22 September 1998
THE WHITE HOUSE Office of the Press Secretary (New York, New York) September 21, 1998 PRESS BRIEFING BY NATIONAL SECURITY ADVISOR SANDY BERGER Marriott Eastside New York, New York MR. LEAVY: Good afternoon. We have the National Security Advisor here, Sandy Berger, to give a readout of the President's day, his meeting with Secretary General Annan, Prime Minister Sharif. After Sandy briefs, Mike will come up and answer any other questions you may have. MR. BERGER: Good afternoon. I want to do three or four things: talk a bit about the speech, and specifically give you some more information about the reference the President made in the speech to an emergency supplemental the President intends to submit to the Congress later this week on security, give you a readout of the Sharif meeting, and then a very brief readout of the meetings that he had with the Secretary General. You've seen and read the speech; I will not repeat it. But let me simply emphasize the five or six points I think the President wanted to emphasize. He has addressed the question of terrorism for the American people and the international community on a number of occasions, I think most recently at the Naval Academy at their commencement. Those speeches have been quite concrete, quite specific, the steps that we need to take as an international community to deal with this increasing phenomenon. I think what the President wanted to do today was to talk more broadly about the phenomenon of terrorism and make several points. First, that this is a universal problem, not just an American problem. We're all obviously focused on the terrible tragedy in Africa and the incidents that have been directed here and against Americans, whether it's in the World Trade Center or going back to Lockerbie and other incidents involving Americans. But what the President made very clear today to the assembled group was that this is a collective problem, that no one is immune from the pernicious affect of terror. Second, I think the President wanted very clearly to de-legitimize terrorism, to make very clear that terrorism is not a form of legitimate political expression, that it's not an acceptable reflection of grievances, that it's not a legitimate response to deprivation; that it is, as he said, murder pure and simple. But at the same time, as the President made very clear that we needed collectively to reject terror in all of its forms, he also recognized that we have to deal with the conditions in which frustration and desperation are bred. Fourth, the President talked very specifically about the arguments some make, the kind of overhang on the terrorism discussion, that this is somehow a clash of civilizations, that this is somehow a division between Western values and Western power and the Islamic world. And I think this is a theme the President has talked about on many occasions in the past, perhaps not at any time quite so extensively: acknowledging our deep respect for Islam, it's growth in the world, it's importance as a religion, as a cultural religion, its importance to the United States with 6 million practitioners of Islam. But that as he said, the Almighty does not confer licenses to kill, and those who cloak themselves in the rhetoric or legitimacy of religion, no matter what that may be, are false prophets or false perpetrators. Finally, the President talked about the common agenda that we need to work on together to fight this problem, denying safe havens to terrorists and pressuring states that do; trying to cut off the financial flows to terrorist groups; making the Biological Weapons Convention tougher, as we're seeking to do; ratifying the Chemical Weapons Convention and getting it approved, as we hope to do in the Congress; and joining together on common law enforcement as we are doing in the Nairobi/Dar bombings and elsewhere. I think, over all, what you've seen in the last several years is the President seeking to elevate to the top of the security agenda the issues that heretofore have been seen in a narrower context. Whether that's drugs, or in this case terror, these are the new transnational threats that we have to see as the great security challenges of the next 20 years. Now, the President made reference in his remarks to steps we would be taking to intensify and to strengthen both our ability to protect our people abroad against terrorism as well as our ability to fight terrorism. Later this week the President will submit to the Congress an emergency supplemental in the amount of $1.8 billion to renew and expand the fight against terrorism. And this supplemental -- and there will be a fact sheet available at some point when I'm finished -- will both have defensive, protective measures, as well as beefing up our offensive capacity to prevent and to find terrorists after the fact. Funding will be used to rebuild our embassies in Nairobi, Kenya, and Dar; to improve security for facilities serving American personnel worldwide; to strengthen the fight to prevent terrorism, as I said, both at home and abroad, both in the law enforcement area and in the intelligence area. More specifically, the President will request the bulk of this money will be for money for the Department of State for emergency expenses in connection with Kenya and Tanzania, including funds to reconstitute our embassy activities there and for security improvements. That's number one. Number two, as part of this effort, will be funding to improve security of our American facilities worldwide. This is an emergency supplemental; this will not solve all of the problems that we have. But we've looked at the most serious problems and these are the ones that we need to address on an emergency basis. The Defense Department will be reimbursed for costs associated with the immediate response that they provided to the Kenya and Tanzania bombings. The Department of Treasury will receive funding for increased Secret Service protection that has become necessary as a result of this intensified fight against terrorism. Seventy million dollars for international security assistance -- that's anti-terrorism funds in the Department of State. The FBI will receive funding to intensify its substantial efforts in this fashion, as well as money for the National Park Service for the same purpose -- also elements of the package that will be classified. And I'll answer questions, if you have, about that. ..................... Q: Regarding the speech, given the way international terrorists tend to operate in the shadows and specifically in countries where institutions for law enforcement, et cetera, are not well established, even if he were to get international cooperation, is it still not going to be very difficult to stop people like Usama bin Ladin and those kind of well-financed terrorists? MR. BERGER: Well, I think with someone like bin Ladin you're dealing with a new phenomenon, you're dealing with stateless terrorism. I mean, when you have state terrorism at least you have a state to act against. That state has lots of things that it values and lots of things that one can go against in retaliation. This is a network that exists in many parts of the world that has both loose and tight affiliations, but all centers around bin Ladin. But I think there is a growing sense, even since Africa, that this has to be acted on in a concerted and strong fashion. We have had quite good cooperation in arresting a number of people affiliated with bin Ladin. In other situations we've had quite good luck in recent days in going after bin Ladin cells in other countries. And I think it is a very difficult target, but I know one thing, and that is that if we're not aggressive and proactive it certainly will not disappear, it will only get worse. Q: Are you at all -- were you encouraged to make this speech or to make these proposals as the result of enhanced cooperation in the last four or five weeks since -- MR. BERGER: Well, I think terrorism has been -- as I said, I think one of the things the President has done over the last four or five years -- I would say one of the central elements of our foreign policy and one of the things he has succeeded in doing is elevating these new transnational issues -- for example, drugs or international crime or terrorism -- to be not just law enforcement and domestic issues, but be national security and foreign policy and international issues. So this has been an effort going on for some time. Obviously, the fact that we were attacked in Africa on August 7th has intensified our effort. But as the President laid out today very carefully and very deliberately, this is not just an American problem. If you are in any part of the world -- if you're in Algeria, if you're in Egypt, if you're in Europe, if you're in Argentina -- countries increasingly are being victimized by this and they have to begin to see that this is something they have to work more closely on together. And I think that cooperation is increasing, but I think we need to do more. Q: Sandy, on the emergency supplemental, what is the increased funding for Secret Service that you mentioned? Is that for the protection of the President? MR. BERGER: It is for extra demands that have been placed on the Secret Service in connection with the current threat. I'm not going to go beyond that, for obvious reasons. Q: The supplemental is for what dates, Sandy? It runs from when? MR. BERGER: Well, we would hope that it would be -- I should say we have done this with very close consultation and cooperation with the congressional leadership of both parties, with the appropriators of both parties. That's not to say there's agreement on all aspects of this, but there has been a high degree of discussion already that has taken place on this. This would be an FY98 emergency supplemental. Q: How much? MR. BERGER: $1.8 billion. Q: Do you have any assurances the Republicans won't try to marry it with tax cuts so the President would agree to that amount of money? And on a separate money question, did the President bring up with Kofi Annan anything about the arrears, U.N. arrears? MR. BERGER: Well, I would hope on the first question that they would not. We have a lot of embassies in the world, to take example, that are not as secure as one would like them to be. And what this supplemental does in part is to focus on those embassies and say, we need to do some things right away to protect our people who are working abroad. It identifies certain law enforcement and intelligence and other areas where we know if we have some more resources we can get some more results. So I believe this is overwhelmingly in the national interest. I believe that the leadership of the Congress -- I've spoken to them myself on this; the President has spoken to the Majority Leader, the Speaker, as well as the Minority Leader of the House and Senator Daschle, some of the appropriators -- I believe there's a common view that we ought to act on this on the basis of the clear and compelling national interest. On the arrears issue, it not surprisingly did come up. The President raised it with the Secretary General. The President said, as he has unfortunately in the past few years, that this remains a logjam on this issue; that we will continue to try our best to get this done. I sincerely hope that -- as you all know, this is entangled with an issue of an abortion issue. These are two extremely important issues on which there are strong feelings on both sides. And both are entitled to be debated and voted upon on their individual merits, and we are prepared to have a vote on Mexico City and we're prepared to have a vote on U.N. arrears and IMF money. But to make one hostage to the other is to do a great disservice, in my judgment, to an institution that is doing a great deal of good and which the American people overwhelmingly support -- that is, the United Nations. ............. Q: Sandy, what's the purpose of calling for greater international cooperation on terrorism when earlier this year at the G-8 you talked about terrorism extensively in Birmingham, and then with the Africa bombings, the U.S. unilaterally made the decision to strike Afghanistan and Sudan, and one of your G-8 partners severely criticized the decision? Is the purpose just to repeat and repeat the message on terrorism with the hope that some day there will be cooperation? MR. BERGER: Well, first of all, I think saying something twice doesn't necessarily make it redundant. That is, I think when things are important, sometimes you have to speak to them frequently as you raise people's awareness of the problem. So the fact the President has previously addressed this question I think hardly is a reason for him not to address it again. In terms of multilateralism and unilateralism, it is true for every issue that there is a multilateral dimension and a unilateral dimension. The President has said often, we work together with other nations where possible, but we're prepared to act alone when necessary. There is a huge amount of this terrorism issue when it comes to safe havens, when it comes to moving money around, when it comes to sharing information about intelligence and law enforcement, that inherently, intrinsically is multilateral. But when Americans are killed by terrorists in Africa, the United States is not going to seek permission from other countries to respond. ................. Q: Sandy, did Kofi Annan raise the criticism of the missile attacks in his meeting with the President? MR. BERGER: No. ............ (end transcript)