Senior Defense Official:  Good afternoon.

The International Criminal Court is much in the news over the
last few days, and we thought we would share with you some
thoughts that we had on the subject.  Our principal objections
to the ICC treaty are that it subjects U.S. nationals -- in
particular, the risk is great for our armed forces -- to
prosecution by prosecutors and in a court that are not
accountable to any kind of authority that we could hold
accountable as a country.  The ICC treaty applies to -- creates
a situation where we -- our people could be prosecuted for
crimes that are defined by the parties to the treaty.  And
nobody in our Congress would have a voice in the definition of
those crimes, and yet Americans could be prosecuted criminally
for violating these purported crimes.  In the prosecutions,
Americans would not be entitled to all of the protections that
our Constitution affords to Americans in criminal prosecutions.

And then there's an objection to the treaty that is very
fundamental and very broad-ranging.  And that is, the treaty
claims to apply even to countries that are not parties.   And
this is worth emphasizing:  This is really a radical -- I would
say an astonishing innovation in international law and a very
unwelcome development that a number of countries would arrogate
to themselves the right to adopt a treaty and impose it on
states that haven't signed on, that haven't become parties to
the treaty.  This is a deviation from hundreds of years of
international legal practice. It is an innovation that -- that
violates the principles of sovereignty that have been basic to
the relations among states for centuries.  And it's really hard
to overstate how much of a problem it is that states would think
that they could, in effect, get together with a few other states
in the world and legislate for all the states in the world.

Now I think it's important to clarify that we are not, as a
result of the International Criminal Court Treaty, making
sweeping generalities about how this treaty is going to affect
particular military missions or deployments of the United States
around the world.  We look at military deployments and military
missions on a case-by-case basis.  And we evaluate, in each
case, whether the benefits of the activity outweigh the various
costs.  The way we look at it, the International Criminal Court
Treaty creates risks, which is to say, costs, that will affect
our calculation about whether we want to participate in
particular activities.  But the judgments are going to be made
on a case-by-case basis.

Now I'll address two of the recent matters that have arisen in
the U.N. in this connection.  One is East Timor.  The United
States has decided when -- even though we support the East Timor
peacekeeping operation in principle, that the added risks
created by the ICC necessitate our withdrawing the U.S.
peacekeepers from the East Timor mission.  And the order has now
been given to withdraw them now that the treaty has come into
force as of July 1st.

In Bosnia, we have decided that we are going to continue to
participate in the peacekeeping mission in Bosnia,
notwithstanding the added risks created by the ICC.  But, in the
U.N., we have made it clear that we would not support the
renewal of the U.N. Security Council resolution providing the
mandate for the Bosnian peacekeeping mission unless that
resolution contains protections against prosecution under the
International Criminal Court.

It's important to stress that the United States is not
attempting to impose its will on other countries.  In this
debate, it is the parties to the International Criminal Court
Treaty who are attempting to impose their treaty on non-parties.
All we are doing is saying that the countries that are parties
to this treaty and that like the idea of the treaty and the
court should feel free to use the court, but they should not
assert the right to subject Americans to that treaty, or subject
Americans to prosecution in that court.

We are seeking protection for our forces, right now, in a series
of actions that include work at the United Nations to try to get
a resolution that would provide blanket protection for Americans
participating in U.N.-sponsored peacekeeping missions.  We are
also working on getting bilateral agreements with countries
around the world that they will not transfer U.S. nationals to
the court for prosecution without U.S. consent.  And we are also
working on adjusting the status of forces agreements that we
have with countries around the world to provide appropriate
protections for the -- for our people with regard to the
International Criminal Court.

And with that, I think we'll be happy to take your -- take your questions.

Q:  (Inaudible.)

Senior Defense Official:  Can I make just two points from a
military perspective?  Just two short points.  From a uniformed
military perspective, we feel that we have an obligation to
protect our service members from politically motivated
prosecution from a court that's not accountable to the American
people.  We think that's an obligation. Military operations are
hard enough without exposing our service members to double
jeopardy.  And I recognize it may not be double jeopardy in a
true legal sense, but it puts them at risk of a second trial.

And the second point that I'd leave with you, the U.S. military
has been and will continue to be a strong advocate for
accountability for war crimes and crimes against humanity, and
our opposition to this treaty should not in any way be viewed as
lessening that.

That's it.

Q:  Could you give us -- (inaudible) -- in East Timor. Secretary
Rumsfeld said earlier that he was withdrawing three people from
East Timor.  How many does that leave there, or would they now
all be gone?  And I believe he also said that it wasn't related
to the ICC.  Could you please explain the discrepancy there?

And could you also explain a little bit more clearly about
Bosnia?  It's my understanding that it would affect U.S.
personnel with the U.N. action there, about 45 or 46 of them,
but not the 3,100 that are there for SFOR and IFOR.

Senior Defense Official:  On East Timor, I believe the number of
people that we're withdrawing is three.

Q:  And that leaves zero then?

Senior Defense Official:  And that leaves -- (aside) -- in the U.N. mission.

Staff:  Sir, there were three there.  One returned from the
rotation for other reasons.  There are two left.  And so we're
withdrawing the two --

Senior Defense Official:  That's right.  I knew -- I knew there
was this three-versus-two issue -- (laughter) -- and I didn't
remember what the answer was.

Q:  And could you resay the answer so that it'll --

Senior Defense Official:  Okay, there were three -- there were
three Americans involved in peacekeeping in East Timor, one of
whom had already returned.  So we are withdrawing the other two.

Q:  And they are assigned to what unit?  They were a U.N.
peacekeeping team?  Is there a name for that?

Senior Defense Official:  Yes.  The name --

Staff:  It's the U.N. Mission in East Timor.

Senior Defense Official:  U.N. Mission in East Timor.

(Cross talk.)

Q:  Are there any other -- (inaudible.)

Senior Defense Official:  These were active --

Senior Defense Official:  One was a reservist; two were active
duty. The one that returned was one of the active duty.  So it's
one active duty, one reservist that are coming.

(Cross-talk.)

Senior Defense Official:  One active duty and one reservist are coming back.

Q:  Any other military folks that remain in East Timor assigned
to different duties that might be construed -- as peacekeeping?

Senior Defense Official:  I don't believe so.  Yeah, why don't you --

Senior Defense Official:  There's a group from U.S. Pacific
Command that fluctuates between 10 and 20 that is there to
assist Pacific Command units in things like ship visits and
things like that, completely unrelated to the U.N. mission.

Senior Defense Official:  So they're not peacekeepers.

Senior Defense Official:  Not peacekeepers.

Q:  Why are you just pulling out peacekeepers if the treaty
blanketly applies to everyone everywhere?

Senior Defense Official:  We're not singling out peacekeepers.
The subject matter of the U.N. resolutions, because the U.N.
provides mandates for different peacekeeping missions, is
peacekeeping.  But as I said, we are also working on getting
bilateral agreements with countries that would cover U.S.
nationals generally, and we are also working on modifying our
status of forces agreements to cover U.S. military personnel
stationed in various countries around the world.

Q:  But peacekeeping missions, you're telling the U.N., "Give
U.S. troops immunity in your missions or it won't participate."
And then the other issues.

Senior Defense Official:  No.  No.  We are saying give U.S.
peacekeepers immunity from the U.N. or it will increase the
risks and will cause us to recalculate whether we want to
participate.

Q:  But Secretary Rumsfeld, as Thom said, did say that these
three from East Timor were not related to the International
Criminal Court, but you say that they are.  Pulling them out.

Senior Defense Official:  As I was saying, there are a whole set
of considerations that we have that go into a cost-benefit
analysis as to whether we want to participate in some activity
or not.  The --

Q:  I'm just trying to find out if this was the first step taken
related to the ICC, pulling these out of East Timor.

Senior Defense Official:  I think it was -- it's part of the
mix. But as I said, there are a mix of consideration that go
into deciding whether we are going to participate in a
particular mission or not.  I don't know exactly what Secretary
Rumsfeld said about this, but --

Q:  He said it's unrelated.

Q:  He said they'd made the decision some time ago and it was
not related perfectly to the --

Senior Defense Official:  Not related perfectly, maybe, that
sounds right.  But he's very precise, so --

Q   (Off mike) -- Bosnian numbers, the difference between the
SFOR and the peacekeeping force?

Senior Defense Official:  Do you have the Bosnian numbers?

Senior Defense Official:  I might not have the exact numbers
here. Somebody over there does.  But basically, you have a
certain number of U.S. personnel who are part of the U.N.
mission there.  U.N. Mission in -- the U.N. mission in Bosnia --
we have some participants in the International Police Task Force
there.  So they work -- they're directly there under the U.N.

The SFOR mission is under NATO, and our -- the bulk of our force
there -- in fact, the armed forces that are there -- are there
under the SFOR mandate.

Q:  Could they not -- could the U.S. forces that are assigned
under NATO -- could they not come under the jurisdiction of ICC?

Senior Defense Official:  No, no, they are under risk of coming under the ICC.

Q:  Could you explain why, then, the difference between these troops?

Senior Defense Official:  The decision was made that -- as I
said, there are a whole set of considerations that we weigh --

Q:  But can you explain what that -- what the balance was in the
SFOR troops, as opposed to the U.N. troops, why the difference
was drawn between the two?

Senior Defense Official:  We didn't draw the distinction that way. What we --

Q:  But you seem to have.  By saying that the U.S. soldiers
assigned to the U.N. international peacekeeping -- international
police force --

Senior Defense Official:  These aren't necessarily U.S.
soldiers. In fact, I don't know that there are any U.S.
soldiers.  There's -- my recollection is, there's two people --

Staff:  Forty-six civilian police.

Senior Defense Official:  -- and 46 civilian police, right.

Q:  Forty-six civilian police --

Staff:  The CIVPOL (civilian police) function is different from
the military function under SFOR.

Q:  Right.

Staff:  But the resolution which was vetoed covered all of it.

Q:  Okay.  I understand what you're saying is that you're taking
it as a whole and looking at it.  But can you explain to us why
you look at SFOR as a whole and say, "No, we'll leave them
there"?

Senior Defense Official:  Okay, but I want to make it clear; we
didn't -- we are not saying that we are even taking the people
under the U.N. mandate out.  What we are saying is, we are not
willing to allow the U.N. mandate to be renewed unless we get
the protection in that mandate.  That's why we vetoed the
resolution.  That is a separate matter from whether we are
willing to continue to participate in the mission without the
U.N. mandate behind it.

And so -- I mean, I just -- I think there's a lot of
misunderstanding about this.  A lot of people interpreted our
vetoing the resolution as saying we are going to take out the
Americans from Bosnia who were covered by that resolution.
That's not what we're saying.

Q:  (Off mike) -- because the 2,500 of the larger mission, it's
NATO pay-as-you-go indefinite mandate.  So the question we're
trying to figure out, even if we're asking it wrong:  The
administration's view about the threat of the ICC -- what impact
will that have on the 2,500 American troops under the indefinite
NATO pay-as-you-go SFOR mandate, no U.N. mandate?

Senior Defense Official:  They are going to remain there.  Our
policy has been, we went in with our allies; we're going to go
out with our allies.  That remains our policy.

We note that the risk of that deployment is greater now than it
was on June 30th, because the ICC came into force on July 1st.
And so they are there at greater risk, but we have decided that
given the importance of the mission, given the various
diplomatic considerations involved in working with our allies on
this important issue, we have decided that we're going to keep
them there, despite the higher risk. But it is a risk that we
are working to mitigate through these various means that I
outlined, and we're going to continue in that project.

Q:  As far as the liability issue here, you've focused on U.S.
military.  But -- okay.  This is, let's say, a pilot who comes
over, drops a bomb.  It hits some civilians.  The civilians'
families -- the casualties' families sue maybe the pilot, the
commander, the service, the United States government.  Could
this also pose a liability risk for contractors, for the maker
of the plane that dropped it, for the maker of the munition,
especially if it's precision-guided and it's supposed to hit
exactly where it's aimed?  Could we have some contractor
liability as well?

Senior Defense Official:  The court is not for private causes of
action.  So, I think the issue that you raised is not related to
the treaty.

Q:  Excuse me, I'm sorry.  I'm not a lawyer.  You say private
causes of action.  Are you saying that it would be impossible
for either a family or a government of a nation in which the
incident occurred where civilians accidentally were killed, it
would be impossible for anyone there to use the court to sue a
contractor?

Senior Defense Official:  It would not be -- it would be
impossible, I believe, for a private -- you know, the family --
a private plaintiff to come forward and try to use the court.
But the government could work through the treaty to try to get
the prosecutor to prosecute that case.  And that's what puts our
people at risk.

There are -- the treaty provides for several ways that an
investigation or a prosecution could be initiated.  And one way
is at the request of a state party to the treaty.

Another way is if the prosecutor on his own, his or her own --
if the prosecutor simply decides that the prosecutor wants to
bring a case.  This is one of the problems of accountability.
The prosecutor doesn't work for any -- any entity that we could
hold accountable. The prosecutor works for this collection of
countries that are parties to the treaty.  And if that
prosecutor decides to launch an investigation or a prosecution
under the treaty, the prosecutor has the power to do that.

Q:  So, there could be contractor liability in that set of
circumstances, not from the families, but from the prosecutor
deciding to go ahead or the government requesting the prosecutor
to go ahead?

Senior Defense Official:  It is a criminal court, so it would
have to be criminal liability, a matter of criminal liability
brought to the attention of the prosecutor.

Q:  Could -- criminal liability, though, could involve a fine?

Q:  (Off mike) -- restricted to war crimes, crimes against
humanity, genocide, mass murder, rape --

Senior Defense Official:  One of the questions, the interesting
questions that arises from this question of who could be held,
what kinds of parties could be held liable criminally is that it
is an open question.   And undoubtedly, over time, the court
will come up with new ideas on how it wants to read the
application of the very broad language in the treaty.  And this
is one of the dangers.  I mean, in our society, we have -- we
have specific institutions that are responsible for crafting our
statutes and then courts who review them and make sure that the
statutes comport with the Constitution.  You don't have any of
those kinds of protections here, and nobody knows exactly what
direction this court is going to take.

Q:  What rights for an accused would someone have in the United
States that would not be available in the International Criminal
Court?

Senior Defense Official:  The right to a jury trial is --

Senior Defense Official:  Right.  The right to a jury trial, and
there are evidentiary protections in American law that wouldn't
necessarily apply in the International Criminal Court.

Q:  What about the issue of double jeopardy -- I'm sorry -- that
-- (title and name withheld) -- brought up?

Senior Defense Official:  Well, just for example, if a U.S.
service member was tried and found guilty -- or found not guilty
by a court martial, the court could come after him and initiate
a trial.  Okay? Again -- well, that's then technically a double
jeopardy; it's two trials for the service member. '

Q:  You talked a little bit about Bosnia, which is both a U.N.
and a NATO thing.  And you basically said, "Okay, we're standing
by our NATO commitment, even though we have problems with the
U.N. thing."  There are many other, I think, U.N. operations
whose mandates are coming up for renewal.  And in the past, for
example, I think the one in Macedonia years ago that China
decided it didn't like that and went -- and so they vetoed it,
and it went "Poof!" and that went away. What is the U.S. going
to do, in terms of vetoing or voting for these other U.N.
mandates as they come up?  Or is it case by case?

Senior Defense Official:  It's going to be case by case.  We are
hoping to reach agreement with the members of the security
council on protections that would apply in blanket fashion to
U.N. peacekeeping missions.  We're working on that.  The basic
principle that we're bringing to our discussions with the
Security Council members is that the treaty is okay for parties,
but it shouldn't be imposed on non-parties.  And if we can get
an agreement that the treaty works (for) the parties and does
not apply to the United States, because we're not a party, then
I think we've solved the problem.  Our position, as I said, is
very much in line with standard law for many centuries.  And all
we're trying to do is make it clear that this very radical step
of suggesting that a treaty can apply to non-parties is not
really pushed on us.  And if we can work that out, we can get
all of these various U.N. peacekeeping missions renewed.

Q:  And if you don't work it out, what are we going to do?

Senior Defense Official:  We hope to work it out.

Q:  There are four more coming up for extension in July.  Have
you made a decision on those four yet?

Senior Defense Official:  We hope to work out this protection before those --

(Cross talk.)

Q:  -- agreement that you were talking about?

Senior Defense Official:  We'll have to decide what we're going
to do as a government on those if we don't get the protections
that we think we're entitled to.

Q:  (Off mike) -- talked about the jeopardy of military
personnel.  Could you talk about the civilian side, the Pinochet
scenario, or someone who routinely stands at this podium during
wartime, either while traveling officially or after retirement,
gets grabbed and arrested?  What -- how high a level is that a
concern to you?  And secondly, can you address some of the
political reality? You can't separate what you're doing from the
world today.  America is the last lone superpower.  Many
peacekeeping missions simply are not approved unless this
country sends its troops.  Does that give you a certain
confidence that you will get your way in the Security Council?

Senior Defense Official:  I think you've hit two important
reasons why we think it's reasonable to suppose that we will
ultimately work out a consensual arrangement among the Security
Council members.  One of them is that the United States is more
exposed, as it were, to risk under the ICC than any other
country in the world because we are more active all around the
world in places where people want us to be, where they want our
troops, where they want our protection.  And we're present in
many places around the world to contribute to the security of
various countries, including ourselves.  And so, I think people
recognize that we have a special interest and a special exposure
to the risks here.

Secondly, that -- the very fact that countries do want to
cooperate with us and do want our protection and do want our
participation in peacekeeping and other missions gives us the
ability to go and talk with them and be listened to.  And we're
approaching this very respectful of the rights of other
countries.  Our demands are really very minimal.  We just want
our basic sovereignty respected.  We want the traditional
position of international law, that sovereign countries are not
held to be subject to treaties that they haven't joined, to be
respected.

Q:  Are there alternative ways or some small set of alternative
ways to package these guarantees that are being kicked around,
or do we simply want a wooden stake through the heart of the
proposition of the treaty that says non-signatories are covered?
I mean, will we settle for a solution or do we want an issue?

Senior Defense Official:  We are intent on getting a solution.
And we think we will.  I mean, we think we have a very modest
and well grounded position.  As I said, we're not trying to
impose our will on anybody.  We just don't want anybody imposing
this treaty on us.  And we think that if we take that position
and explain it and just do the patient diplomacy that's
required, we will get a solution to this problem.

The -- we're not talking about gutting the treaty.  It's not
necessary to gut the treaty to protect what we're concerned
about. The treaty can function among its parties.  And the court
can apply to the parties to the treaty that want to participate
in the court.  And that's fine with us.

Q:  If I could follow on Thom's question, the Pinochet example,
what are the concerns and the risks for U.S. officials, assuming
that there is no -- there are not enough bilaterals worked out
or there's not a U.N. resolution.  What are the risks of people
traveling who have been involved in prosecuting a war that not
everybody who's part of the ICC agrees with?

Senior Defense Official:  Well, one of the things that the
treaty does is it asserts jurisdiction over civilian officials.
And so that does create risks for not just our military
personnel but civilians also.

Q:  You say that an international criminal court cannot be
applied against countries that do not recognize the treaty.  How
could you ever set up an international criminal court for a
country like, say, Yugoslavia or another country, I don't know,
possible in the future an Iraq or -- that obviously wouldn't
recognize the treaty, and yet the international community may
have a legitimate interest in conducting war crimes trials?

Senior Defense Official:  I guess the short answer to that
question is, history knows from World War II until July 1st of
this year that there have been a number of ways that countries
and the international community have dealt with war crimes.  And
those various ways have worked reasonably well, not entirely
with no controversy, because there was a certain amount of
improvising, and the Nuremberg tribunal was improvised, but it
became a model.  And there are cases where countries have tried
their own people.  There are cases where countries have
consented to handing over individuals to an international
tribunal.  That's what happened with Milosevic.  I mean, there
are various ways that war crimes get investigated and prosecuted
that do not require the creation of this new structure, and, as
I said, this particularly problematic element of it, which is
the idea that it's a treaty that applies to non-parties.

Q:  But the U.S. position seems to be that it should require the
consent of the state that is being -- you know, whose nationals
are being accused of war crimes.  And that strikes me as being,
you know, a precedent that would make it much more difficult to
do that in the future.

Senior Defense Official:  Oh, we -- as I said, there are many
cases where there have been international tribunals set up, as
with Nuremberg, as in the Rwanda case, as in the Yugoslavia
case.  I mean, there are ways of doing this that don't create
the kinds of problems that the ICC does.

Q:  Those examples have usually been at the end of wars.  And
that seems sort of an extreme thing to have to get to that; you
know, to go through to get to that point.

Q:  The genocide must have occurred.

Q:  It has to occur in order for it to be -- (inaudible).

Senior Defense Official:  Right.  Yeah.

Q:   And it will have to have occurred on a scale large enough
to create a special tribunal for that incident.

Senior Defense Official:  That's correct.

Q:  I have a factual question and then a follow-up.  Does the
United States not already have a bilateral agreement in place
with Bosnia that applies to the SFOR?

Senior Defense Official:  We have the --

Senior Defense Official:  (Inaudible) -- included in the Dayton
accords.  That status-of-forces agreement.

Q:  Does that cover your concerns as applies to the ICC or not?

Senior Defense Official:  It does cover some of the concerns
that apply to it.  It covers our people in Bosnia while they are
in Bosnia. It would not cover them for allegations regarding
acts that they did in Bosnia if they later are, you know, on
vacation in some other country some years from now.

Staff:  Maybe one more.

Q:  Well, I had a follow-up.  I wanted to ask about blow-backs.
When I talk to some of our most steadfast allies in the war on
terrorism, they are very concerned about what the United States
is doing.  And they have said it seems the United States is
talking out of both sides of its mouth, on the one hand, here at
the time when the United States is trying to get support from
the world community to do what we want to do in the war on
terrorism, and yet we're trying to isolate ourselves and put
ourselves above international law, including that which is
agreed to by our allies.  Are you concerned that this is going
to have an effect on our relationship with these people in the
future?

Senior Defense Official:  I'm concerned that that's a
misstatement of what we're trying to do.  And I think if we do
the kind of patient diplomacy that I was referring to before and
explain to people what our thoughts are, what our concerns are,
I think we can overcome a certain amount of that sentiment and
make sure that people understand our position better.  As I
said, our position in this matter is really very modest.  All
we're saying -- (chuckles) -- is, "Don't try to impose a treaty
on us that we haven't signed and ratified."  And so it is not
the United States that is throwing its weight around in this
controversy.  It's the -- this very new development within the
International Criminal Court Treaty that represents a throwing
around of weight.  And all we're doing is saying we would like
to stand on the long and well-thought-through traditions of
international law and have our sovereignty respected.

Thank you.

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