early 1990’s when Dick

Thornburgh, the former Governor of Pennsylvania, was Under-Secretary-General for Management, has not been given the kind of

independence and autonomy that you in Congress understand

when you talk about an inspector general office in the Federal Government’s major departments. We think OIOS has a lot of potential, but we don’t think it has the independence or the budget that

it needs to look into the U.N. effectively.

There is a recent GAO audit of OIOS that came essentially to the

same conclusion so that the strengthening of OIOS’s independence

and reach is important. And had OIOS been as effective and as

strong as we wanted in the early 1990’s when Governor

Thornburgh recommended it, maybe they would have been able to

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look into the developing Oil-for-Food program and uncover some of

the problems and allow the U.N. to take corrective action. Unfortunately, that did not happen.

As a number of you have said in your introductory statements,

the U.N. now faces important decisions on sanctions possibly with

respect to Iran and its nuclear weapons program and its continuing

state sponsorship of terrorism around the world. We recently in the

Security Council imposed targeted sanctions on four individuals responsible for gross abuses of human rights in the Sudan, and we’re

looking at other sanctions that might be imposed to try and bring

the parties to a resolution of the conflict in Darfur.

That’s not the only course we’re pursuing. My colleague, Deputy

Assistant Secretary Bob Zoellick, flew last night to Abuja to lend

a hand to try to rescue the African Union mediation of the peace

process there. But certainly we are committed to taking action

through the United Nations to try and restore stability in Darfur

and bring security to the people there to allow the refugees and the

internally displaced persons to return to their homes in safety.

So these kind of issues are going to be with us, and I think, in

fact, Mr. Chairman, in growing importance over the next months

and years. And I think getting the U.N. to the point where it can

administer these kind of sanctions programs effectively without

mismanagement and corruption is critical and important, not only

for the reasons that we want American taxpayers’ dollars to be

spent effectively, but for the benefit of the people for whom these

sanctions and programs are carried out so that we don’t have the

anomalous result that came from the Oil-for-Food in Iraq.

So, Mr. Chairman, let me just close—and I appreciate your giving me some latitude in terms of timing—I’d be delighted to answer

the subcommittee’s questions and look forward to them.

[The prepared statement of Ambassador Bolton follows:]

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Mr. SHAYS. Thank you, Ambassador. I think the entire subcommittee appreciates your statements and is happy that you had

the time to make the points you needed to.

At this time, the Chair would recognize Mr. Kucinich as the

ranking member of this subcommittee.

Mr. KUCINICH. And thank you, Mr. Chairman. I would like to

defer to the head of our Democratic side, the ranking member on

the full committee, Mr. Waxman.

Mr. SHAYS. And as I stated earlier, Mr. Waxman, we’re putting

down 8 minutes, not 5. Hopefully, we’ll have a chance to do a little

bit of a second round as well, but we’ll see.

Mr. WAXMAN. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman, Mr.

Kucinich.

Ambassador Bolton, I’m pleased that you are here.

The hearing today is about the Oil-for-Food program, and one of

the fundamental purposes of the program was to provide food and

other necessities without giving Iraq the ability to develop weapons

of mass destruction.

The position of the Bush administration prior to the war was

that the Oil-for-Food program international sanctions and U.N. inspections had failed. We now know that President Bush made a

horrible misjudgment, he led our Nation into war on false premises. And I wanted to ask how President Bush and his administration could have been so fundamentally wrong.

Mr. Bolton, prior to becoming U.S. Representative to the U.N.

you were the Under Secretary for Arms Control and International

Security at the State Department. You were the senior advisor to

the President and to the Secretary on all arms control issues. Your

job was to, ‘‘manage global U.S. security policy principally in the

areas of nonproliferation, arms control, regional security and defense relations and arms transfers and security assistance.’’

I’d like to ask you about one of the major reasons the administration concluded that the Oil-for-Food program and related U.N. efforts were not working, namely, the administration’s claim that despite these international pressures, Iraq was nonetheless seeking

uranium from Najjar.

As you know, a National Intelligence Estimate on Iraq’s WMD

was issued in October 2002. The NIE stated that Iraq was, ‘‘vigorously trying to procure uranium,’’ from Africa. This language is

amazing, given how wrong it was and how many U.S. intelligence

officials voiced opposition at the time.

Can you tell us who actually wrote that language, who was the

specific individual who drafted the sentence?

Ambassador BOLTON. I have no idea. I’m not a member or was

not a member of the Intelligence Community. NIEs were drafted by

the Intelligence Community; I had no role whatever in the preparation of that document.

Mr. WAXMAN. OK. Let’s take a closer look at the facts.

The CIA clearly didn’t accept the Niger claim. Appearing on 60

Minutes last week, Tyler Drumheller, the head of CIA operations

in Europe, reported that he didn’t believe the claim. He also said

the CIA station chief in Rome didn’t report the allegation. Robert

Walpole, the CIA’s top weapons official, also expressed strong

doubts about the claim; and of course we know George Tenet was

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personally involved in efforts to get the White House to stop repeating the claims, pulling it from the President’s October 7th

speech in Cincinnati.

We also know that the Defense Department officials opposed it.

General Carlton Fulford, the Deputy Commander of U.S. European

Command, traveled to Niger personally and debunked the claim.

He reported his findings directly to Richard Myers, the chairman

of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. And your agency, the State Department, also opposed the claim; Secretary Powell refused to make the

claim in his speech to the U.N. General Assembly.

Given the doubts raised by all of these officials from all these different agencies, can you identify a single person anywhere in the

U.S. Government who supported the uranium claim, and if so,

who?

Ambassador BOLTON. I’m not aware of any. I think the people

read the NIE, and that was the information that was available.

Mr. WAXMAN. You were the top arms control official in the administration. Are you saying you don’t know of a single person who

supported one of the primary claims that led our Nation to war?

Ambassador BOLTON. I’m saying, Congressman, that there are

people responsible for the abrogation and presentation of intelligence information; that was done through the vehicle of the NIE

that you quoted and other products of the Intelligence Community,

and that was the information that was available to decisionmakers.

Mr. WAXMAN. So the claim came——

Ambassador BOLTON. Could I just finish, please.

Mr. WAXMAN. Yes.

Ambassador BOLTON. I don’t have a separate—and didn’t in my

previous job—have a separate intelligence capability; so the information that was provided was the information that was available.

Mr. WAXMAN. The NIE was supposed to gather information from

all the relevant agencies.

Let me turn to the United Nations. On December 7, 2002, Iraq

submitted a declaration claiming it had no weapons of mass destruction. We now know that was true. On December 19th, however, your agency, the State Department, issued a so-called ‘‘fact

sheet’’ to the United Nations stating that the Iraqi declaration, ‘‘ignores efforts to procure uranium from Niger.’’ This was the first

time the U.S. Government made the Niger claim publicly.

The press immediately jumped on it, and NBC Nightly News reported, ‘‘What could Iraq be hiding? U.S. Officials say Iraq attempted to buy uranium from Africa to procure nuclear weapons.’’

But by this time the State Department had received the actual

documents underlying the Niger claim, and your intelligence bureau was saying they were bogus. My question is why the United

States was making false claims to the United Nations; who put this

claim into the State Department fact sheet?

Ambassador BOLTON. I have no idea. I didn’t participate in the

drafting of the fact sheet. I first saw it, for the first time I believe,

last year during my confirmation hearing.

Mr. WAXMAN. Well, the fact sheet was created from a draft of the

speech to the Security Council by Ambassador Negroponte. I understand that Ambassador Negroponte, your predecessor, spoke to the

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Security Council on or around December 19th, and the fact sheet

was developed from a draft of his speech.

But what I don’t understand is why this claim was in Ambassador Negroponte’s speech to begin with. What role did you play in

preparing Ambassador Negroponte’s speech to the Security Council?

Ambassador BOLTON. None.

Mr. WAXMAN. If you were the top arms control official in the U.S.

Government, Iraq’s nuclear program was the No. 1 arms control

issue in the administration.

Are you saying you played no role in the speech, you didn’t help

draft it, you never reviewed it?

Ambassador BOLTON. That’s correct.

Mr. WAXMAN. Did you put the claim into the speech prepared for

Ambassador Negroponte?

Ambassador BOLTON. I certainly did not. I just said twice I had

no role in the preparation of the speech.

Mr. WAXMAN. OK. Did you have access to the transcript, a recording of Ambassador Negroponte’s speech?

Ambassador BOLTON. Did I have access to it? Probably. Did I

read it? I don’t think so.

Mr. WAXMAN. Could you provide to the subcommittee, as well,

the drafts of the speech that form the basis for the fact sheet? Do

you have that available?

Ambassador BOLTON. I don’t have that available.

Mr. WAXMAN. I’d like to ask you one final set of questions.

On April 9th of this year the Washington Post issued a story entitled, ‘‘A Concerted Effort to Discredit Bush Critic.’’ This article

makes an astonishing claim; it says that in January 2003 the National Intelligence Council, which coordinates the U.S. Intelligence

agencies, issued a memo that forcefully debunked the uranium

claim in unequivocal terms. Contrary to the NIE, this memo

warned that the Niger story was baseless and should be laid to rest

according to the Post.

Were you aware of the January 2003 memo from the National

Intelligence Council? Did you receive it, and can you provide a copy

to this subcommittee?

Ambassador BOLTON. I don’t know whether I received it at the

time or not. I don’t have any recollection of it. I certainly don’t have

a copy of it today.

Mr. WAXMAN. The article says that the memo was distributed

widely, including to the White House, yet it was during this exact

same timeframe that the White House escalated its use of this

false allegation.

For example, on January 20th President Bush sent a letter to

Congress that included the uranium claim. On January 23rd Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz made the claim in his speech

before the Council on Foreign Relations. Condoleezza Rice wrote an

Op-Ed making the uranium claim on January 23rd. On January

29th Defense Secretary Rumsfeld made the claim during a nationally televised press conference; and of course, the President made

the claim in his State of the Union Address on January 28th, the

now infamous 16 words.

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Again, you were the top arms control official. How could it be

that the President, the Defense Secretary, the National Security

Adviser, all of these top administration officials are making this

claim when the National Intelligence Council specifically warned it

was bogus?

Mr. SHAYS. Your answer will be your last response.

Ambassador BOLTON. I think you would have to ask them.

Mr. WAXMAN. Do you accept any responsibility for having failed

these officials for allowing them to repeat these falsehoods? This is

my last question.

Ambassador BOLTON. I don’t think anybody ever asked me

whether I thought they ought to say it or not.

I’m sorry to disappoint you, Congressman; I had no role in this

issue.

Mr. WAXMAN. You didn’t speak out against it——

Mr. SHAYS. With all due respect, the gentleman’s time is——

Mr. WAXMAN. Well, could I just get an answer?

You didn’t speak out for it; did you speak out against it?

Mr. SHAYS. The gentleman’s time is over. Thank you.

Ambassador BOLTON. I would like to answer.

I don’t recall this being an issue that I spent any time on. Sorry.

Mr. WAXMAN. It’s amazing.

Ambassador BOLTON. Sorry.

Mr. SHAYS. Mr. Bolton, obviously we’re going to have questions

about a lot of issues.

One of the things I find rather refreshing, usually when witnesses don’t want to answer questions before us, they end up

spending 5 minutes responding to each question so someone doesn’t

get a chance to ask their questions. And you gave the ranking

member a chance to go through a lot, and that’s appreciated.

Thank you.

I want to ask you, what is the reason the group of G–77 opposed

the reform agenda in your judgment? Why did they oppose it?

Ambassador BOLTON. I think there is a complex of reasons there.

I think, first, they’re concerned about the potential loss of programs

and jobs in the U.N. system that might occur if we really did have

a radical restructuring of the Secretariat. I think they’re concerned,

as well, because the exact dimensions of our reform efforts are not

entirely clear. And I think they’re concerned as a matter of allocation of political responsibility that if the major contributors to the

U.N. stick together, they might be able to reshape the programs in

a way that their mere numericals in voting power on the floor of

the General Assembly might otherwise not be able to do.

I want to tell you, though, Mr. Chairman, we believe that the reforms that we are proposing in the U.N. are for the benefit of all

of the member-governments. We think that if the U.N. were more

effective, more efficient, more transparent, more responsive, that

the United States—and I think others—would be more willing to

entrust it to important responsibilities in the solution of international problems. It’s when we see a vehicle that is not effective,

not responsive, not transparent, that we’re reluctant to entrust it

with important tasks.

So it is our intention, and we’re making substantial efforts, to try

and convince the G–77 that they should embrace these reforms,

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that they’re not just something that the United States or the other

major contributors want; and as I noted in my opening remarks,

that many of these reforms are reforms that the Secretary General

himself has proposed, so they’re hardly an American conspiracy.

Mr. SHAYS. Can you tell me, though, how are you going to be

able to convince the bulk of these nations to allow these reforms

to go forward? I mean, I’m just thinking, diplomacy is great, but

ultimately how are you going to get it done?

Ambassador BOLTON. Well, I am hoping that the vote on Friday

will be perceived by a good chunk of the G–77 to be a Pyrrhic victory; that is to say, although the arithmetic was in favor of their

resolution because of the numbers on the floor of the Fifth Committee, they will see that repudiating the countries that contribute the

overwhelming bulk of the U.N. budget isn’t a way to win friends

and influence people.

And this is something that Congress has been concerned over the

years but it is not just the American Congress, the Japanese Diat

has expressed great concern about the fact that Japan is the second

largest contributor to U.N. assessed budgets—191⁄2 percent is the

Japanese share, second only to ours of 22 percent—and yet it now

looks increasingly likely that Japan will not succeed in its efforts

to acquire a permanent seat on the U.N. Security Council. And

there are strong indications that many members of the Japanese

Diat are going to look to a downward adjustment of Japan’s share.

And other large contributors, I think, share many of these concerns. So this is something that will require a substantial amount

of advocacy on our part, but we think it’s important to, and we’re

trying to, engage in that advocacy.

Mr. SHAYS. When you talk about depoliticizing the Security

Council, what are you making reference to?

Ambassador BOLTON. Well, I think the question of reform of the

Security Council has taken up a great deal of oxygen in the U.N.

system over the past year or so, and the prospects for a change in

the permanent membership at this point do not look very substantial, although it’s certainly the position of the United States that

the permanent membership, as it now stands, reflects the world of

1945 instead of the world of 2006.

We believe that Japan, for example, should be a permanent

member of the Security Council, and we’re prepared to continue to

work for that; but the opposition of China, the opposition of other

countries have made it impossible so far to achieve that objective.

Mr. SHAYS. Let me make a point and then have you respond to

it.

In the Volcker report he said, no weapons of mass destruction in

Iraq, but he also said that Saddam had bought off France and Russia in the Oil-for-Food program, which is what we’re talking about,

and that he was absolutely convinced that we would not have their

support in providing any action against Iraq. I am struck with the

fact that we never would have because the French and the Russians were bought off. We hear France, as it relates to dealing with

the nuclear issue in Iran, say to us, they’re not going to support

sanctions if it doesn’t pass U.N. muster, which means we’ve got to

get the Russians and the Chinese to agree.

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Knowing their issue about energy, I wonder how it’s ever possible. And then I begin to think, well, you’ll never see the U.N. ever

take meaningful action on any issue.

And let me just say, it’s my understanding—and I said it in my

statement, of sanctions—if you don’t want war, if you don’t want

military actions, you’ve got to have sanctions that work.

So if you could just respond to this final question I’ve asked.

Ambassador BOLTON. Well, I think your point about the role of

sanctions is critical. If you look at the other two ends of the spectrum, one is the application of diplomatic and political measures on

one hand, use of force on the other, sanctions—which were really

developed in American political theory as a diplomatic tool by

Woodrow Wilson—provides something in the middle, something

that may give you the opportunity to exert leverage and pressure

to achieve a desired outcome short of the use of force.

And I think that, as Congressman Van Hollen said, whether

sanctions succeed or not depends on the particular facts and circumstances of a given situation. I would offer the example of Libya,

where targeted sanctions were imposed in the wake of the bombing

of Pan Am 103, which over time I think were an important contributing factor—among others to be sure—but were an important contributing factor to the Libyans to give up the pursuit of nuclear

weapons.

So the utility of sanctions—for the effect they can have on the

desired target, but also for the political support that can be gained

to show, for example, that use of force is not the first option, not

the preferred option—that you’re willing to undertake other measures short of the use of force, helps build and keep coalitions together.

Specifically with respect to Iran, it is true that there have been

statements by Russia and China that they will not accept sanctions. My own view is that as we get into the concrete drafting of

particular Security Council resolutions, we’ll see how those positions play out in fact.

And we will be turning this week, in fact, to a resolution which

we will propose under Chapter 7 of the U.N. Charter which will

make mandatory on Iran all of the existing IAEA resolutions calling on it to suspend its uranium enrichment program and so on.

A permanent member of the Security Council obviously has the option to veto such a resolution, but a permanent member also has

the option to abstain. And when a permanent member abstains,

that is acquiescing in the Security Council’s taking action, assuming there’s otherwise a majority of nine votes.

We just saw a case of that in the Sudan sanctions that I mentioned. Last week we adopted a resolution sanctioning four individuals by a vote of 12 to 0 to 3, Russia, China and Qatar abstaining,

12 votes in favor, no votes against. So Russia and China in that

case chose not to veto the imposition of sanctions by abstaining, allowing the sanctions to go into effect.

And while it would be desirable to have a unanimous Security

Council when we adopt this resolution under Chapter 7, directing

Iran to comply mandatorily with the IAEA resolutions, it’s not impossible that we would proceed without them. And if they abstain,

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then that resolution would go into effect, as would subsequent

sanctions resolutions if we get to that point.

Mr. SHAYS. Thank you.

Before recognizing Mr. Kucinich—I don’t usually do this, but two

people you know that actually work in this hearing are recorders,

and I just want to welcome Elizabeth and Dianne back; and Dianne

has had twins. Elizabeth has four children; and I just learned that

Geoffrey, her 5-year-old who plays the trumpet, is going to be on

the Today program on May 11th.

We thank you both for your work. And you’re mothers, besides

doing all of this, and they’re extraordinary children besides. And

you have to record all of this while I’m saying it, don’t you? I applaud you both. Thank you.

Thank you. And, Mr. Kucinich, you have the floor.

Thank you.

And Mr. Kucinich, you have the floor.

Mr. KUCINICH. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and thank you for injecting a note of humanity into these hearings because it is always

good to get the personal connections. So thank you.

Ambassador, thanks again for being here. You spoke of Woodrow

Wilson and his view of sanctions as being kind of a midpoint. And

we are here talking about the effectiveness of sanctions.

I am wondering about the effectiveness of sanctions if a series of

steps have already been taken that leapfrog past what sanctions

could hope to achieve.

Question, if the United States is engaging in covert anti-government activity in Iran, is this legal under U.N. law?

Ambassador BOLTON. Well, U.N. doesn’t impose law, and in any

event, it is not appropriate to comment in a public session on anything related to intelligence activities, and so with respect, I will

simply decline to discuss that. It is not anything I would have anything to do with. Any way, my job is in New York.

Mr. KUCINICH. If the United States has combat troops in Iran,

would that be a violation of the U.N. charter?

Ambassador BOLTON. Congressman, I have no knowledge of that

subject at all, and I just don’t think it is helpful to speculate on

that matter. If there are others in the administration you would

like to talk to on it, I am sure you could summon them, but it is

not anything I am involved with in any way.

Mr. KUCINICH. And what would be a legal justification for one

sovereign country to insert its military forces into another sovereign country under U.N. law?

Ambassador BOLTON. Article 51 of the U.N. Charter provides for

the inherent right of individual and collective self-defense. That is

a pretty good basis.

Mr. KUCINICH. I will ask that again, for one sovereign country

to insert its military forces into another sovereign country?

This is not self-defense.

Ambassador BOLTON. Well, I think the self-defense defense, as

the Secretary General’s high level panel a few years ago recognized, comes in a multitude of forms. And you asked a hypothetical

question, and I gave you an answer——

Mr. KUCINICH. Hypothetically it is preemption self-defense.

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Ambassador BOLTON. It certainly can be. Absolutely, as the Secretary General’s own high-level panel recognized.

Mr. KUCINICH. Then is Iran an imminent threat to the United

States?

Ambassador BOLTON. Congressman, you know, the President has

made it clear that his purpose and his priority is to achieve a

peaceful and diplomatic resolution to the threat to international

peace and security imposed by the Iranian nuclear weapons program. He has said repeatedly, as has Secretary Rice, that, of

course, we never take any option off the table. But the priority that

we are addressing now and certainly, my responsibility is diplomacy in the Security Council.

Mr. KUCINICH. Do you know of a Presidential National Security

Directive on regime change in Iran?

Ambassador BOLTON. I do not.

Mr. KUCINICH. When did you become aware that regime change

in Iran was U.S. policy?

Ambassador BOLTON. I don’t think that is an accurate statement

of the policy. I think Secretary Rice testified before Congress I

guess it was some months ago now that we were requesting a $75

million increase in support to an aggregate level of $85 million for

activities supporting democracy in Iran. And I think that is the ultimate objective we seek, a free and democratically elected regime

in Iran that we could hopefully persuade to give up the pursuit of

nuclear weapons.

Mr. KUCINICH. We have seen a report in the New Yorker by Seymour Hersh that a U.S. source told him that U.S. Marines were operating in the Baluchis, Azeris and Kurdish regions of Iran. Have

you ever heard of that report?

Ambassador BOLTON. I have never heard of the report. I have

never read the article, nor do I intend to.

Mr. KUCINICH. Do you have an interest as to whether or not—

as the U.S. Ambassador, you don’t have any interest as to whether

or not U.S. Marines are actually operating in Iran right now?

Ambassador BOLTON. I said I had not heard of the report, and

I didn’t intend to read the article in the New Yorker.

Mr. KUCINICH. If I give you this article right now and walked it

over right now, would you look at it?

Ambassador BOLTON. I don’t think so honestly, Congressman, because I don’t have time to read much fiction.

Mr. KUCINICH. Well, you know, now if it wasn’t fiction, Mr.

Bolton, would that be of interest to you?

Ambassador BOLTON. Congressman, it is of interest to me to be

as fully informed on matters affecting my responsibilities in the

government as I can. I have no responsibility for the matters you

are talking about, and I think that there is a lot of unfounded speculation. The President has been as clear as he can be that his priority is a peaceful and diplomatic resolution of the Iranian nuclear

weapons program. And that is the direction I am trying to carry

out in New York.

That is my job.

Mr. KUCINICH. Well, wait a minute, Mr. Ambassador. We know

U.S. troops are in Iran. How does this affect your negotiations?

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Ambassador BOLTON. Well, Congressman, you know more than I

do. That is all I can say.

Mr. SHAYS. Here’s what we are going to do. We are going to go

to Mr. Lynch.

Mr. Lynch.

Mr. LYNCH. I am sorry, Mr. Chairman?

Mr. SHAYS. You have the floor. Thank you.

Mr. LYNCH. Thank you. Thank you.

Mr. Ambassador, if I could followup, first on Mr. Waxman’s questions. As he has stated, prior to becoming the U.S. Representative

to the United Nations, you were the under Secretary for Arms Control and International Security at the State Department. You were

the senior adviser to the President and to the secretary on all arms

control issues. Your job was to manage global U.S. security, principally in the areas of nonproliferation, arms control, regional security and defense relations, and arms transfer and security assistance.

Now, I accept your previous answers that you had no involvement with the Niger uranium purchase theory, but given your job

description, given the sphere of your responsibility, I find it stunning that you were, I believe, you were, just as you say, out of the

loop with all those responsibilities that you have in advising in

President; that he came to the American people and basically presented his theory, which we now know is false, that Saddam was

trying to buy uranium from Niger. I just find, again, it stunning

you were not in the loop. I believe you. I believe that you have no

culpability in that theory.

But I also think that the opposite side of the coin is equally

damning, that you were excluded from all of that given your responsibilities. Do you tend to agree with that? Do you see what I

am saying?

Ambassador BOLTON. No, I don’t think I was excluded from anything. I think that the questions that Congressman Waxman was

asking dealt with issues of intelligence collection and analysis. And

in that sense, I was a consumer, not a producer. My job was not

part of the Intelligence Community; it was not part of my responsibility.

Mr. LYNCH. Well, I beg to differ, sir, with all due respect. And

I think this goes to Mr. Kucinich’s questions as well, that with respect to the theory, again, or the supposition that we may have

U.S. troops operating in Iran.

Now, I don’t think you should take anything at face value in any

periodical. However, I do suggest very strongly that you have an

obligation to inform yourself. And I just came back from Iraq last

Sunday. And let me just leave it at that, that I do believe you have

an obligation to inform yourself.

Ambassador BOLTON. I agree.

Mr. LYNCH. And I don’t think that you should, on an issue of

such great importance and given your position, that you should

deny the opportunity to at least weigh that evidence and weigh

that information, sir.

Basically, one of the main criticisms of the sanctions issue, if we

can get back to that, is that there are no guidelines, no firm standards by which we implement. There is some information and are

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some guidelines on the authorization of sanctions, but at the implementation stage, there has been great criticism about how we carry

those out and the relationships between the Secretariat and also

with governments and the legal relations between those.

Have you made recommendations or do you have solid recommendations that would coincide with what Secretary General

Annan is recommending to the U.N. that might solve that problem?

Ambassador BOLTON. Well, I think one of the difficulties with the

sanctions regime on Iraq in the aftermath of the cease-fire in 1991

was that attention, international attention, drifted away from the

enforcement of the sanctions regime. And that occurred during the

1990’s. That was a problem that the United States was partially

responsible for, that it simply did not receive as high priority as it

had in an earlier period.

And I think that is a central element of the question of the utility of sanctions once applied, in other words, that the imposition

of sanctions in the first instance ought to have an objective and a

purpose, and there ought to be ways of trying to evaluate whether

the sanctions remain effective or whether they have ceased their

usefulness. And I can give you an example of that in the U.S. context, not U.N. sanctions but U.S. sanctions. After India and Pakistan tested nuclear weapons in 1998, the United States imposed a

variety of trade sanctions on both countries.

And I can tell you that by the early part of the summer of 2001,

what was then the relatively new Bush administration had come

to the conclusion that the sanctions that had been in place against

India and Pakistan were not having any effect, that the governments of India and Pakistan manifestly were not going to give up

the nuclear weapons they had acquired and that the sanctions that

we had put in place were impeding our ability to discuss with both

India and Pakistan not only the issue of their nuclear capability

but a range of other issues as well, so that actually, even before

September 11th, but then shortly thereafter, the decision was made

to lift the sanctions because they weren’t effective.

That is at least an example. But I don’t think you can write hard

and fast rules. I do think that the sanctions in the case of most policy tools depend on the environment in which they are imposed and

so on.

But I do think that having a better, a greater clarity and objections when sanctions are imposed and greater rigor in analyzing

their effectiveness during their lifetime would be a sensible thing

to do.

Mr. SHAYS. Just a quick followup.

Mr. LYNCH. Just one very quick followup. Based on what the Secretary General is recommending in his reform package that was defeated last Friday, how closely on a scale of 1 to 10, how closely

does his reforms—I know you have said you would go further—but

how closely does he come to where you would like to see him in

terms of those reforms?

Ambassador BOLTON. In terms of what he recommended in his

report, ‘‘Investing in the United States,’’ I can say this roughly, I

think between 80 and 90 percent of those suggestions are things

that we would agree with. As you indicated, we would probably go

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further in some cases, but in terms of the utility of what he had

suggested, we are with him on a very high percentage.

Mr. LYNCH. OK, thank you very much.

Mr. SHAYS. Thank the gentleman.

Mr. Van Hollen.

Mr. VAN HOLLEN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Thank you, Mr. Ambassador, for your testimony.

I believe that the fact that the United States thumbed its nose

at the United Nations in the leadup to the war in Iraq and the decision to go to war in Iraq without going back and getting greater

authorization consensus to the U.N. process has made it more difficult to persuade others that the United Nations must now take

collective action with respect to Iran.

I also think the fact that we lost a tremendous amount of credibility with respect to claims about weapons of mass destruction

when it turned out not to be weapons of mass destruction has

made it more difficult with respect to Iran.

I would just take us back to one of your predecessors, Ambassador Adlai Stevenson, at the time of the Cuban missile crisis who

unveiled with great drama the fact that the Soviets were putting

missiles into Cuba, and it turned out to be true.

And I would contrast that with Secretary Powell’s performance

in the United Nations with your predecessor, Ambassador

Negroponte, where he displayed evidence against Iraq which he

has conceded turned out to be false and which, I think, has undermined our credibility in a significant way. And Secretary Powell

has acknowledged that this was one of the low points of his career.

The President has acknowledged himself that the failure to find

weapons of mass destruction despite our earlier comments and evidence has made it more difficult in this area to persuade others because of a greater skepticism which he said is understandable. If

you could talk a little bit about how that has affected your efforts

at the United Nations. The President has acknowledged the issue.

What steps have you had to take to reassure your colleagues, and

how much has this been a problem?

Ambassador BOLTON. Well, first, I don’t think it is accurate to

say that the United States thumbed its nose at the Security Council before launching the operation that overthrew Saddam Hussein.

In the first place, there was no need to go to the U.N. even to

obtain Resolution 1441. It is perfectly clear that Iraq’s persistent

violations of the cease-fire resolution, Resolution 678, renewed the

authority—Resolution 687 rather—renewed the authority of Resolution 678 to use force, so that in terms of—because when a participant in a cease-fire resolution, acknowledging it as Iraq did repeatedly, violates, vitiates the force of the cease-fire, so there is no need

under Security Council precedent or authority to go back even for

1441.

But second, and as you quoted the phrase, serious consequences

if Iraq didn’t comply with 1441, there wasn’t a country in that

room that didn’t know what serious consequences meant.

So in terms of whatever obligations we had under Security Council previously existing resolutions or current practice, there is no

doubt that we did what was necessary. And the only tragedy there

is that the Security Council itself didn’t follow through to enforce

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its own resolutions, because if the Security Council doesn’t care

about the integrity of its resolutions, you can be sure nobody else

will.

Second, on the issue of weapons of mass destruction, you know

I think one of the, in Iraq, one of the most important aspects of

the conclusion that Saddam Hussein still had weapons of mass destruction came not from intelligence but from Iraq itself.

In 1991, under the terms of Resolution 687 Iraq was required to

make——

Mr. VAN HOLLEN. Mr. Ambassador, I promise I have limited

time. And listen—listen——

Ambassador BOLTON. I will give an answer.

Mr. SHAYS. Let me say this to you, I will let you have more time.

Mr. VAN HOLLEN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Ambassador BOLTON. Iraq was required to make a declaration of

WMD assets that they had. And one of the declarations that Saddam made in 1991 was declaration of a considerable amount of

chemical agent, chemical weapons agent.

The terms of 687 required that, under the supervision of

UNSCOM, the first, Iraq was required to prove the destruction of

the weapons it had declared.

And during the entire period from 1991 forward to 2002, Iraq

never proved it had destroyed the chemical weapons agent that it

declared.

Hans Blix, the chairman of UNMOVIC, the second U.N. weapons

investigation, went to the Iraqis, and as he has recounted the story

himself, he said, where is the proof that you have destroyed the

chemical agent that you have declared? And the Iraqis said, well,

we destroyed it; we just didn’t keep any records of it. Hans Blix

said to the Iraqis in his own recounting of the story, that stuff isn’t

marmalade. If you destroyed it, you have records of it. And the

Iraqis never produced records.

This was deemed sufficiently credible by our military and by

other of our coalition military leaderships that when they went into

Iraq, the forces took with them chemical weapons protective gear.

That was a decision that—that gear is hot. It is heavy. It is cumbersome. No responsible military leader would have burdened their

combat troops with that equipment unless they had thought that

the potential use of chemical agents was significant.

Mr. VAN HOLLEN. Mr. Chairman, with all due respect, I had a

specific question.

Mr. SHAYS. We haven’t forgotten your question yet. The gentleman has 2 minutes. Go for it.

You have time.

Mr. VAN HOLLEN. Let me quickly respond. I asked, the President

himself has acknowledged in statements that our failure to find

WMD in Iraq has created more difficulties with respect to persuading other countries with respect to Iran. He has said it, and Mr.

Bolton just gave us a long talk. The fact of the matter is, El

Baradei and Hans Blix, before we went to war in Iraq, both of

them urged the United States to take greater time to allow the

U.N. weapons inspectors to make a determination about whether

or not weapons of mass destruction existed. We decided to ignore

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that request for additional time. And the result in the end was we

know there were no weapons of mass destruction.

Now, I am very pleased you have mentioned the fact with the

earlier resolutions, 678 and 687, because before we went into Iraq

on the eve of the invasion, the President did cite those two resolutions. And he said the United States and our allies are authorized

to use force in ridding Iraq of weapons of mass destruction. This

is not a question of authority; it is a question of will, which is the

argument you were just making.

Now, we are currently trying to get the United Nations to act

under Chapter 7 Security Council with respect to Iran. Chapter 7

is the provision under the U.N. charter, action with respect to

threats to the peace, breaches to the peace and acts of aggression.

I would submit to you, Mr. Ambassador, that one of the reasons

it is very difficult now to get the support of these countries in the

Security Council is their fear that we will later use that Security

Council resolution as a justification to use military force perhaps

unilaterally. And you have just referenced two incidences where

the President did that.

Let me ask you, if the United Nations Security Council were to

invoke Chapter 7 with respect to sanctions against Iran, can you

give them assurance that the United States will not later rely on

that resolution to take unilateral military action against Iran?

Ambassador BOLTON. The purpose of invoking——

Mr. VAN HOLLEN. I would appreciate if you answer the questions

directly related to your duties as our Ambassador.

Ambassador BOLTON. That is why I like to get it straight what

Chapter 7 does. And I would refer to you Article 39 of the U.N.

Charter which states that it is the Security Council’s responsibility

to ascertain whether there is a threat or a breach of international

peace and security and to make recommendations to deal with that

threat.

The Iranian nuclear weapons program is unquestionably a threat

to international peace and security, as we have been urging for

over 3 years now to have the International Atomic Energy Agency

refer the Iranian program to the Security Council. That is something that the Security Council in its March Presidential statement

unanimously agreed that it was time to call on Iran to comply with

those IAEA resolutions. And it is the subject of the Chapter 7 resolution that we are urging now on the Security Council.

The reason to urge a Chapter 7 resolution is that, under the U.N.

Charter, a Chapter 7 resolution is mandatory on all U.N. members,

mandatory even on Iran, whether it likes it or not as long as it is

a U.N. member. The purpose of Chapter 7 therefore is not to lay

the basis necessarily for any further action, peaceful action, sanctions action or the use of force. It is to make it mandatory on the

government of Iran. And that is the purpose of it right now.

We are going to do this one resolution at a time.

Mr. VAN HOLLEN. Mr. Chairman, if I could just get an answer

to the question, which is—look, I referenced the earlier resolution,

U.N. resolutions the President relied on to take military action in

Iraq. I would suggest that one of the reasons it is going to be difficult to get the consensus we want to take it to the Security Council for economic sanctions is the fear that the United States will

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later point to that as justification for unilateral military action. I

am wondering if you are able to tell the Chinese and the Russians

and the others that we will not point to that action of the Security

Council with respect to sanctions as justification later on for unilateral U.S. Military action.

Ambassador BOLTON. Your question contains a non sequitur

which is why it is not possible to answer, but I would say what is

significant in the Council today is that the United States, France

and Britain are together on this; Russia and China are not yet. But

I don’t think any of us would advocate—I hope not—that Russia

and China would dictate the steps we ought to take to protect our

own national security.

Mr. VAN HOLLEN. I am certainly not suggesting that, Mr. Ambassador. I am asking you if that is the element that is making it

more difficult to get consensus because of the earlier way we dealt

with the Security Council.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. SHAYS. And thank you, Mr. Ambassador, you have been here

about an hour and 20 minutes. Do you have 10 more minutes?

Ambassador BOLTON. I am having fun, Mr. Chairman. I can

spend a few more minutes.

Mr. SHAYS. Why don’t we do this, Mr. Kucinich, why don’t I give

you 3 minutes, and then, I am following the order, I am trying to

be respectful of the process.

Mr. KUCINICH. I would certainly yield to Mr. Waxman in a heartbeat.

Mr. WAXMAN. Thank you, Mr. Kucinich, and Mr. Chairman.

Mr. Bolton, it was interesting, your response to Congressman

Van Hollen’s question, because you went through a lot of legalisms

of why we were justified in taking the action we did to enforce the

U.N resolutions where the U.N. didn’t care enough to enforce it

themselves. But we do have a credibility problem, and that is that

we went to war not for the U.N. to enforce U.N. resolutions but to

stop Iraq from developing weapons of mass destruction.

I must tell you, I voted for that resolution, because I deferred to

the administration when they said that Iraq had been a nuclear

threat.

I want to clarify your answers to my question because you said,

despite the fact you were the top arms control official in the administration, you were not involved in the preparation of the December

19, 2002, State Department fact sheet in which the administration

first made public the uranium claim. You also testified you had no

involvement whatsoever in the development of the December 19th

speech by Negroponte in which the fact sheet was based. I understand from the Department of State, State Department Inspector

General, however, that your office was deeply involved in both the

preparation of the fact sheet and the Negroponte speech. Was it

true that your office, specifically the nonproliferation bureau, was

involved in the preparation of the Negroponte speech?

Ambassador BOLTON. They may well have been. I should explain

to you, Congressman, that when I was under secretary, I had four

separate bureaus reporting to me. They did a lot of staff work on

a lot of issues that never came to my attention and appropriately

so. I couldn’t do all the work of the 600 people who reported to me.

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Mr. WAXMAN. So you had no involvement in the draft of a speech

to the United Nations claiming that the reason we need to be concerned about Iraq was because they were trying to get uranium to

build a nuclear bomb. You also testified you had no involvement in

the preparation of the fact sheet. And I have here, however, a

timeline prepared by the State Department IG, and here what is

it says, December 18, 2002, 8:30 a.m. at Secretary Powell’s morning

staff meeting, the assistant secretary for the Bureau of Public Affairs and department spokesman asked the under secretary of arms

control and international security—you—for help in developing a

response to Iraq’s December 7th declaration to the U.N. Security

Council that could be used with the press.

The Under Secretary Bolton agrees and tasks to the Bureau of

Nonproliferation, and so according to the IG, your office subsequently reviewed multiple drafts of the facts sheet, and I would

like to make this time line part of the record of this hearing Mr.

Chairman.

Mr. SHAYS. Without objection so ordered.

[The information referred to follows:]

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94

95

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Mr. WAXMAN. Your testimony in response to my initial round of

questions was that you had no involvement, but this Inspector

General review finds that you did. How can you explain this?

Ambassador BOLTON. The question that was put to me by Richard Boucher was, should this fact sheet be drafted by the Bureau

of International Organization Affairs or the Bureau of Nonproliferation Affairs. And I suggested it be prepared by the NP Bureau, which is, I think, had greater technical knowledge of what

would be or what would not be in the Iraqi declaration.

But that was a matter——

Mr. WAXMAN. That wasn’t the question I asked. I asked you if

you were involved at all——

Ambassador BOLTON. I had no involvement. I had no involvement myself in the preparation of the fact sheet.

Mr. SHAYS. The gentleman’s time has expired, but if some other

Member wants to yield.

Mr. WAXMAN. May I say one concluding comment, Mr. Chairman,

you have been generous——

Mr. SHAYS. Would the gentleman suspend a second? I am happy

to have one of your other colleagues lend you their 3 minutes. I

have no problem with that.

Mr. WAXMAN. Mr. Chairman, I would like to make one concluding comment.

Mr. SHAYS. OK, if that is all it is.

Mr. WAXMAN. It isastounding to me that you were in charge of

this job, and you said before that you take that responsibility to be

fully informed on matters that affect your duties. That is why you

don’t bother to read the column that Mr. Kucinich——

Ambassador BOLTON. Seymour Hersh.

Mr. WAXMAN. Seymour Hersh wrote. But you are in charge of

your own duties. When you are in charge of arms control and the

biggest issue is whether we are going to go to war against Iraq on

the issue of nuclear weapons, and you are charged with developing

the fact sheet, and your people are charged, you are charged, and

therefore your people develop the speech, don’t you think you have

some responsibility to know what was going on?

Ambassador BOLTON. The speech was written by and for Ambassador Negroponte. And as I say, at the staff level in the State Department, lots of things get cleared by lots of people.

I don’t clear all of the Ambassadors. I didn’t clear—I believe, any

of Ambassador Negroponte’s speeches, and I think there are probably hundreds of people in the State Department today who don’t

clear any of my speeches that I give. Let me finish.

Mr. WAXMAN. You are not accepting responsibility for what’s

going on under your inspection.

Mr. SHAYS. Mr. Waxman, one last point, and you are just going

on. I am happy to have someone else yield to you. If Mr. Kucinich

wants to yield, or Mr. Lynch whatever——

Mr. WAXMAN. Mr. Chairman, I made my point. We will keep

strict track of the time you use as well.

Ambassador BOLTON. I want to say, Congressman, I wish I could

explain to you more comprehensively how the State Department

works, because I think your questions reveal that perhaps you

would benefit from that information.

97

Mr. WAXMAN. No, my questions are about what you did as the

boss of the department that was supposed to be in charge of arms

control which was directly involved in the biggest issue of our time,

nuclear war.

Ambassador BOLTON. The biggest disappointment to you, Congressman, is that I had no involvement. I am sorry about that.

Mr. WAXMAN. You didn’t do your job.

Mr. SHAYS. Ambassador, I thank you for being here. And I thank

the Members for their questions.

Mr. Kucinich you have 3 minutes.

Mr. KUCINICH. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. Ambassador, you previously equated U.N. Article 51 the

right of self-defense with the doctrine of pre-emption.

We know that Article 51 says in measures taken by members in

the exercise of this right of self-defense shall be immediately reported to the Security Council.

Has the United States notified the Security Council that the

United States has begun an operation against Iran?

Ambassador BOLTON. There is no notification that has been

given, but by saying that, I don’t want to leave any implication

that there is some operation that we haven’t reported because I

think to the extent that is implied in your question, it is inaccurate.

Mr. KUCINICH. Do you agree that the United States would have

an obligation as stated under Article 51 that if the United States

had inserted combat troops in Iran or coordinated anti-Iranian insurgent groups like MEK to notify the Security Council——

Ambassador BOLTON. I am not going to speculate on something

that is entirely hypothetical.

Mr. KUCINICH. If the United States has troops in Iran, would

Iran be justified in invoking article 51?

Ambassador BOLTON. I’m not going to speculate on that either.

Mr. KUCINICH. Now I want to get this straight for members of

the subcommittee. The Ambassador can’t comment about troops in

Iran. He can’t talk about troops in Iran, or he has no knowledge

of troops in Iran. And he calls Mr. Hersh’s article and of inserting

troops in Iran, fiction. Mr. Ambassador, which is it? Are there

troops in Iran and you can’t talk about it, or are there no troops

in Iran?

Ambassador BOLTON. I have no knowledge one way or the other

of that subject nor is it appropriate. I work at the State Department, not the Defense Department.

Mr. KUCINICH. Can you say, Ambassador Bolton—according to a

report in the Guardian newspaper in early April, you told British

Parliament you believe military action could halt or at least set

back the Iranian nuclear program. Are you confident that U.S. intelligence on Iran is comprehensive and sufficient to accurately target the Iranian nuclear program? Do we know where? How much

with certainty?

Ambassador BOLTON. The report was inaccurate.

Mr. KUCINICH. What report? You’re saying this never happened?

You never said that?

Ambassador BOLTON. That’s correct.

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Mr. KUCINICH. Well, let me ask you this, are you confident that

we have the information that we need to be able to ratchet up the

conflict with Iran?

Ambassador BOLTON. I think that there are many aspects of the

Iranian nuclear weapons program and the Iranian ballistic missile

program that we don’t know about. And I think that is something

that shouldn’t give us comfort. It should increase our level of concern about the extent to which the Iranians have, in fact, accomplished their efforts to master the entire nuclear fuel cycle and to

derive and to develop ballistic missile capability of longer and

longer range and greater and greater accuracy.

Mr. KUCINICH. Are you familiar with the report that Iranians

captured dissident forces who confess to working with U.S. troops

in Iran? Have you had any discussions with anyone about the presence of U.S. troops in Iran? Have you heard any complaints about

it? Has anybody asked you about it? Do you have any interest in

it?

Ambassador BOLTON. I certainly have interest in it. With respect

to every other question I have been asked, I have only ever heard

it from you today.

Mr. SHAYS. Mr. Lynch has the floor.

Mr. LYNCH. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, Mr. Ambassador, I just

want to go over a distinction that we have had here today in this

discussion.

As I said before, you did make it very clear that you had no involvement in drafting the H.R. and the fact sheet, for Mr.

Negroponte.

However, as my team member, Mr. Waxman, pointed out, there

is a State Department Inspector General memo that indicates that

you tasked your staff, the Bureau of Nonproliferation, to participate in the preparation. So was the distinction here that you didn’t

do it personally, but that your staff actually helped with the fact

sheet or the remarks by Mr. Negroponte?

Ambassador BOLTON. If I could make two comments on that. No.

1, I don’t think I actually followed through and asked the Nonproliferation Bureau to do that. I think ultimately the Bureau of

Public Affairs asked them to do it.

Second, in terms of the relationship between Under Secretaries’

bureaus at the State Department, the four Assistant Secretaries

that reported to me also reported directly to the Secretary and the

Deputy Secretary. So I wouldn’t in any way call them my office.

They were independent bureaus that had their own reporting

chain to the Secretary. They were under my general supervision,

but as is the case with all Under Secretaries and this may be a

striking comment on the management of the State Department, but

I never considered those bureaus my office.

In any event, I didn’t see the fact sheet until well after it was

prepared.

Mr. LYNCH. I have limited time so I think you have

answered——

Ambassador BOLTON. And it was a fact sheet suppressed——

Mr. LYNCH. I have limited time. I think you have answered. So

even though they are under your supervision for all intents and

purposes, you are saying they weren’t under your control and that

99

this was done without your knowledge—do you see the irony here

Mr. Ambassador? Do you see the irony here? We are trying to induce accountability with the U.N.

We are trying to tell Kofi Annan to get his act together and to

take responsibility, and to be accountable, and yet, here we are on

this merry-go-round about, you have people under your supervision, but they are not under your control, and it is just under circumstances that would require very close scrutiny and supervision,

this is an issue of major U.S. policy.

Ambassador BOLTON. Preparation of a fact sheet, Congressman,

is not a major issue of U.S. policy. This was a staff level

function——

Mr. LYNCH. When we are making much decisions whether or not

to go to war because Iraq is trying to acquire nuclear weapons; that

is a major issue.

Ambassador BOLTON. Congressman. Congressman, this was not

a policy issue of any significance. It was the preparation of a fact

sheet to hand to the press about the Iraqi declaration of their

weapons.

Mr. LYNCH. They were try trying to persuade the Congress to approve the War Powers Act. That was what this is about.

Mr. SHAYS. Mr. Van Hollen, the gentleman’s time has expired.

Mr. Ambassador, Mr. Van Hollen will have 3 minutes. I will have

3 minutes. And thank you for spending so much time with us.

Mr. VAN HOLLEN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Thank you Mr. Ambassador. I would just point out that fact

sheet was the first time where the United States publicly made the

claim that Iraq was seeking uranium from——

Ambassador BOLTON. I thought you actually said a moment ago

or maybe Mr. Kucinich did that the fact sheet was based on Ambassador Negroponte’s statement.

Mr. VAN HOLLEN. First of all, Mr. Ambassador, I did not say

that. I don’t know who said that. But I did not say that. But my

question to you, if I could just get back to my earlier question, with

respect to the President’s statement where he acknowledged that

the fact that we didn’t find weapons of mass destruction in Iraq

created some credibility issues with respect to claims the United

States has made with their intelligence. Yes or no? Have you seen

any evidence of that in your discussions with your colleagues at the

United Nations?

Ambassador BOLTON. I think some people have raised it. I think

they are some of the same people who would object to doing what

is necessary on Iran in any case, and I would say that, in fact, most

of the information that is under consideration before the Security

Council now on Iran has been disclosed in publicly available reports from the International Atomic Energy Agency.

Mr. VAN HOLLEN. Let me ask the question I raised in my opening statement: I hope we are successful in getting the Security

Council to take actions and impose economic sanctions against

Iran.

If we are not successful in getting U.N. Security Council to do

that, how successful could we be, would we be able to exert any leverage if you put together a group of nations outside the U.N. SeVerDate 11-MAY-2000 13:51 Oct 05, 2006 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00103 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 D:\DOCS\29792.TXT HGOVREF1 PsN: HGOVREF1
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curity Council action to take economic, impose economic sanctions

against Iran, or is that really a nonstarter?

Ambassador BOLTON. I think that would be critical if when we

get to the point of trying to have the Council adopt targeted sanctions against Iran, if we were not successful in getting the extent

and scope of the sanctions that we wanted, if we were faced with

a veto by one of the permanent members, if for whatever reason

the Council couldn’t fulfill its responsibilities, then I think it would

be incumbent on us, and I am sure we would press ahead, to ask

other countries or other groups of countries to impose those sanctions because the—for one thing, the Iranians have been very effective at deploying their oil and natural gas resources to apply leverage against countries to protect themselves from precisely this kind

of pressure. In the case of countries with large and growing energy

demands like India, China and Japan, the Iranians are trying to

induce them to make extensive capital investments, such as Japan

in the Azadegan oil field. It would make it very difficult for those

countries or other countries similarly situated to do what they otherwise would do on a major proliferation question.

Mr. VAN HOLLEN. And with respect to Sudan, if we are unable

to get the Security Council to take further action against Sudan,

I am glad they took the action they did against the four Sudanese

Government officials, but if we are not able to get the Security

Council to take other collective action against Sudan, whatever

form it might take, to what extent is the United States going to

work to put together a coalition of nations that would do so?

Ambassador BOLTON. Well, I think this is certainly something I

would have to look at. We have relied on the request of the African

Union, and I think the overwhelming international opinion, we

have relied on the mediation efforts of Salim Salim ina BUJ JA to

try and work out a peace agreement among the government of

Sudan, the three major rebel groups and others.

Now, that target date for the completion of the Abuja agreement

was Sunday, April 30th. And I think, as everybody knows, it has

been extended for a couple days, Deputy Secretary Zoellick has

flown out there. It looks to be in difficult straits, but we will have

to see what happens. And I think the question of what we do next

is in part dependent on the outcome. And I don’t want to give you

an overly long answer, but there are three possible outcomes to

Abuja. One is a peace agreement that the parties comply with fully.

The second is a peace agreement that most comply with but some

do not. And the third is either no agreement or an agreement that

everybody signs and nobody complies with.

The circumstances of what we would do in terms of the U.N.

peacekeeping mission in Darfur and the delivery of humanitarian

assistance depend critically on which environment we are talking

about.

So we have been pushing the U.N. Department of Peacekeeping

Operations to do contingency planning for all of those potential outcomes so that whichever it turns out to be, we are not slowed down

in our efforts to effect a transition, rapid transition between the African Union mission in Darfur and the U.N. mission we expect to

follow.

101

Mr. SHAYS. Thank you. I am going to claim my time and just to

one, to thank you Ambassador Bolton.

Ambassador, you described the dysfunction of the U.N. before

anyone else did.

And now I think most people recognize it. You’ve been tremendously criticized over the years for doing that. I want to just say

as one Member of Congress, I appreciate it. You are just being

straightforward, and the irony is that now you want to reform the

U.N.; some people say you want to destroy it.

You know, you want the system to work properly. And we have

had a golden opportunity to which I think we have used some of

it well, to understand the significance as it relates to Iran and

Sudan, if people don’t want military force to be used, you have to

be able to depend on sanctions.

And I am struck by the fact though that you can never take off

the table military force.

I wish President Carter had not said we will not use military

force to have Iran free the diplomats it took as hostages. What an

outrage to have taken diplomats. They must have said, America,

what a country. The bottom line is you had President Reagan come

in and just say the truth. Something you might have said. He said

taking diplomats is an act of war, and we will treat it as such. He

didn’t say what he would do. And the diplomats were returned. I

happen to believe the Libyan president saw what happened to Saddam and said, you know what, I like diplomacy. But he knew behind there was the potential that he could have been replaced.

So I happen to believe you can never take off the table your military force. If Saddam ever thought we would get him out of Kuwait, he never would have gone in. And I believe if he ever believed

that we would remove him from power, he would like gladly be in

the Riviera with his billions of dollars. But he didn’t believe it because the French and Russians and others told him we weren’t

coming in.

That is the tragedy of it. So I understand why you are reluctant

to say, force is on the table. But you are the diplomat, but I hope

we back up your diplomacy with strong potential to help people realize particularly the Europeans if you are not going to go along

with sanctions, what do you leave as the end result, and then to

know, my God they get the weapon. They get a nuclear weapon,

then I am pretty sure that you will have Saudi Arabia and others

say the same thing. So this is a huge issue. I wish we had focused

a little more on that aspect of this because that is the bottom line

for me.

I have people who marched in my office very concerned about

what has happened in Sudan. But if Khartoum does not believe

that there is going to be action taken against them, I don’t know

how diplomacy works. And I guess what I would love is for you just

to tell me in concluding with Iran and with the Sudan, you are

working diplomatically to get an agreement.

Do you feel that you are making headway? Do you feel that you

are just kind of in Never Never Land right now? Where are we at?

Ambassador BOLTON. Well, I think both in the case of Iran and

really in the case of Darfur as well, that these constitute tests for

the Security Council.

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In the case of Iran, this is a perfect storm of a country that for

decades has been the leading state financier of terrorism, one of

the leading state sponsors of terrorism in the world, providing

funds and equipment and weapons to groups like Hamas and

Hezbollah and Palestinian Islamic Jihad, at the same time a government that now seeks to acquire nuclear weapons and advance

ballistic capability, it is a country led by a president who denies the

existence of Holocaust, calls on Israel to be wiped off the map, who

held a seminar last year called the world without the United

States. This is not a man you want to have with his finger on the

nuclear button, or with the capability of delivering nuclear weapons to terrorist groups that could transport them around the world.

So if you believe, as we do, that terrorism and the proliferation

of weapons of mass destruction are the two greatest threats to

international peace and security that we face, this is a test for the

Security Council to deal with Iran and to bring an end to its nuclear weapons program.

In the Sudan, you have a government that has been responsible

over the years for the deaths of more than 2 million of its citizens

in the southern part of Sudan, that is now subject of a comprehensive peace agreement we hope will hold, but having engaged in

genocide and murder and causing hundreds of thousands if not millions of people to have to leave their homes in the Darfur region,

that has put off the Security Council in ways large and small.

A couple of weeks ago, they refused, the government of Khartoum refused to give visas to four military planners from the U.N.

Department of Peacekeeping Operations so they could get on to the

ground in Darfur to do the kind of kicking of tires and looking at

the terrain and everything that would help facilitate planning. So,

so far, the government has been able to withstand our efforts there.

We will see if the sanctions that we recently imposed and other

ones that may come might have an influence on their thinking. But

the Security Council, in many respects, the same problem we faced

in other situations, is the Security Council serious about its resolutions, or is it not? That is the test in Sudan.

Mr. SHAYS. Well, I thank you very much for being here. You have

been very responsive I think, and we appreciate, I appreciate deeply the work you do as an ambassador. We are going to have a 5-

minute recess and then convene with our second panel. Thank you.

Ambassador BOLTON. Thank you Mr. Chairman.

[Recess.]

Mr. SHAYS. I would like to call this hearing to order again and

to announce our second panel. We have Mr. Joseph A Christoff, Director, International Affairs and Trade Team, U.S. Government Accountability Office; Mr. Carne Ross, director, Independent Diplomat; Dr. George A. Lopez, senior fellow and professor of political

science, the Joan B. Kroc Institute for International Peace Studies,

University of Notre Dame.

Gentlemen, thank you for being here. As is our custom, I need

to swear you in. So if I could have you stand please.

Raise your right hands.

[Witnesses sworn.]

Mr. SHAYS. I will note for the record our witnesses have responded in the affirmative.

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You all were at the first panel of this hearing, and so you have

a sense of some of the questions, though some Members aren’t here

right now, particularly as they relate to the issue of sanctions and

so on.

I am going to invite each of you to make your statement. We will

have whatever time we need to make sure we cover each of the territories. And if I don’t ask you a question that needs to be asked,

but you have heard this question earlier and you want to answer

it, you can ask yourselves and then answer it.

I want to make sure that we have on the record information

about the significance of sanctions if they are going to work, how

they work, when they fail, if we can do that, how you back up sanctions so that they do what we want to do.

I will say this, I am very fearful that if sanctions don’t work, we

leave our government options that are not very tasteful.

So with that, Mr. Christoff, we will have you start.

STATEMENTS OF JOSEPH A. CHRISTOFF, DIRECTOR, INTERNATIONAL AFFAIRS AND TRADE TEAM, U.S. GOVERNMENT

ACCOUNTABILITY OFFICE; CARNE ROSS, DIRECTOR, INDEPENDENT DIPLOMAT; AND GEORGE A. LOPEZ, SENIOR FELLOW AND PROFESSOR OF POLITICAL SCIENCE, THE JOAN B.

KROC INSTITUTE FOR INTERNATIONAL PEACE STUDIES,

UNIVERSITY OF NOTRE DAME.

STATEMENT OF JOSEPH A. CHRISTOFF

Mr. CHRISTOFF. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and thanks for inviting GAO to this important hearing.

Today, I would like to discuss specifically a report that we issued

last week on lessons learned from the Oil-for-Food Program and

how some of these lessons learned bear not only on future sanctions but on U.N. reform efforts.

My comments are based on three reports the GAO issued last

week, both on the Oil-for-Food Program and U.N. reform issues.

Let me summarize three lessons from the Oil-for-Food Program

that highlight how a positive control environment can improve future sanctions. First, the sanctioned country should not be allowed

undue control over the terms of the sanctions program. In the Oilfor-Food Program, the U.N. ceded control over key aspects of the

program to the former regime. For example, the U.N. gave Iraq,

rather than an independent agent, the authority to negotiate contracts with companies that purchased oil or supplied commodities.

The second lesson learned, takes into consideration the economic

impact that sanctions have on neighboring countries. U.N. member

states, including those bordering Iraq, were responsible for enforcing the sanctions. However, Iraq’s neighbors circumvented the

sanctions because they were economically dependent on Iraq for

trade. Trade agreements, for example, enabled Jordan to purchase

heavily discounted oil from Iraq in exchange for up to $300 million

in Jordanian goods. Iraq also smuggled oil through Turkey and

Syria, and as a result, Iraq obtained $5 to $8 million in illegal oil

revenues.

The third lesson learned is that all aspects of sanctions must be

enforced with equal vigor. The U.N. was successful in keeping miliVerDate 11-MAY-2000 13:51 Oct 05, 2006 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00107 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 D:\DOCS\29792.TXT HGOVREF1 PsN: HGOVREF1
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tary items out of Iraq. However, the U.N. did not adequately examine contracts for inflated prices, which enabled Iraq to obtain between $1.5 and $3.5 billion in kickbacks.

The Oil-for-Food Program also provides lessons for addressing

U.N. reform issues.

The first lesson is that agencies responsible for U.N. programs

must have clear lines of authority. The U.N. managed the Oil-forFood Program with multiple entities having unclear lines of authority. For example, the Secretariat’s Office of Iraq’s program was

not responsible for rejecting contracts based on pricing concerns. In

addition, U.N. inspectors did not have the authority to inspect

goods imported into Iraq to verify their price and quality.

The second lesson learned is that risk must be assessed as programs expand in scope and complexity. In 1996, the Oil-for-Food

Program began as a 6-month effort to deliver emergency food and

medicine to Iraq. However, it expanded into a 6-year, $31 billion

effort to build houses, construct irrigation systems, purchase oil

equipment and fund sports and religious facilities. The U.N. did

not assess how this expansion placed the Oil-for-Food Program at

greater risk for waste, fraud and abuse.

And finally, monitoring and oversight must be conducted con- tinuously, for the $67 billion Oil-for-Food Program, the Office of Internal Oversight Services dedicated only two to six auditors. This

contrasts with the 160 auditors that the Volcker Commission said

this audit agency should have deployed.

In addition, the independence of the internal auditors was compromised. The Office of Iraq Program denied the internal auditors

funds to audit the Oil-for-Food Program in central and southern

Iraq where most of the money was being spent.

So, in conclusion, the Oil-for-Food Program does offer several lessons for deciding future sanctions and strengthening existing U.N.

programs. Of utmost importance is the need to establish and apply

a sound internal control framework whereby roles are clearly articulated, risks are mitigated and oversight is continuous.

Mr. Chairman, that concludes my statement. I will be happy to

answer your questions.

[The prepared statement of Mr. Christoff follows:]

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Mr. SHAYS. Thank you very much.

Mr. Ross, I think that I didn’t provide enough information when

I said you’re an independent diplomat. Can you just give us a little

bit of your background before you speak? I don’t usually ask witnesses to do that. But it would be helpful for the record.

Mr. ROSS. Delighted to, Mr. Chairman, thank you very much.

Mr. SHAYS. I can sense from that accent something already.

Can you move the mic a little closer to you, sir.

Mr. ROSS. Is that close enough?

Mr. SHAYS. That is good.

STATEMENT OF CARNE ROSS

Mr. ROSS. Thank you.

My testimony, my summary of my testimony actually retells my

history on this subject. But what I am doing now is, I run a nonprofit diplomatic consultancy which advises various governments

and political groups on diplomacy.

Mr. SHAYS. So we will hear a little bit about it in the testimony.

Mr. ROSS. Sure.

Mr. Chairman, I was a member of the British Foreign Office

from 1989 until my resignation in 2004. From late 1997 to June

2002, I was a diplomat in charge of Iraq policy, including weapons

inspections and sanctions at the British Mission to the U.N. in

New York.

There, I was intimately involved in policymaking and negotiations on Iraq and other Middle East policy at the U.N. Security

Council.

I also played a close part in discussions between the British and

U.S. Governments over these years on all aspects of policy toward

Iraq. I resigned from the British Foreign Service in 2004 after giving testimony in secret to the official inquiry in the United Kingdom into the use of intelligence on Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction, the so-called Butler review.

There are several key lessons from my experience of sanctions on

Iraq and the Oil-for-Food Program. My written testimony goes into

much greater detail.

First, any sanctions regime must be carefully targeted on those

individuals whose behavior you are trying to effect. Sanctions on

Iraq were crude and harmed the wrong people, namely the civilian

population. Sanctions did prevent Iraq from rearming with weapons of mass destruction or conventional weapons, as both my and

the U.S. Governments believed in all the years I worked on the

issue. But thanks to sanctions, busting the Iraqi regime was largely impervious on the effects of sanctions, and Iraq failed fully to

comply with its obligations to incorporate with the weapons inspectors until threatened by invasion in 2003.

There are many options available other than comprehensive

sanctions, including financial sanctions, travel bans, arms embargoes, etc. Such smart or targeted sanctions should always be preferred to comprehensive economic sanctions.

Second, while it is easy to blame the United Nations for the failing of the Oil-for-Food Program, and these were maybe, the U.N.

member states, too, failed in their responsibility to enforce police

sanctions on Iraq. I need here to correct a misunderstanding that

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seems to be widespread here. While it was the U.N.’s responsibility

to supervise the Oil-for-Food Program, it was not—repeat, not—the

U.N.’s job to police sanctions. That responsibility belonged to the

member states. This would also apply to future sanctions regimes

that the Security Council might agree to.

Evidence, such as that collected by the U.S. Government’s Iraq

Survey Group showed that the Saddam regime largely subsisted on

illegal oil exports to Jordan, Turkey, Syria and elsewhere, but primarily the first of these two. Revenue from this source amounted to some $12 billion, far exceeding the approximately $1.7 billion it gained from abuse of the

Oil-for-Food Program.

Other members of the U.N. Security Council often blocked corrective action against sanctions busting, but the United States and

British governments turned a blind eye to smuggling by their allies

Turkey and Jordan, thus in effect helping the Saddam regime to

survive.

Officials in both the United States and British Governments frequently internally recommended comprehensive action on sanctions

busting, but for various reasons, it was never attempted. If we had

acted on this illegal smuggling, we could have severely undermined

the Saddam regime without the need for military intervention.

Third, sanctions policy is complicated and difficult. It requires a

major effort to engineer, amend and supervise sanctions. Volcker’s

inquiry into the Oil-for-Food Program took 18 months and employed over 100 skilled investigators, but at the time, both the

United States and U.K. Governments employed no more than a

handful of officials to monitor the program and sanctions, and they

were often poorly equipped for the complex technical issues such as

border-monitoring, tools or technologies which arose.

Those officials were overwhelmed by the size and complexity of

the program. Senior officials and ministers paid the policy far too

little attention even though it dealt with the primary security concern.

Moreover, we should have paid more intrusive attention to what

the U.N. was doing in the program. This failure was partially a

function of our lack of capacity. But the effort, however substantial,

to supervise and make effective any sanctions policy would always

be considerably less than that of going to war.

We should, moreover, be conscious of the sometimes perverse effect of sanctions: By casting him as a resistor to United States and

Western pressure, sanctions in some ways reinforced Saddam Hussein’s hold, however. The Oil-for-Food Program gave his regime

control over food rations and other essential supplies to his people

strengthening his already repressive grip. In some ways, therefore,

sanctioning Saddam to the extent that some came to believe that

we, the U.K. and United States, had an interest in keeping him in

power.

More generally, the effectiveness of any sanctions regime is in

part a function of their legitimacy. By the late 1990’s, comprehensive sanctions were seen by many in the international community

as disproportionate and cruel in their effects.

When Iraq had largely though not fully complied with its WMD

obligations, this undermined support for the sanctions and made

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our job in enforcing sanctions very much more difficult. Sanctions

should be proportionate and well targeted if they are to enjoy the

broad international support for them to be effective. In this context,

most sanction regimes are seen in isolation. United States and

British failure to enforce Security Council decisions elsewhere in

the Middle East, particularly in Israel and Palestine, undermined

our efforts, undermined our demands for their enforcement in Iraq,

as it does to this day in other cases. We will be more effective in

any particular case if we were seen as consistent in all cases.

But my most important point is the last. Sanctions and the manipulations of the Saddam regime caused considerable human suffering in Iraq. The Oil-for-Food program, despite its many problems, helped ameliorate the suffering, but it was not implemented

until 1996 when already considerable damage had been done. Sanctions helped destroy Iraq’s economy and infrastructure, damage for

which Iraq and the U.S. taxpayer is still paying today.

Any sanctions for a regime should be carefully designed to minimize human suffering. The lessons from comprehensive sanctions

on Iraq is clear, we should not make this mistake again. Thank

you, Mr. Chairman.

[The prepared statement of Mr. Ross follows:]

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Mr. SHAYS. Thank you, Mr. Ross. I appreciate your statement.

Mr. Christoff, I jumped so quickly to Mr. Ross, I meant to say

as well we appreciate the good work, and that we appreciated your

statement as well.

Dr. Lopez.

STATEMENT OF DR. GEORGE A. LOPEZ

Dr. LOPEZ. Mr. Chairman, thank you very much. I’ve had the

privilege over the last 13 years of serving as an independent scholar and a member of a research that has tried to systematically investigate United Nations sanctions, and it’s that knowledge and experience I’d like to bring to this hearing today.

Mr. SHAYS. Well, that’s very welcomed, and it is extensive, and

we appreciate your presence. Thank you.

Dr. LOPEZ. Thank you.

Can the Congress and the American people have confidence that

U.N. imposed sanctions in 2006 and beyond be a useful and powerful diplomatic tool? I believe we can. My colleagues have addressed

the questions of the Volcker Report and the lessons learned from

there. I’m not going to repeat that nor repeat what’s in my larger

written testimony, but I want to have a look at two questions. One,

the first is understanding that one of the outcomes of the Volcker

Report is, particularly in report No. 1, a clear delineation of responsibility in what is called the United Nations system regarding sanctions implementation which belong to the Secretariat versus those

which belong to the Council versus those which belong to the member states. I believe a dispassionate reading of the Volcker Report

underscores the fundamental reality of United Nations sanctions,

but they’re only as effective as the willingness and ability and fairness, as Carne Ross has said, of their application by member states

and a willingness to enforce them.

In the Iraqi case—and we had instances of misinterpreting this

even in our first hour—the Security Council’s determination was

first to hold together a regional coalition of states bent on denying

Saddam Hussein’s ability to acquire military goods, and then to

maintain a flow of humanitarian relief to the Iraqi people. That the

entire sanctions process, from Oil-for-Food on, was politicized to

achieve this end or that deals were struck in 1996, when Oil-forFood was already on the table to provide relief in 1994, is to engage in a kind of revisionist history which fails to look at a critique

of U.N. agencies which may be misplaced, which ought to be more

directly placed on the burden of the member states to strike deals

to undermine what the Secretariat brought to them and to question

the Council’s own action by their own behavior.

Having said that, I think the Volcker Report and current proposals before us for U.N. reform offer a rich ground by which we can

have added confidence that ethical behavior at the individual level,

Secretariat behavior, and particularly member state behavior, may

be seen as more competent in the administration of future sanctions regimes. But since Carne Ross ended his own presentation

with talking about greater and smarter targeted sanctions, let me

draw to the committee’s attention the fact that, while all of this

controversy for Oil-for-Food and the terrible reality of the Iraqi episode and its uniqueness was unfolding in the 1990’s, so, too, was

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a secondary process behind the scenes. Beginning in particular

with the initiatives of various governments from 1998 on, there has

been under the radar screen a development of a great deal of expertise. I believe that one can claim that the strongest reason for

congressional confidence and economic sanctions as diplomatic

tools, it emerges from a past decade of meetings of diplomats, sanction specialists, experts in banking, commodities trade, law enforcement, transportation and representatives of international organizations who have worked together in concert to define, develop and

revise substantial proposals in what’s called smart or targeted

sanctions. Beginning with a very important initiative by the Swiss

in 1998 in the Interlocken process, continuing with German input

in arms controls issues, and finally a Swedish initiative to improve

targeted economic sanctions as well as aviation and travel bans, we

have great confidence and now expertise within the U.N. system

that were merged in the kind of resolution we saw last week; that

is, the ability of the Security Council to target individuals, not nations, what we see out of Security Council 1373 and the work out

of the counterterrorism committee, the ability of the United Nations system to now target real offenders and free itself from the

burden of the economic hardships that were cast in the Iraqi case.

The ability to get to real offenders with smart targeted measures

is at a higher ability than ever before.

The imperative of smart sanctions I think is self-evident; that is,

the nature of the diverse offensive that we experience now we call

on the Security Council and its members to apply new and important techniques. We did this against UNITA armed faction in Angola, against RUF rebels and the Khmer Rouge. We’re doing it

against terrorist groups and entities which support terrorist

groups. Our means of imposing, implementing, monitoring and refining sanctions are more robust now, Mr. Chairman, than ever before. The Volcker Committee’s accounting system recommendations

will contribute to this, but the strength of this lies independent of

that, it lies in independent reform processes that have developed

over the last 6 or 7 years, strongly backed by not only nongovernmental organizations, but research units in Europe and the United

States.

The importance of the Oil-for-Food scandal is that we need credibility and ethical behavior at every level, but we also need tremendous competence in what might be called appropriate fashioning of

sanctions at the policy level. The ongoing task of United Nations

reform as it bears on sanctions is that now we have the technical

means we have not had previously, and certainly didn’t have at our

disposal in 1996 to move sanctions, whether they be in Sudan, Iran

or elsewhere against real offenders, and improve the prospects that

sanctions may contribute to global peace and security.

Thank you.

[The prepared statement of Dr. Lopez follows:]

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Mr. SHAYS. Thank you so much. I’m really looking forward to the

dialog we’re going to have. I think we’ve got a great mix here and

some real pros. And I think the issues are absolutely huge, absolutely huge. I mean, we’re talking about how we succeed without

going to war, it seems to me.

With that, Mr. Lynch, I’m going to invite you—and I’m going to

do 10-minute rounds of questions with three Members. That way

we can kind of get into it a little better. And then I’m going to go

to you, Mr. Van Hollen.

Mr. LYNCH. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

First of all, I want to thank the panel for helping the committee

with its work.

In looking at the Iraq Oil-for-Food program example, there seem

to be two levels of failure. One, it appears that we set up a program that empowered Saddam Hussein and gave him a very important part in that whole process. I know that we began to negotiate around an Oil-for-Food program back in 1991. Finally, after

a number of failed attempts, we came up with this program, but

unfortunately it did give considerable leverage to Saddam Hussein.

And so that was one weakness, probably a fatal weakness in the

process.

But then there was also the implementation aspect of this; in

other words, after the program was set up we still had an opportunity at the Security Council to reject, to question, to delay contracts, and yet I think the numbers are out of 30,000 contracts, I

believe maybe two or three were ultimately rejected, and they were

probably not for financial reasons but probably because of prohibited trade items.

What I’m asking you is, how much of those two areas—how

much—let’s just begin with the first one. The fact that we empowered Saddam to be a player here and we allowed him to negotiate

oil prices and contracts and all that, how much of that doomed this

thing to failure? And are there recommendations from the panel in

terms of the next time we have to do something like this or something very closely similar to it, not necessarily the exact same

thing. So Mr. Christoff.

Mr. CHRISTOFF. I would begin with that was probably the greatest weakness and failure from the very beginning of the program,

allowing a sanctioned regime to set the terms and conditions of the

program that ensued. And I think clearly that is one of the lessons

learned, that in the future if a regime is sanctioned, that says

something, they should not be given the green light to dictate the

terms of how they were going to go about it and ultimately negotiating contracts that including kickbacks and getting commissions

in return as well.

So in auditing terms we talked about the control environment,

and you have to set the right tone at the top. And in effect you

didn’t set the tone at the top if you allowed the sanctioned regime

to set that tone.

Mr. LYNCH. All right, all right. Mr. Ross.

Mr. ROSS. I think these are very big and complicated questions.

I mean, one of the problems with the Iraq sanctioned policy in the

Oil-for-Food program was that policy was ad hoc over a very long

period. Never did officials sit down and design the perfect sanctions

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program and the ameliorship program, which was the Oil-for-Food

program, they came sort of one after the other; sanctions lasted

much longer than anybody expected.

I think to be honest, it’s very easy to say that we should not have

put the power in the hands of the Saddam Hussein to distribute

food and other goods under the Oil-for-Food. I’m not sure, to be

honest, there was an alternative. You couldn’t have gotten U.N.

agencies in there to do the distribution. The Saddam government

would not have allowed it. You had to rely, to some extent, on the

cooperation of the Saddam government. And it’s very easy to point

fingers at the U.N. for not having designed this properly; in fact,

it was us, the member states of the Security Council, who designed

the program. In fact, most of the original design of the Oil-for-Food

Program was done in the British Foreign Ministry, it was not the

U.N. who designed it. So we should be very clear about where that

responsibility lies. I think there is a lot to be learned the next time

around.

This goes to your second point. In terms of scrutiny after the program was implemented, we did not scrutinize contracts for financial probity, for potential corruption, kickbacks, all the rest of it.

We scrutinized them for one thing alone. That was duel use goods

for the potential to create weapons programs of some kind. Even

that was an enormous task. I remember our office being presented

with documents this high just for one contract, for say an oil refinery or a water——

Mr. SHAYS. You’re not exaggerating, literally a few feet tall?

Mr. ROSS. No, I’m not exaggerating. It was a massive, massive

task to scrutinize the contracts, even for duel use technologies. And

we didn’t employ, frankly, enough officials to do that. Clearly, in

retrospect, we should have employed a whole bunch of other officials to scrutinize the financial issues and the potential for corruption, which I think, looking at Volcker, was much greater than we

had realized.

Mr. LYNCH. Dr. Lopez.

Dr. LOPEZ. I sat with Iraqi and U.N. and emergency relief officials in 1993 and 1994 in assessing humanitarian impact. One of

the things that struck me in that dialog in 1994 which continued

to 1995 is that even a reasonable Iraqi public official was adamantly opposed for sovereignty reasons to the U.N. coming in and

managing the entire program. And I asked directly in a meeting,

so we’re going to have continual death of babies under five because

of the impact of this that in fact the sanctioning agency is trying

to relieve; and he said directly to me, you’ve partitioned my country

in threes, you bomb at will, you have control over every economic

asset we have, and now you want to publicly label your food coming

in to feed our country; I have to draw the line there. And I think

that’s the strength of a sovereignty argument there, that’s not to

apologize.

Mr. SHAYS. I’m sorry to interrupt. Who said that?

Dr. LOPEZ. That was an Iraqi official. Now, I don’t give the Iraqis

credibility very much on the way they manage their system, but I

think Carne’s point about the atmosphere in which sanctions unfolded; that is, the imperative to have humanitarian relief reach

Iraqis meant that those officials that were forming the system in

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1994 to 1996 didn’t make deals with the devil as they saw it then,

they made practical political deals in which they were willing to

give the Iraqis more sovereign control of the resources because the

desired outcome was to increase the caloric and protein intake of

people on the ground, which the program’s record shows it was successful. The lesson I think, whether it be Sudan or Iran, is beware

of comprehensive sanctions which will immediately have humanitarian impact; move instead to more targeted measures in which

you as the sanctioning agents can control the impact, and you rely

less and less on local cooperation of those that are targeted.

Mr. LYNCH. Right. Let me ask you, given the package of reforms

that were recommended by the Secretary General on Friday that

were rejected—and the vote wasn’t close, I believe it was 108 to 50

something—where do we go from here in terms of trying to build

a framework of—I think Mr. Van Hollen described it as the coalition of the willing on sanctions? Is it worthwhile to spend the time

within the U.N. to try to get the support of those—all those nations

to try to put a tight, targeted, enforceable sanction in place against

a given country? Can we do that with the framework that is outside the United Nations, NATO or another ad hoc group, given the

circumstances?

Mr. ROSS. I have to say, I’m a little bit confused by this

conflation of the U.N. reform issue with that of sanctions. It is not

the U.N. Secretariat’s responsibility to implement sanctions or police sanctions, it is the U.N. Member states who have that responsibility. If a Chapter 7 resolution is passed in the U.N. Security

Council, then each state is directly legally responsible to ensure

that it respects and its institution respects whatever sanction

measure is agreed.

The Oil-for-Food Program was a very exceptional thing that was

given to the U.N. Secretariat to implement on behalf of the Security Council. I don’t think that exercise should ever be repeated,

not the least because of the effects that George and I have been

talking about. I think it’s perfectly feasible to have an effective

sanctions regime agreed in the Security Council if a number of conditions apply; namely, that you prove that there is a threat to

international police and security; second, that you’ve done the political work to build support within the Security Council; and third,

that your measures are seen as appropriate and targeted on the

right people and not affecting the wrong people.

Mr. LYNCH. I’ve read your article. It was very well done and well

stated. Getting consensus on those points may be difficult, that’s

what I’m getting at. Is it——

Mr. ROSS. Well, I think the U.N. reform argument, to be frank,

sir, is a bit of a red herring. You don’t need to get agreement on

U.N. reform as proposed by the Secretary General or the U.S. Government in order to get good effective sanctions agreed in the Security Council. If you’re talking about sanctions on Iran or Darfur, or

whatever, those are two very separate issues. What you need to get

is political consensus in the Security Council for what is seen as

appropriate, well-targeted and justified measures. That’s an entirely different matter.

Dr. LOPEZ. And if I might jump off from there, Mr. Lynch, the

critical dimension here is that sanctions are a means to accomVerDate 11-MAY-2000 13:51 Oct 05, 2006 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00187 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 D:\DOCS\29792.TXT HGOVREF1 PsN: HGOVREF1
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plishing a policy. Where sanctions run in trouble—and I think have

been problematic for U.N. foreign policy in the past—is when sanctions in fact become the policy. And at least some of the discussion

with regard to Iran has been quite confusing both in U.S. policy

circles and with regard to the role of the Security Council in this

matter. The goal seems to be sanctions on Iran as opposed to what

particular outcomes we’d like from the Iranians and to ask whether

or not sanctions would be an effective means.

I would submit as a student of sanctions that the Iranian case

is particularly problematic for resolution given the goals of

denuclearizing Iran, not the least of the reasons being that you can

in fact get full agreement in either a technical sense or in a political sense at the Security Council.

I direct the subcommittee’s attention, for example, to the recent

work just last week published of Matthew Bond and the folks managing the Atom Project out of Harvard, which has suggested two

different scenarios for the resolution in a technical way of uranium

enrichment by the Iranians, and that particular kind of evidence

is the evidence that we’re hearing discussed by the technical experts associated with the Council and the IAEA. In other words,

it’s going to be difficult to build a consensus for sanctions politically

when in fact there’s technical disagreements about how close the

Iranians are to developing a weapon that would constitute a threat

to peace.

The second dimension that the history of sanctions I think shows

us in this case is that if sanctions imposed are going to critically

isolate and punish a regime rather than put it in a position of more

direct engagement with the Council to achieve the desired ends,

and they provide a nationalistic leader with a rally around the flag

effect where they can in fact thump the Council and thump the

Council members for them actually being the offenders. I mean, we

saw this with Milosevic, we saw this with Charles Taylor. There is

no reason, knowing what we know now, to reinvent the same scenario with a quite erratic Iranian leader. And while we don’t have

responsibility for that Iranian leader, we do have responsibility for

the outcomes of a policy which would only further aggravate a situation rather than accomplish our goals.

Mr. SHAYS. Thank you, Dr. Lopez. And thank you Mr. Lynch.

Mr. Van Hollen.

Mr. VAN HOLLEN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and let me thank

all of you for your testimony.

Let me just begin with where Dr. Lopez left off at the beginning

of his comments. And you’re right, sanctions are a means to accomplish a policy. And if I could just begin by asking all of you the

question, if you go back historically and look at different types the

United States or other countries have imposed economic sanctions,

could you point out in which cases you think they were success stories in terms of achieving those policies, in which cases they were

not success stories, and what factors made them successful or unsuccessful? I realize it’s a broad question, but if you could give it

your best shot.

Mr. CHRISTOFF. If I could just relate it again to Iraq sanctions,

which is the focus of many of the testimonies that we’ve given, it

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gets to the question of targeted sanctions as well that my colleagues have spoken.

Oil-for-Food was an example of where when you do target certain

things you can be successful. We targeted the ensuring that Iraq

did not have contracts with dual use items. And in fact the United

States had about 60 people within DOD, DOE, Interior and others

who are reviewing those stats and contracts to try to weed out dual

use items. So in that sense, focusing on dual use items was a success, it kept WMD out of Iraq. The areas where we didn’t do as

well are the economic sanctions, where we failed to try to take

those same contracts and try to evaluate whether or not the prices

were inflated. We didn’t have the same vigor, we didn’t have the

same numbers of individuals that were trying to look at the same

contracts and say well, why are we spending so much money for

the import of a certain type of wheat when it would be cheaper on

the international market.

Mr. VAN HOLLEN. Thank you, Mr. Ross.

Mr. ROSS. To answer your question, Mr. Van Hollen, I will take

the example of Lockerbie, where sanctions were eventually successful for the reason that they were seen as in response to a clear

egregious act by a member state, the measures taken, the sanctions, which were a flight ban and an aviation bans and an arms

embargo on the Libyan leadership was seen as appropriate and targeted.

And third, and perhaps most importantly, the criteria that Libya

had to fulfill were clearly defined, mainly that they had to hand

over the suspects who had been indicted for the Lockerbie bombing

to trial.

In the case of Iraq, the criteria for fulfillment of Resolution 687

were not terribly well defined, and indeed during the sanctions period they would often be confused by U.S. Government statements—for instance, by then President Clinton—that sanctions

would remain on Iraq as long as Saddam Hussein remained in

power; in other words, they became confused with the regime

change agenda. And not only the Iraqis, but many of the Security

Council members would say to us, you keep moving the goalpost,

what exactly does Iraq have to do? Define exactly what they have

to do. And this was a constant task for us to reiterate those criteria. So I think those things made the Libya case a better example

to follow.

Mr. VAN HOLLEN. Thank you.

Dr. LOPEZ. I’d certainly concur on the Libyan case. I think even

respecting Congressman Shay’s comment at the end of the last session that Khadafi looked around and got a little nervous after the

spring of 2003, that nervousness, we were able to translate that to

real action because of almost a decade long bargaining process that

were generated by sanctions and the ability to combine incentives

with sanctions. I think if you compare the combination of the U.N.

action with EU action in the first go-round in the terrible Yugoslav

war of the early 1990’s versus the EU sanctions in 2000, 2001 that

brought Milosevic down essentially, what you have is the difference

between punitive, real scattered sanctions versus more targeted

ones and the very important dynamic of providing incentives and

exceptions to sanctions to those in fact who support international

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policies. So the combination of sanctions and incentives I think are

critical.

I don’t think the subcommittee should fail to recognize how relatively successful the Security Council 1267 Committee, the 1373

process; that is, the targeted financial sanctions on terrorist groups

and designated entities, has been to produce success.

The batting average over the course of history may be somewhere between .275 and 333. For those of you who are baseball

fans, that will get you within a multibillion dollars being accurate.

It may not be as far long in the policy process as we’d like, we’d

like 90 percent of sanctions cases to be effective. We know historically that arms embargoes are a sieve and they’re a tragedy, but

now we know something about how to improve them, but in the

1990’s this was a scandalous failure.

Mr. VAN HOLLEN. Thank you.

Mr. Ross, I’d just like to ask you a couple of questions about your

role at the U.N. on behalf of the British government. And as I understand it from your testimony, you are also responsible for the

liaison with the U.N. weapons inspectors.

I raised a number of questions with Ambassador Bolton with respect to the fallout for the United States and others in the international community from the failures in Iraq, specifically with respect to the failures of our claims about the existence of weapons

of mass destruction to prove true, and the implications there for

our efforts to date and in the future with respect to making claims,

and also the concern at the United Nations that resolutions adopted may at some point be used by the United States or another

country as a point for unilateral military action, and that may be

something that makes other nations a little leery about trying to

take action with respect to economic sanctions. Do you have any

comments on that?

Mr. ROSS. Well. I agree with everything you said. I think U.S.

arguments that Iran is a threat to international peace and security

are severely undermined by the discredited evidence over Iraq.

That is one problem with which I highly agree with your analysis.

Second, on the legal justification argument, I think that’s an important and yet subtle point. The history of the U.N. resolutions

before the war is quite a complicated one that’s easily

mischaracterized. The United States and U.K. sold Resolution 1441

to the Security Council on the basis that it was the last chance for

peace, it was the last chance for inspections to be successful, they

did not sell it as authority for the use of force. This is proven by

the fact that the U.K. delegation later was required to go back to

the Security Council with a second draft resolution which British

lawyers judged was necessary to get authority for the use of force.

This was the so-called second resolution. The U.K. failed to get that

resolution, and in negotiation they were asked explicitly, do you

need this resolution to get authority for the use of force. I know

this secondhand from my colleagues at the U.K. mission and from

other friends who were at the Security Council at the time. By that

time I had left the U.K. delegation. The U.K. failed to get that second resolution. In other words, if you go to the Security Council

and fail to get—and you ask them for the authority of the use of

force and you fail to get it, you do not have the authority for the

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use of force. And I think that sequence of events still sits in the

minds of Security Council members, particularly the permanent

five who of course are permanent members of the Security Council

and were there then as they are today, and they remember very

well. Sergey Lavrov, who has been the Russian permanent representative in the Security Council, and there’s no doubt that he

feels he was misled in that sequence of events, and that’s why he

says today that he has a sense of deja vu when he sees U.S. tactics

in the Security Council.

Mr. VAN HOLLEN. I appreciate that, because I think that our own

actions with respect to the Iraq at the United Nations have clearly

undermined our ability to go back to the Security Council to get the

kind of action that we want to take on economic sanctions with respect to Iran, and it’s going to hurt our ability in the future in dealings with Iran.

You mentioned in your testimony that at some point—and I understand the shortcomings with respect to the sanctions of Iraq and

the fact they weren’t targeted, as you explain in your testimony.

But you mention that we believe sanctions had at some point—your

testimony was that they had achieved—largely achieved success in

terms of at least the goal of preventing Saddam Hussein and Iraq

from rearming and developing weapons of mass destruction, and

that was sort of the private consensus along the British and U.S.

Governments at the time. Could you comment further on that?

Mr. ROSS. I’m still covered by the Official Secrets Act in Britain,

which is a rather Draconian piece of legislation that prevents me

from talking about anything which I learned during my time as a

British official, including my testimony to the Butler review, which

is still covered by that act, and that led to my resignation. But all

that notwithstanding, it was clearly the view within the British

and U.S. Governments that Iraq was not substantially rearming for

all the years I worked on the subject. I took part in the regular

quarterly discussions between the U.S. State Department and the

Foreign Office on Iraq, where of course the weapons inspections

and Iraq’s rearmament was the top of the agenda, and we would

begin those talks by saying sanctions have been successful, Iraq is

not rearming, there is no threat from Iraq. The claim that Iraq was

a threat, which was made by my government and the U.S. Government from mid-2002 and onwards I believe was deeply misleading.

Mr. VAN HOLLEN. Thank you for your testimony.

Dr. LOPEZ. If I might add to that, as someone who after 1999 was

deeply involved in the linkage between sanctions and inspections,

our own research work in almost 200 private interviews confirm

this, which is why a good colleague of mine and I published in

Arms Control Today in September 2002 why we thought if you

were to enter Iraq you would find weapons remnants only. We saw

a significant shift at the State Department’s request in February

2002, began work on the Smart Sanctions Resolution—we saw a

significant shift in thinking at the highest levels of government,

which moved from a widely accepted belief before 2001 until after

about the effect of the sanctions. And I think there is more evidence to suggest rather than National Defense Estimates and others that it was fairly widely known among the expert community

that these have taken a biting and devastating chunk out of

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Saddam’s ability. In fact, the Oil-for-Food leakage money was used

for political patronage, it was not used for production of materials,

and that was well documented.

Mr. VAN HOLLEN. Thank you, thank you all.

Mr. SHAYS. Dr. Lopez, it was also used to influence the French

and the Russians, correct?

Dr. LOPEZ. No, I think that’s absolutely the case.

Mr. SHAYS. There is so much that I want to ask you because I

think there is so many elements here to be discussed and I don’t

want to get distracted. But I will tell you that when I went to visit

with officials in Great Britain and France, in Turkey, in Jordan, in

Israel, there was no question on the part of these government officials that Saddam had weapons of mass destruction. The only debate I got into with these officials before war broke out was there

was some who said he wouldn’t use it. And you know, I believe that

even President Clinton believed that Saddam had weapons of mass

destruction. I’m not in any way convinced that Hillary Clinton

voted because George Bush thought that there would be weapons.

The arrogance of this administration I think stems from the fact,

Mr. Ross, that they actually thought after the war we would basically be able to stick it in front of people’s faces and say, there it

is now, what do you have to say for yourself. I remember in 1994

the challenge was we didn’t think at that time they had a nuclear

program. And when you had the head of the program, who had no

longer been involved, claim he was part of it, the United States

said there is no program and we don’t know who you are, it wasn’t

until Saddam’s two son-in-laws went to Jordan that they located it.

So the irony is at one point we didn’t think he had it when he had

it, at another point there were a lot of people in government who

thought he had it when he didn’t have it. That’s the irony. And so

then what people were saying, you know, that he doesn’t have it,

I’ll tell you my attitude was, well, you were wrong once the other

way, I’m not gonna let you get away with it a second time.

So at any rate, it is for me—I guess what I first want to ask is,

give me some examples where comprehensive sanctions have

worked and where so-called smart ones—I mean, I think there was

a comprehensive, weren’t there, against South Africa, weren’t they

fairly comprehensive?

Mr. ROSS. Well, in the case of South Africa, there were various

financial sanctions. But comprehensive sanctions in the case of Iraq

mean something much more severe; namely, a ban on all imports

and exports.

Mr. SHAYS. Food and everything.

Mr. ROSS. It was never including food or other humanitarian

supplies. It is not accurate to claim that they covered those items;

it was never supposed to cover those items.

Mr. SHAYS. It was never supposed to——

Mr. ROSS. No. Those rules exempted——

Mr. SHAYS. Well, let me back up then, just to make sure we’re

talking from the same foundation.

So Saddam had food, he had medicine coming in, he just chose

not to—he didn’t have the means to purchase it, or he just chose

not to get it to where he wanted—where we wanted it to go?

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Mr. ROSS. They had to get approval for purchases on a case-bycase basis for anything that they wanted to import. These things

had to be approved by the 661 Committee of the Security Council.

What this produced was a very cumbersome, bureaucratic and slow

process. And as I’m sure you realize, an economy that can support

a decent life for its citizens and a health care system requires

much more than just imported drugs, it requires electricity, it requires functioning sewage systems, all of these things, and that infrastructure declined very rapidly after comprehensive sanctions

were imposed in 1990. And the remedy didn’t start to appear until

the Oil-for-Food program was implemented in 1996.

If I may, sir, I’d just like to return to your point where you introduced your question about WMD. I didn’t say that Iraq had no

WMD. It was our view within the British and U.S. Governments

that Iraq had some WMD, we believe they had some remnants of

the original program that they had been developing very vigorously

up until the war of 1990. What I did say, however, was that we

did not believe Iraq was a threat, and that is a very different thing.

In order to be a threat you have to have, A, considerable stocks of

weapons, and, B, the means to deliver them, and we did not believe

that Iraq had the means to deliver them. They had approximately

12 dismantled SCUD missiles lying around somewhere, we

thought; in fact, there turned out to be none. They had no effective

air force——

Mr. SHAYS. So the issue is potential possession of weapons of

mass destruction, just not in any great quantity, and the delivery

system to provide them.

Mr. ROSS. We did not, as I recall, believe they had substantial

stocks of any WMD, chemical or biological or nuclear weapons. We

believed that they had failed fully to account for their holdings and

destruction of their previous stocks. Ambassador Bolton alluded to

that point, they had failed to give us a credible account of their destruction of previous stocks. That did not mean that we believed

they had substantial stocks. We had no evidence, intelligence or

otherwise, that they had substantial stocks of weapons or the

means to deliver them. On that basis our internal assessment was

that Iraq was not a threat, and that was the case until I left the

job in June 2002.

Mr. SHAYS. Let me just say that I agree with Mr. Van Hollen

that when you’re wrong—I was wrong—that you lose credibility;

the President lost credibility, I lost credibility, our Nation lost

credibility. I mean, that just seems intuitively to be something I

can accept.

What I’m hearing you say, though, is that the sanctions

against—so let me ask you this, and I’ll ask you, Dr. Lopez, as

well—Mr. Christoff, if I’m not in an area where you’ve done research, but if I am and haven’t asked you, feel free to jump in. Is

there anywhere—where have, if ever, comprehensive sanctions

worked?

Mr. ROSS. I’m struggling to give you an example.

Mr. SHAYS. Dr. Lopez.

Dr. LOPEZ. The same. Remember the South African ones were

only partly ascribed to by major trading states. Only Haiti, former

Republic of Yugoslavia and Iraq are the comprehensive ones where

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actually everyone signs on. And the approach that we learned from

that by 1994 was that not only the Western states, but the Council

as a whole abandoned comprehensive sanctions because the level

of punishment and devastation on the economy wasn’t worth the

political compliance we were getting. So we moved to more refined

measurements.

Mr. SHAYS. Mr. Christoff, do you have any comment on this?

Mr. CHRISTOFF. No. I would just reiterate that when you look at

Iraq in the Oil-for-Food Program, you can see where parts of the

sanctions were effective. Comprehensively they were not effective,

but when we focused on, as the United States and the U.K. did,

holding about $5.5 billion of Oil-for-Food contracts because of dual

use items, that contributed to keeping WMD and dual use items

out of Iraq.

Mr. SHAYS. So comprehensive are not something that you’ve seen

succeed or advocate. I get interested in the term ‘‘sanctions’’ versus

an ‘‘embargo.’’ Now, it strikes me that an embargo is one step beyond sanctions. Is an embargo where you literally just kind of ring

the state and prevent people from coming in and out? I mean, in

a sense that’s kind of what I thought we were doing in Iraq. Are

there cases where you can have smart embargo or targeted embargoes, or is an embargo by definition comprehensive?

Mr. ROSS. They’re essentially, Mr. Chairman, the same thing. We

would often refer to sanctions on Iraq as the oil embargo because

oil was Iraq’s biggest export and we were preventing the sale by

Iraq, except through U.N. controlled means. So we would talk

about the oil embargo as a different way of talking about sanctions,

so I think the terms are interchangeable.

Dr. LOPEZ. And in fact if I might add, Congressman, the commodity specific embargoes are the ones that seem to be not only the

most enforceable, but most comprehensive. These are the ones that

I think helped resolve the situation in Liberia and ones that really

focused on blood diamonds in Angola and Sierra Leone, and the

Council has found these to be quite effective.

Mr. SHAYS. Do you believe—and this is obviously opinion here—

do you believe that in order to achieve our objectives in both Iran

and the Sudan, that we will need to have some—a target embargo

program? And I’ll start with you, Dr. Lopez. I mean, our objective,

as I defined it, would be we don’t want Iran to have a nuclear program, we don’t want them to have weapons grade material. In

Sudan, we want the support of the—basically of the Arab Muslims

in Sudan, we want the fighting and the genocide of the African

Muslims to stop. And is sanctions the way we are going to achieve

it, in your judgment, Dr. Lopez?

Dr. LOPEZ. I think sanctions would be an effective way of achieving it in Sudan if this diplomatic effort of the last week seems to

fail. I think we’ve had even more biting Security Council proposals

on the table before the resolution of last week which imposed targeted sanctions on four individuals; there were 20 on the original

list more than a year ago. I think that can be effective because it’s

an outcome of failed diplomacy that’s occurred prior.

My own reading, since you’ve asked for judgment, is that much

more direct engagement by U.S. policymakers with the government

191

of Iran ought to occur before we think about bringing this dispute

to the Security Council.

Mr. SHAYS. Meaning direct talks, one-on-one talks?

Dr. LOPEZ. Yes. I think a U.S.-Iranian summit is called for because of the multiplicity of issues that separate us. For many people this is still about November 1979. It’s not just about the development of the nuclear program, it’s about frozen Iranian assets, it’s

about Iranian support of terrorism, it’s about the future of the Shiites in that region. We have enough issues on the table with Iran

that astute diplomacy held at the summit level may in fact take

this off the exclusive prerogative of a President in Iran who will

stand on a soapbox and continue to proclaim us as the bad guys.

Mr. SHAYS. The challenge is that when the President authorized

our Ambassador in Iraq to interact with the Iranians, other nations

began to be very concerned that somehow we were going to do

something outside their interests——

Dr. LOPEZ. I understand that, but I think those states will continue to redefine their interests as they see a potential deadlock in

the Security Council.

Mr. SHAYS. OK. Mr. Ross, how would you respond?

Mr. ROSS. I more or less agree with George Lopez on both points.

On Sudan, I think that targeted sanctions on the leadership of the

Khartoum government and others involved in the genocide are absolutely warranted, but they do need to be calibrated contemporaneously with what’s going on politically. You can’t just punish without encouraging people—you can’t just punish, you also have to encourage a political solution to what’s going on in Darfur, but I

think they should be threatened with sanctions. And if they don’t

comply then those sanctions should be imposed. I do think, however, it’s not just United States, but Western efforts to get sanctions agreed on Sudan have been undermined by the ability of

Sudan to argue that the United States and others are just seeking

a kind of hegemonistic plan for the Middle East where they just

want to invade countries and occupy them——

Mr. SHAYS. And you think it’s a viable—how do you assess that?

Mr. ROSS. I think it’s a completely bogus argument, but the illegitimacy, as many see it, of the Iraq invasion has added to that argument, and that argument has considerable resonance in the Middle East.

Mr. SHAYS. How about on Iran?

Mr. ROSS. On Iran, I agree with George Lopez. I’ve been troubled

listening to the discussion this morning that we seem to see the relationship with Iran and its nuclear program as a sort of continuum, stepping from sanctions to the inevitable option of military

force if sanctions fail. There is, of course, an alternative, which is

called talking to the Iranians. I think that Iran has legitimate interests in developing nuclear power, I think they have legitimate

security interests, and we should start to recognize that instead of

just demonizing their leadership and insulting them. If you want

them to cooperate, as we do, and we don’t want to use military

force—as I assume we don’t—I don’t really see much alternative to

sitting down with them and working out a viable way forward

where we can create a framework where their security interests

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are taken care of and our legitimate concern that they don’t develop a nuclear weapon is also taken care of.

Mr. SHAYS. Let me just pursue this a little bit. Given the kinds

of comments that are made by the President of Iran, you believe

that should compel us to dialog with them, make us feel that dialog

would work out in a way that would benefit our interests? Just

kind of give me a sense—I mean, by the way, he has said extraordinarily outrageous things.

Mr. ROSS. I agree; but it’s not just me, but as you yourself commented, Mr. Chairman, your own Ambassador in Baghdad suggested dialog in Iran. You have interests in common, including stability in Iraq. You need Iranian help to stabilize Iraq, and indeed

the broader Middle East area, if not the world. Iran has the potential to be enormously troublesome in the Middle East and globally.

And I think that before pursuing what to my mind would be a pretty disastrous option of military force, you should consider talking

to them.

Mr. SHAYS. Let me just ask one more point—given there are just

two of us here—one of my staffers wrote down—and I agree with

it, but I’m going to read it. So sanctions and reform are completely

separate? A corrupt, mismanaged United Nations, empowered and

tolerated by member states, is just likely to craft effective targeted

sanctions as well as well managed and accountable organizations.

Does the credibility of the organization imposing—this is the question—does the credibility of the organization imposing the sanctions have nothing to do with the likelihood member states and

others will respect them?

Mr. ROSS. Well, there seems to be a lot of confusion in the question, if I may say so without wanting to be rude.

Mr. SHAYS. I’m claiming this statement. My staff wrote it, but I

happen to buy into it.

Mr. ROSS. There seems to be endless confusion between the

United Nations, as a sort of generic concept, and the member

states. The U.N. Secretariat is tasked to implement things by the

Security Council, which is composed of its member states. And as

I said before, part of the obligation is implementing sanctions and

policing them, and ensuring that our companies don’t do trade with

embargo regimes and all the rest of it. That is our responsibility

as the governments of the member states of the United Nations, it

is not the U.N. Secretariat’s responsibility.

However, with all of that——

Mr. SHAYS. Let me just understand that. And we can take unilateral action as member states? How does that work?

Mr. ROSS. No, no, not unilateral actions. If U.N. sanctions are

imposed by the Security Council, the legal responsibility falls on

every national government of the U.N. to impose those sanctions

and to police them and to make sure that their citizens and their

companies don’t abuse them.

Mr. SHAYS. So what you’re saying is then the U.N. basically has

no ability to get member states to conform?

Mr. ROSS. The U.N. is its member states, the Security Council

and indeed the 661 Committee on the Iraq sanctions, we would try

and get member states to implement the sanctions. That was our

responsibility at the Security Council.

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Mr. SHAYS. But once the member states agree to abide by them

and they just don’t abide by them, what is the alternative? Will we

just blame the member states——

Mr. ROSS. Well, we found it very problematic. Those breaches, as

they were called, sanctions breaches, would come to the 661 Committee, where we would try and impose—we would take the country’s concern to task and try to encourage them to implement the

sanctions, but we have very little real means to persuade them to

see otherwise.

Mr. SHAYS. And see, that’s how I connect the dysfunction of the

U.N.; to say that the member states have to abide by it, but then

there’s no mechanism.

Mr. ROSS. Well, that’s one kind of dysfunction, certainly. I think

once sanctions regimes start to crumble you’ve got real problems in

propping them up. But I do think that is a separate question from

the broader question of Secretariat reform, which you have addressed this morning. I do think that’s important. I’m not decrying

efforts to reform, I think they are all connected. And I think certainly if not in your mind, in the minds of the broader public the

U.N. is one big thing, it’s all connected, and if the U.N. has disgraced itself over Oil-for-Food, I think it would be wise to reform

itself to avoid such accusations in the future.

Mr. SHAYS. I hear you. Thank you. My only problem with the

question is my staff wrote it in such small type, knowing that

would aggravate me.

Mr. Lynch.

Mr. LYNCH. I want to followup on that. My question was on another matter, but I do want to followup. Like the chairman, I just

came back from my fifth trip to Iraq and to Afghanistan as well,

and I have to say that the difference between what I see on the

ground in Afghanistan and what I see on the ground in Iraq is directly related to the participation of the U.N. When you’re on the

ground in Afghanistan, the presence of the U.N. there—and they’ve

got jurisdiction over the northern and western parts of the country—the presence of the U.N. troops, U.N. vehicles definitely induces the imprimatur of a humanitarian effort there in Afghanistan, and the people respond to that.

Now there are problems in Afghanistan, but clearly the situation

in Afghanistan, even though they’re desperately poor, only 6 percent of the people have electricity, Iraq much, much further ahead

economically and development-wise, there is still great value in

having the U.N. take the lead on that. And I appreciate it is the

responsibility of each constituent government to enforce sanctions,

but that collective effort is much, much greater than the individual

components. And I do have to say that a lot of my constituents

would say if that’s not what the U.N. is for, what the hell is it for?

And that’s exactly why we pay our dues to the U.N. is because we

want that collective strength as a community of nations. It legitimizes actions that might otherwise be suspect. And I dare say that

at least in the case of Afghanistan, the fact that the U.N. is supporting the effort there and the British are handling the poppy

eradication, the Germans are training the Afghani police department, the Canadians, the French, they’re doing their part in individual government roles, but all as part of that larger program it

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has contributed mightily to the success there and the progress

there, yet it is under the umbrella of the United Nations, and

under NATO as well. So I just—I know it’s a distinction you’re

making, but I still see tremendous value in having the U.N. as

being the lead.

Now——

Mr. CHRISTOFF. Mr. Lynch, could I even——

Mr. LYNCH. Sure.

Mr. CHRISTOFF. Just having come back from Iraq as well and

spending some time with the international community in Amman,

Jordan, I think there is a growing desire on the part of the specialized agencies, the IMF and the World Bank, to become more engaged in Iraq because what they bring are the kinds of specialized

skills that the U.N. has traditionally brought, FAO with its agricultural skills, WHO with its health specialists, etc., UNDP and its

development specialists. So there is a desire I think on the part,

from what I heard when I was in Amman, of the international community to try and reengage with our efforts at reconstruction in

Iraq. And you do see the contrast with NATO and other specialized

agencies within Afghanistan.

Mr. ROSS. Well, I also completely agree with the point you made,

Mr. Lynch. I set up the National Security Assistance Force in Afghanistan after the invasion by a Security Council resolution which

I negotiated on the Security Council, and there’s no doubt that the

fact that it is seen as a multinational effort in Afghanistan contributes to the credibility of that effort and much to the stability of Afghanistan.

Mr. LYNCH. Dr. Lopez.

Dr. LOPEZ. For all the difficulties we had in acquiring Security

Council mandate before going into Iraq, maybe the equal tragedy

is the decision by the United States to ask the Council for a singular designation as a belligerent occupier after the war when we

had the opportunity to engage the international community substantially, and that’s as sad a moment in the Security Council for

me as early March 2003, when later on we were, in December

2003, in a position where we could have gone back to the Council

and said, OK, now it’s time to internationalize the effort, let bygones be bygones, and we systematically rejected that option. That

was a sad moment.

Mr. LYNCH. I’ll yield back.

Mr. SHAYS. Thanks. And the gentleman is just yielding to me a

second.

These hearings do show my ignorance of certain issues, but I

sure learn a lot in the process by exposing my ignorance.

The implication is that had we not asked for this designation,

your implication is that we could have asked what?

Dr. LOPEZ. We had an opportunity to ask the Security Council

to bless, after the fact, the occupation of Iraq by U.S. forces, but

to multinationalize that force and particularly to multinationalize

the reconstruction program. And my understanding of the way the

events unfolded was that we asked for the belligerent occupier designation, which means that future elections and economic reconstruction would fall under the purview of the United States.

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Mr. SHAYS. The elections though were supervised by the commission, that was one of the extraordinary events—excuse me, I don’t

mean to claim your time. I’ll come back. I appreciate it, Mr. Lynch.

Mr. LYNCH. And I appreciate it, Dr. Lopez.

My question is, now, for example, by a hypothetical, I want to

refer, Mr. Ross, to your piece in the Washington Post where you

posit the rhetorical question, could sanctions be effectively used

against Iran? And you go on to say that—and again I’m paraphrasing—that largely because of conditions precedent and which exist

there now and within the current framework, it is unlikely to work.

Let’s assume, though, for the purpose of my question that the conditions precedent had been met, that there is consensus among the

wider community that there is the urgency—I think you used the

example if Iran were testing nuclear weapons and that it was a

sense of urgency there, and there was a consensus among the U.N.

that we needed to act, assuming those things, what would effective

sanctions in your mind look like? What are the terms of those sanctions against Iran that might be effective? Because that may be the

situation down the road that we’re confronted with.

Mr. ROSS. The terms of the sanctions I think would be pretty

clear, that you would want Iran to comply with its obligations

under the Nonproliferation Treaty, to allow full access for the

International Atomic Energy Agency, etc. Those would be the criteria that you would seek to demand. And the sort of means that

you might introduce to the Security Council to achieve those demands would be things like targeted sanctions on the leadership of

Iran, things like asset freezes, other financial sanctions, travel

bans. I think an arms embargo is also a clear option for the Security Council since this would also be an issue of international peace

and security.

Mr. LYNCH. OK. Those are the essential elements?

Mr. ROSS. Yes.

Mr. LYNCH. Mr. Christoff.

Mr. CHRISTOFF. The only problem that I would have about targeted financial sanctions, I know that the U.N. and the international community is moving more toward targeted sanctions

rather than comprehensive sanctions. When I talked with OPIC officials and Treasury officials about just trying to get countries to

return assets to the former regime, one of the challenges that they

always face in trying to put targeted sanctions on individuals is

that when the sanction is announced and when it’s eventually enforced can be a long time lag that would allow the individual to

move those assets quickly. So I clearly believe that targeted sanctions are important, but the practicality sometimes of enforcing

them can be difficult.

Mr. LYNCH. Right. Dr. Lopez.

Dr. LOPEZ. I agree with everything that has been said by my two

colleagues. The two colleges in the Iranian case would be, do you

want to on the back of a strict arms embargo really expand what

you consider dual use goods that can reinforce military goods already existing and expand things like Wasnauer lists and others to

a large number of items.

The second issue—and the greatest temptation, I think—is because Iran is heavily dependent on a precious and large scale exVerDate 11-MAY-2000 13:51 Oct 05, 2006 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00199 Fmt 6633 Sfmt 6633 D:\DOCS\29792.TXT HGOVREF1 PsN: HGOVREF1
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port, the prospect for oil embargoes I think looms in the mind of

many, although we know what both the humanitarian aspect of

that would be and the effect on Western markets itself and Western consumer economies would be substantial. One of the histories

of embargo success is that the imposers are willing to accept substantial costs. And the suggestion of embargoing Iranian oil would

pose that question in new and significant ways in 2006 to the U.S.

economy in particular that has not been posed before.

Mr. LYNCH. I am sort of cheating a little bit, because one of the

factors that Mr. Ross has pointed out to is, one of the factors that

is very important is the cooperation of neighboring states, so given

the geopolitical situation there, and the fact that we don’t have a

financial intelligence unit in Amman and in a number of other

major other financial centers around that area, would also present

problems in terms of isolating that regime.

Mr. ROSS. I think it can be done with a will as long as you have

the political consensus, and you are prepared to give it the sufficient technical attention. I mean, during the Iraq sanctions years,

despite all the political rhetoric that our leaders paid to Iraq, we

never set up a financial sanctions units on Iraq.

I had frequent discussions with U.S. Treasury officials saying

should we not set up should such a unit to target Saddam’s illegal

financial holdings, which were many, sitting in Swiss bank accounts, etc. He agreed. He felt we could do it. Such a unit would,

we felt, be effective. I personally recommended it at several sessions of talks between British and American governments. It was

never implemented.

Dr. LOPEZ. It is really Security Council resolution 1483 in May

2003, after American forces had toppled the regime and actually

imposes the asset freeze on Saddam Hussein’s family and designated officials, because we were fearful of them fleeing the country and being able to get to assets is one of the ironies of the Iraqi

case.

Mr. ROSS. I hate to correct you, George. There was, of course, an

asset freeze before that. Comprehensive sanctions are included in

all financial assets of the Iraqi regime. So from 1990 onward, no

government was allowed to hold financial assets for the Iraqi regime. But we never did put any effort, nor did the U.N. collectively

put any effort into enforcing that part of the comprehensive embargo.

Mr. LYNCH. Thank you, I yield back.

Mr. SHAYS. I feel like we have, both of us have this golden opportunity to talk to the three of you. And I would like to go on a little

bit longer here.

I want to, first, know from all three of you, and maybe I am getting you out of your territory, Mr. Christoff in areas you can’t respond. So don’t feel like you need to.

Do you believe that, just taking Iran first, it is an absolute imperative that we prevent Iran—or not, that we prevent, that somehow Iran does not move forward with its nuclear program, and the

obvious fear that we have that they will develop a weapons grade

material.

One, do you think that is where they are headed, and two, do you

think it is in the world’s interest to prevent that? And I will start

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with you, Mr. Ross. And I am just trying to understand, you will

understand why I am asking these questions.

Mr. ROSS. Sure. We don’t yet know that is where Iran is headed.

There is no conclusive proof of that. The latest IAEA report suggests that they have achieved a certain level of uranium enrichment, and indeed, they publicly avowed this themselves, and

worryingly, they also denied the IAEA full access to their sites and

to information about their program. This is concerning. And it does

perhaps suggest that they have less altruistic goals in mind and

the mere development of a civil nuclear program.

Mr. SHAYS. Let me just pursue that with a point though, I mean,

Russia, in particular, and Europe, seem surprised that this program was progressing as quickly as it had and that they had this

program for 18 years, contrary to what they had claimed, correct?

Mr. ROSS. Russia is surprised of that did you say?

Mr. SHAYS. Yes.

Mr. ROSS. I don’t know I am afraid.

Mr. SHAYS. Because the information we get is that one of the

reasons we have some opportunity to deal with the Russians is that

they feel that Iran has not been forthcoming to them. But that is

not information that you——

Mr. ROSS. Well, it is clear that Iran has not been forthcoming to

anybody. They are not being forthcoming to the IAEA. They need

to be forthcoming to the IAEA.

Mr. SHAYS. But had, for a number of years, had this program in

development. So that certainly leads one to begin to question where

they are headed if they had done this, at the same time, they

claimed they never were. Their credibility clearly is pretty low.

Mr. ROSS. I agree with that, their credibility would be wonderfully increased if they were to allow the IAEA full access.

Mr. SHAYS. Dr. Lopez.

Dr. LOPEZ. This speaks to the question of what is the immediate

goal. I think IAEA access is the goal. And continued dialog with

Iranians about the pace of development of their civilian program

and the distinction between a civilian energy program and a weapons producing program is critical. And what shifted, I think, in the

diplomatic dialog and particularly in the U.S. foreign policy dialog

over the last 3 months has been a leapfrogging over those important steps to the notion that it is important for us to deny Iran a

weapon.

Senators that I have a great deal of respect for says there are

two dangerous things that loom before us, a U.S. attack on Iranian

facilities, and a Iranian development of a weapon, as if those are

the only two choices. And I think the issues that lie before us are

that we have a country that is now continuing to back away from

international inspections to which it had been a part up to now,

even while it did, on occasion, falsify information and withhold information.

Mr. SHAYS. Aren’t you being really generous when you say ‘‘on

occasion?’’

Dr. LOPEZ. Generous, sir, because the stakes are too high.

Mr. SHAYS. No, you don’t want to be generous. You want to be

accurate. And with all due respect, I was kind of saying I am

agreeing with these folks in front of me, and now I am beginning

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to think—and I admit you lose your credibility when you say Saddam has a weapons program and he doesn’t, so I am going to have

to live with that. But I feel like we are being a bit naive and extraordinarily generous to Iran to suggest that 18 years of developing a program to which the world was not aware of, and now is

aware of, that we can’t draw certain conclusions. The trend line is

in, clearly, the wrong direction. Am I wrong about that?

Dr. LOPEZ. No. I think the trend line is in the direction you

pointed. But we need to cut it by three important facts. One, the

technical capacity, as far as we can estimate from all intelligence

sources, is still relatively low for the production of a real weapon.

I go back to what Carne said before, which I think is critical in

terms of the balance between Iraq and Iran is I am worrying much

more about the delivery capability of the Iranians, that is, they

have systems that can deliver weapons rather than where they

really are with the development of weapons of mass destruction.

Mr. SHAYS. See, the last thing I care about—the last thing—I

care less about delivery, because I believe that a weapons grade

material in the hands of, I don’t look for a signature item coming

to the United States or wherever. I look for it in a different direction.

But Mr. Ross, the Iranians have no credibility as it relates to

this issue, clearly, correct? I mean, 18 years of a program that were

doing undercover are now being exposed, they are saying they are

moving straight ahead.

The trend line is clearly in the wrong direction, whether, so, I am

just asking the next question, which is, we don’t want them to develop weapons grade material, clearly.

Now, to what extent would you be suggesting it would be nice

that they didn’t do it, we need to work hard that they don’t do it,

or it is absolutely imperative that they don’t do it?

Mr. ROSS. I think it is extremely concerning that Iran might be

developing a nuclear weapon, particularly with the current regime.

I think the concern about it is entirely legitimate, and they have

very little credibility in the disclosures that they have made. But

you then need to ask yourself if you assume that they may be developing a nuclear weapon, what are you going to do about it? You

have to look at why they may be developing a nuclear weapon.

They are now adjacent to a country which is still largely controlled by the world’s superpower which itself is armed with nuclear weapons.

Israel is armed with nuclear weapons. More and more countries

in their neighborhood, India, Pakistan are armed with nuclear

weapons.

They may have serious security concerns of their own, particularly when confronted by U.S. Government that seems bent on regime change and is fairly abusive in the way it describes the Iranian regime calling them part of the axis of evil or whatever.

In my view, whatever we feel about the Iranian regime, they do

have legitimate security concerns that they should not be attacked,

which may be why they are developing a nuclear weapon. If that

is the case, you need to sit down with them and work out ways of

satisfying these security concerns without them developing a nuclear weapon.

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Mr. SHAYS. Do you believe that Iran has used Hezbollah as its

surrogate that they train and finance Hezbollah?

Mr. ROSS. I worked on the Middle East peace process as it was

then known in happier days in the mid 1990’s and Iran——

Mr. SHAYS. You look so young to me I am trying to imagine.

Mr. ROSS. No. I am antique.

The Iran——

Mr. SHAYS. How many years were you in the foreign service?

Mr. ROSS. 15. Iran was working, was certainly supporting Palestinian Muslimic Jihad and Hezbollah at that time. I have to say,

though, at that time the British government, of which I was then

a part, did not regard Hezbollah as a terrorist organization. They

regarded them as a resistance organization because Hezbollah at

that time was primarily directed at ending Israeli occupation of

southern Lebanon. That has since changed. And Hezbollah has not

fully recognized Israel’s right to exist and is still supporting some

questionable activities.

Mr. SHAYS. You are being a little generous here. I wish you

would be a little more forthcoming in terms of——

Mr. ROSS. The truth is, I don’t know about what Hezbollah is

doing today or whether Iran is supporting it today. I worked on

that specific issue in the mid 1990’s so my information is somewhat

out of date.

Mr. SHAYS. But the bottom line to this whole dialog is what I

think I am taking from this conversation is that you believe direct

talks need to take place with both governments, Sudan and Iran,

before there is dialog of sanctions and that you believe that sanctions need to be targeted such as with Iran what would be effective? I will tell you two that I think will be and maybe you can tell

me more. Not allowing their scientists to study abroad, their scholars, not allowing their airline to land anywhere by air, but Syria.

Things like that. What other types of ways?

Mr. ROSS. I mentioned in answer to Mr. Lynch’s question that financial sanctions, travel bans and arms embargo are things that

you could consider for Iran. In terms of yes, we are——

Mr. SHAYS. Let me quickly say, would they be successful giving

China, Russian and some European nations——

Mr. ROSS. Well, in order to be successful, as I think all three of

us have made clear, you need to have broad political support for

them. I think before you will get broad political support for any

sanctions, you need to show that you have exhausted all other

means of addressing this problem with Iran. And I think that

would include dialog.

Ramping things up at the rather accelerated rate that the United

States is doing, pushing things through the Security Council in a

very determined and aggressive way in a time limited fashion is

not the way to win political support.

My recommendation would be that United States should take

things a little bit slower and show that it is willing to address

these issues by dialog before advancing more punitive measures.

Mr. SHAYS. Do you believe that in order for diplomacy to work

that you need to have the concern that you might use a military

or do you think you just take military option off the table.

Mr. ROSS. I don’t necessarily think that, although——

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Mr. SHAYS. Think what?

Mr. ROSS. I don’t think that you should take the military option

off the table, although I am appalled by military action in all cases.

I think that some cases, it remains a necessary thing to have in

your armory.

Mr. SHAYS. Dr. Lopez, can you respond to that question?

Dr. LOPEZ. I think that targeted sanctions in this case can be

very effective. But I am recalling the Yugoslav case where in the

second generation of sanctions, we decided that we were dealing on

the top with a regime we wanted changed, but at mid levels and

levels below were people who were reformers who we were trying

to help.

So as targeted as travel bans can sound and be, we even want

to be more targeted within the imposition of that specific sanction.

Because in fact, there were people we wanted to have assets. There

were people we wanted to be able to travel. There were people we

wanted to deal with because they were, in fact, opposed to the

Milosevic regime. And I think it will be a real challenge in the case

of forging Iranian sanctions to decide what will be the designated

group of entities and individuals who will be subject to the targeted

sanctions. It is not impossible. It is, in fact, very possible. But it

will be able to strip from the Iranian leadership that kind of rally

round-the-flag effect which says, see, I told you, they are all

against us. Look at what we are all suffering. If, in fact, all of them

are not suffering from that, that is to our advantage.

I think the second issue supporting again Carne’s great statement about diplomacy is we have to decide, I think at the council

level, and in the larger powers, just how serious are we going to

take sanctions? You know, at one level in the late 1980’s, people

kept saying to us, see sanctions on South Africa are not effective.

By 1993 people said, wow, look at that sanctions case on South Africa.

We were continually told throughout the 1990’s, Saddam’s robust

actions, his hostility to the west, his hostility to inspectors, sanctions aren’t working. By 2003, at the end of 2003, we learned that,

in fact, sanctions had worked, but we chose diplomatic and military

means to go about it a different way.

I think we have to broaden our thinking about sanctions. One of

the things I noticed in the Iraqi sanction situation was every time

things were interdicted at the border, rather than that being interpreted by political figures that sanctions were working, because we

were catching these bad things, it was interpreted in one direction

only, look how terrible this is, there must be thousands of things

getting through because look what we caught this time and we only

caught one. Every time inspectors found prohibited weapons and

destroyed a chemical or biological facility, we believed there was

even more hiding under Saddam’s bed, rather than the position we

were taking, which was it was actually working.

So I think if we go ahead with Iranian sanctions, we have to go

ahead with a degree of confidence and with an ability to give it a

timeline where it might actually change policy.

Mr. SHAYS. Let me say we are going to conclude here. I am

struck with a bias that I still hold, and that is, you know, when

people from Europe lecture us about diplomacy and

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multilateralism, and they say Germany and France we can talk

with each other, to me that is like Connecticut and New York talking with each other. I view it as an economic union.

I am left with this feeling that sanctions—in one level, Mr. Ross,

I agree that there needs to be dialog, significant dialog and extended.

I think I have learned to have a little more faith in the recognition that with Qaddafi, it was a long-term effort. So I think what

I am hearing from here is that sanctions take a while.

I just don’t have any faith that Europe’s heart or Russia’s heart

or China’s heart is in having sanctions. I think it is with Iran, I

think it is a message that Iran it ain’t going to happen so they

don’t need to fear them.

And then what I fear is that the only thing left on the table is

military option, which I don’t like at all. And I am left with a feeling that if Europe doesn’t want there to be a military option, they

have to recognize that the dialogs about sanctions have to be real

and we have to, we have to recognize without sanctions you leave

very little on the table. That is kind of what I am left with.

Let me end by saying, is there a question we should have asked

but we didn’t? Is there a question that you would have wanted to

have responded to that you think we need to put on the table?

Start with you, Mr. Christoff.

Mr. CHRISTOFF. Mr. Chairman, a couple of points, why we need

negotiations with Iran not just on the nuclear issue but we need

Iran to try to help us deal with the situation in Iraq.

I think, as my boss testified last week before you, and we talked

about the security situation in Iraq, clearly the Iranian influence

in the southern part of Iraq, the army and militias all with Iranian

influences is an important reason why we need to continue types

of negotiations with Iran.

Second point is that I don’t want to completely divorce that reform with sanctions, which, is, in many respects, a topic of interest.

I think if you want to have effective sanctions in the future, you

have to engage in certain reforms. We have to have reform of the

oversight services with the United nations, we have to strengthen

the internal auditors. We have to revamp procurement. If you have

an Oil-for-Food program like situation in the future, you are going

to have to have a U.N. that has those types of strength and controls.

Mr. SHAYS. Mr. Ross.

Mr. ROSS. I don’t disagree with the thrust of what you said, Mr.

Chairman. I think my difference with you would be over the timing.

At present, you are right, the international consensus does not

exist to impose sanctions on Iran because above all, there is no

compelling evidence that they are developing a nuclear weapon.

But that may change.

And what I would urge is the more patient approach to this continuum of dialog of sanctions and then armed force.

I am worried about is that the U.S. administration is currently

rushing us through that line. And saying, oh look, the Europeans

and Chinese won’t support sanctions, therefore we have no alternative but to go to military force.

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I think this is hasty and unwise, not least because I think military force would be pretty disastrous all around, not just for the

Iranians, but also for us. So I would, therefore, urge that in order

to build that political consensus, there are other options to be tried

first, and a more patient effort is made to buildup the body of evidence and the record of Iranian noncompliance with the Security

Council’s demands, then, at the end of that, you would have, I

think, the consensus you would need.

Mr. SHAYS. Thank you.

Dr. LOPEZ. I completely concur with that. I underscore some of

the great points you and others in the subcommittee made about

Sudan, I think we are in a critical moment with regard to Sudanese sanctions and the ability to send a clear message to the government of Khartoum that the international community now

means business, enough is enough.

And there are ways in which an earlier discussion of sanctions

in Sudan we let the Khartoum government waive the new peace

treaty before us and say, well, we don’t know if we are able to actually follow through if we are so constrained by sanctions, and the

international community backed away.

Now I think that process has a dynamic of its own. It is separate

from the conflict in West Darfur. It is separate from the humanitarian crisis. And I think the international community has to get

backbone and move ahead with more sanctions in the Sudan area.

Mr. SHAYS. Do you have any question?

Mr. LYNCH. No. I think these people have suffered enough.

Mr. SHAYS. Well let me say, Mr. Christoff, Mr. Ross and Dr.

Lopez, you have been a wonderful panel, and I thank you for your

taking the time with us this morning. Thank you very much.

Mr. ROSS. Thank you. It is an honor.

[Whereupon, at 1:20 p.m., the subcommittee was adjourned.]

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