By Federal News Service
Wednesday, Dec. 16, 1998

PRIME MINISTER BLAIR: Earlier today, I gave authority for U.K. forces to be deployed against Iraq. Operation Desert Fox was launched at 10 p.m. London time. There can be no greater responsibility upon a prime minister than to ask British servicemen to risk their lives for the sake of peace and stability in another part of the world, and I feel that responsibility tonight profoundly.

     I spoke earlier today to Group Captain Rich Jones, who is in charge of British forces in the Gulf. British involvement will be significant. And I thanked him and them for their bravery and for their professionalism, and I wished them well in what we would be asking of them.

     This action, of course, could have been avoided. Since the Gulf War, the entire international community has worked to stop Saddam Hussein from keeping and developing nuclear, chemical and biological weapons, and from continuing to threaten his neighbors. For the safety and stability of the region and of the wider world, he cannot be allowed to do so. If he will not, through reason and diplomacy, abandon his weapons of mass destruction program, it must be degraded and diminished by military force.

     Over the past few years, as you all know, we have engaged in endless diplomacy at every level and of every kind. But we must face the facts: Saddam Hussein has no intention of abiding by the agreements he made. U.N. Resolution 687 bringing to an end the Gulf war made it a condition of the cease-fire both that Iraq destroy its weapons of mass destruction and agree to the monitoring of its obligation to destroy such weapons.

     Despite constant lies, prevarication, and breaching of the agreed conditions, the weapons inspectors carried out their task, uncovering in the process vast evidence of weapons of mass destruction.

     In October last year Saddam Hussein started to impede their work even more seriously than before. Months of negotiation followed. Finally, faced with the threat of force, Saddam Hussein averted military action by entering into a binding memorandum of understanding with Kofi Annan, the U.N. secretary-general. But despite that, he continued to obstruct. In August he suspended cooperation with the U.N. inspectors. On October the 30th he ended the cooperation totally. He resisted all appeals to come back into compliance with the agreements he made. Indeed, quite the contrary; he used the time both for further prevarication and for the dispersal of his military capability.

     As you know, on November the 14th, I issued the authority to strike against Iraq as part of a joint U.S.-U.K. operation. At the last moment, aware that he was about to be attacked, Saddam offered full, unconditional, unrestricted cooperation with UNSCOM. Again he made that promise.

     We called off that attack. We made that last extra effort to avoid the use of force.

     The inspectors again, as you know, went back to work. We said at the time very clearly, very directly, that we would hold Saddam to his word and that should he break that word once more, there would be no warnings, no wranglings, no last-minute negotiations. So we made the position crystal-clear to him and to the entirety of the world community.

     Richard Butler, the head of the U.N. Special Commission, promised his report on Iraqi cooperation within a month. It came out last night, on time, as scheduled.

     It is damning. It is a catalogue of obstruction. It shows quite clearly one more time, that Saddam has no intention whatever of keeping to his word. He is a serial breaker of promises.

     And the reason for that obstruction, for breaking his word, is also now clear; it is his desire to develop these weapons of mass destruction. He has not for one instant yielded up that malign intent. The threat is now, and it is a threat to his neighbors, to his people, and to the security of the world. If, therefore, he is not stopped now, the consequences to our future peace are real and fundamental. We cannot responsibly let that happen.

     Let me remind you, since 1991, the inspectors destroyed or rendered harmless 48 Scud missiles, 40,000 chemical munitions, 690 tons of chemical-weapons agents, 3,000 tons of precursor chemicals; and the al-Hakam biological-weapons factory, destroyed in 1996.

     However, over 30,000 chemical-weapons warheads and 4,000 tons of precursor chemicals remain unaccounted for. The U.N. and the world community have shown by the resolutions passed, calling for unconditional cooperation with the weapons inspectors, that they know fully the seriousness of the threat Saddam poses.

     Following the Butler report, after more than a year of obstruction and a catalogue of broken promises, which I have outlined to you, we have no option but to act. Our objectives in this military action are clear; to degrade his capability to build and use weapons of mass destruction and to diminish the military threat he poses to his neighbors.

     The targets chosen, therefore, are targets connected with his military capability, his weapons of mass destruction capacity, and his ability to threaten his neighbors. We are taking every possible care to avoid civilian casualties.

     I cannot for obvious reasons go into operational details. But I do want to say one further thing. Our quarrel is not with the Iraqi people. It never has been. The whole world should know that we have allowed Saddam to sell oil to buy as much food and medicine for the Iraqi people as is necessary. It is a lie for him to say otherwise. He could have fed and cared for his people, but he has chosen not to. Our quarrel is with him alone and the evil regime which he represents.

     There is no realistic alternative to military force. We are taking this military action with real regret, but also with real determination. We have exhausted all other avenues. We act because we must.

     Q Prime Minister, can you say how many personnel are involved? (No response.)

END.

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