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Peacemaking progress
inches forward with Iraq
BAGHDAD, Iraq (AP) - Would
be peacemakers from around the
world pressed Iraq on Wednesday to
end a standoff over weapons inspec
tions with diplomacy before
Washington does it with air strikes.
Word emerged of possible
progress, including an Iraqi offer at
compromise.
Russia insisted there were signs
of optimism, but President Boris
Yeltsin, using language reminiscent
of the Cold War, said a U.S. attack
could lead to “world war.”
Iraqi President Saddam Hussein,
meeting with an envoy from France,
said he was striving for “a balanced
political solution,” the official Iraqi
news agency said.
Iraq has refused to allow U.N.
inspectors into Saddam’s palaces
and other key sites, calling it a matter
of national sovereignty.
CNN reported the Iraqis were
offering to open some - but not all —
of the suspected weapons sites to
inspectors.
Since March 1996, inspectors
have visited 63 sites where they
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traband, Charles Duelfer, the deputy
chief weapons inspector, said recent
ly. Inspectors were delayed from
entering 38 of the sites and flatly
denied access to 14 others in the
name of national security.
The United States increasingly is
threatening to resort to military force
to end the Iraqi defiance. Congress
worked Wednesday on a resolution
authorizing President Clinton to
launch air attacks, and U.N.
Ambassador Bill Richardson trav
eled the world seeking support from
fellow U.N. Security Council mem
ber-nations.
Hoping to avert attack, the Arab
League’s secretary-general and
Turkey’s foreign minister arrived in
Baghdad, joining envoys from
Russia and France in pressing Iraqi
leaders for a peaceful solution.
Quoting unidentified sources,
CNN said that Iraq was offering to
allow U.N. inspectors access to eight
disputed sites for about a month.
CNN said the Iraqi proposal
called for each of the 15 members of
the Security Council to appoint five
inspectors. The 21 countries repre
sented on the U.N. Special
Commission, which oversees
inspections, would then each appoint
two more.
It said that these experts would
make “visits” to the palaces and
would report their findings directly
to the Security Council.
Iraqi government officials would
not confirm the report, which was
similar to an offer Iraq made in
November.
The Americans rejected the ear
lier plan, saying it appeared to be an
attempt by Baghdad to bypass the
Special Commission and ignore the
commission’s mandate to set up
long-term monitoring of suspected
chemical, biological and nuclear
programs.
At the United Nations, British
Ambassador John Weston suggested
the latest reported proposal would
also prove unacceptable.
In Washington, Clinton said the
United States’ “bottom line” is to
deny Saddam the capacity to devel
op and deliver weapons of mass
destruction.
“The best way to stop Saddam
from building nuclear, biological or
chemical weapons is simply to get
the international inspectors back to
uritfi nn roofroinfc w Via ooirl
Rijaa al-Shawi, head of the envi
ronment committee of the National
Assembly, predicted U.N. inspectors
will “sooner or later” be allowed into
presidential palaces.
Saddam, in his meeting with
French envoy Bertrand Dufourcq,
'spoke of meetihg “the essence of
Security Council resolutions” while,
at the same time, pointing out “the
necessity that Iraq’s sovereignty, dig
nity and security be respected,” the
Iraqi news agency said.
He repeated his demand that
U.N. sanctions, imposed after Iraq’s
invasion of Kuwait more than seven
years ago, be lifted, starting with the
ban on oil sales, the agency said.
The U.N. Security Council has
said that the punishing sanctions will
stand until U.N. inspectors certify
that Iraq has eliminated its weapons
of mass destruction.
Iraq says it has done so. But U.N.
inspectors say Iraq still is hiding
information and material related to
biological and chemical weapons.
The full-force diplomatic mis
sions to Baghdad included Viktor
Posuvalyuk, sent by the Russian
president last weekend. Russia bro
kered a compromise to an Iraq-U.N.
standoff over inspections last
November.
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Former aide: President
must explain his story
WASHINGTON (AP) - As the
White House considered trying to
narrow grand jury questioning of
presidential aides in the Monica
Lewinsky investigation, one of
President Clinton’s closest former
advisers said today Clinton’s limited
public response in the case is trou
bling.
“The longer the president goes
without telling his side of the story,
the more unease there will be in the
public,” said » George
Stephanopoulos. “It may be their
only strategy,” he said, but added the
refusal to explain Ms. Lewinsky’s
numerous visits to the White House
after she stopped working there
“does raise an awful lot of ques
tions.”
“The president believes that he’s
already cleared the air,” retorted
White House press secretary Mike
McCurry.
Stephanopoulos, who testified
before the grand jury for nearly three
uuui& uu lucsuay, mauc ms mics i
comments on ABC where he works
as a consultant Stephanopoulos had
been among the first to speculate
about impeachment when the allega
tions of a presidential affair and
cover-up first surfaced.
T% White House, meanwhile,
was considering invoking executive
privilege to limit the scope of further
questioning of White House aides.
Executive privilege is the princi
ple that the president’s communica
tions need to be protected on mili
tary, diplomatic or sensitive national
secrets.
Lewinsky left town Tuesday, her
lawyers apparently no closer to mak
ing a deal with Whitewater prosecu
tor Kenneth Starr’s office.
While the grand jury worked, the
White House remained silent, offer
ing no public explanation to disclo
sures that Lewinsky, 24, entered the
White House - possibly as many as
37 times - after being transferred
from the White House to the
Pentagon in April 1996. Beyond flat
denials of a presidential affair and
cover-up, the Clinton administration
is providing no public statements on
the controversy.
Stephanopoulos became the
fourth grand jury witness to tell
reporters he knew of no improper
relationship between Lewinsky and
die president.
“I have no firsthand knowledge
at all about the nature of the relation
ship, if any, between the president
and Monica Lewinsky,”
Stephanopoulos said after just under
three hours before the grand jury. He
said he had met Lewinsky a few
timAC
His words mirrored those of for
mer White House Chief of Staff
Leon Panetta, former Deputy White
House Chief of Staff Evelyn
Lieberman and former White House
intern Caroline Self. She signed for
half a dozen envelopes Lewinsky
Sent to the Office of Clinton’s per
sonal secretary in a two-month span
starting in October.
Presidential lawyers had prelimi
nary discussions about whether to
instruct such White House advisers
as John Podesta and Bruce Lindsey,
Clinton’s closest confidant, not to
testify regarding their conversations
with the president or presidential
lawyers about Lewinsky, officials
said. Podesta is deputy White House
chief of staff. Lindsey is deputy
White House counsel and special
assistant to the president.
ABC News reported Tuesday
that Lewinsky was claiming Clinton
told her in July that they had to cut
off their physical relationship
because a reporter was asking ques
tions about another White House
worker and sexual harassment.
Lewinsky’s attorney, William
Ginsbuig, declined comment on the
report.
Separately, two individuals
familiar with Clihton’s legal strategy
said the White House has been con
sidering setting up a new legal
defense fund that would solicit up to
$10,000 in donations from individu
als to help defray his mounting legal
bills, but that a formal announce
ment was not imminent.
Nearly two weeks after the
Lewinsky controversy engulfed the
Uaiioa ckn IaaIt o flret oloco
flight Tuesday to Los Angeles to
spend time with her father. A crush
of reporters and photographers
watched from the street as Lewinsky
embraced her father outside his
house before going inside with
Ginsburg and others.
“We’re not planning any sort of
extended stay,” Ginsburg said in an
interview. “We will be working with
Monica to calm her down, advise her
on her legal strategy and let her see
her dad.”
Ginsburg said his talks with
prosecutors about whether his client
should receive immunity from pros
ecution in exchange for her testimo
ny remained “cordial” and that “gen
erally speaking, we are where we
want to be.”
Proposal to rename airport
in honor of Reagan challenged
WASHINGTON (AP) - A bill to
rename Washington’s airport for
Ronald Reagan is on its way to becom
ing law just in time for his 87th birthday
- despite complaints from Democrats
that Congress is trampling local rights.
President Clinton will sign the bill,
said spokesman Mike McCurry,
because “I think for him it came down
to a question of honoring Ronald
Reagan."
The Senate passed one bill
Wednesday to rename Washington
ixauonai /urpori me Ronaia Reagan
Washington National Airport, 76-22.
Lata: in the day, the House approved a
slightly different bill, 240-186, leaving
out die word “Washington.” The House
was expected to adopt the Senate^ ver
sion today, die eve of Reagan’s birthday.
House Speaker Newt Gingrich
praised the renaming as a fitting tribute
to an ailing president“who transformed
the world” by helping bring down infla
tion and end the Cold War.
“I hope that the president and Mrs.
Reagan, watching this happen, will
have some small sense that there is
enormous affection in this country for
Ronald Reagan, and there is a deep
sense of gratitude for the leadership that
he showed,” Gingrich said.
“Ronald Reagan is the most loved
man in America today,” said House
Majority Leader Dick Anney.
Reagan suffers from Alzheimer’s
disease.
Despite the outpouring of senti
ment, opponents of die bill promised a
court challenge. They contend the mea
sure violates the federal government’s
lease to a local airport authority, which
Reagan in 1986 signed into law.
Rep. James R Moran, Jr., who rep
resents the Northern Virginia district
where the airport is located, said chang
ing the name would cost the businesses
in and around it hundreds of thousands
of dollars to change signs and sta
tinnmr His amoitHmont molra tKa
change subjectto approval by Arlington
County, Va., voters, failed.
“It is unprecedented to rename a
facility... in the jurisdiction of a mem
ber of this Congress when that member
opposes that name,” Moran said in a
floor speech. “If we do this it will be an
arrogant abuse of power; it will be parti
san, and it will be wrong.”
Several lawmakers and union mem
bers also said there must be more fitting
tributes for a leader who fired 11,000
striking air traffic controllers, presided
over a ballooning national debt and
championed local control over projects.
Senate Democratic leader Tom
Daschle noted that local agencies
oppose the bill.
“How ironic that in the name of
Ronald Reagan, we would do die very
thing that he opposed the most,” said
Daschle, of South Dakota.
In the House, Democrat David
Obey of Wisconsin proposed that
instead die office that deals with debt
should be renamed “the Ronald Reagan
Bureau ofPuWic Debt”
“He had about as much to do with
Washington National Airport as I had to
do with an airport in Tibet” Obey said
in his floor speech.
Randy Schwitz, executive vice
president of the Air Traffic Controllers ’
Association, said he was “dumbfound
ed” when he heard Congress was con
sidering naming the airport after
Reagan.
“Ronald Reagan never did anything
for aviation in this country,” Schwitz,
whose group represents 14,700 air traf
fic controllers, said in an interview.
“Congress just poured salt in the i
wound.”
But others scolded opponents,
chiefly Democrats, for playing politics
with the legacy ofa beloved leader.
“The purpose of this bill is to honor
a great American president who is in the
evening of his life,” said Judiciary
Committee Chairman Henry Hyde of
Illinois. “This great honor for him has
become the victim of what really is raw
and petty politics.”
The bill’s passage comes after
Grover G. Norquist, chairman of the
Reagan Legacy Project, began an effort
to name more public landmarks after
the former president
i
