IRAQ: NIGERIAN RESPONSE TO SECRETARY POWELL'S

C O N F I D E N T I A L ABUJA 000353 SIPDIS DEPARTMENT FOR IO, AF AND AF/W NSC FOR JFRAZER E.O. 12958: DECL:02/16/2013 TAGS: PREL IZ NI UNSC SUBJECT: IRAQ: NIGERIAN RESPONSE TO SECRETARY POWELL'S FEBRURARY 14 ADDRESS TO THE SECURITY COUNCIL REF: STATE 44467 ABUJA 344 ABUJA 300 CLASSIFIED BY AMBASSADOR HOWARD F. JETER. REASON: 1.5 (B). ¶1. (C) The Ambassador February 16 conveyed Ref A message to Ad'Obe Obe, International Affairs Special Advisor to Nigerian President Olusegun Obasanjo. In view of Obasanjo's stance (Ref B) that IRAQ must disarm but that disarmament had to be accomplished through the Security Council, the Ambassador did not request Nigeria to speak at the Open Meeting scheduled for February 18. ¶2. (C) Obe did not offer a substantive responses to Ref A points that went beyond Obasanjo's earlier public (para 3) and private (Ref B) statements. Generally, Obe echoed the points contained in para 2 of Ref C. ¶3. (U) There follows the text of Obasanjo's public remarks. Begin text: Question: We have watched the drama unfolding for some weeks now. Ex- President Nelson Mandela has criticized the biggest democracy in the world with what can be described as militant foreign policy. What is the position of Nigeria with regard to the present behavior of the US government and Britain? You said your government will dwell on policies that will bring global peace, justice and equity. Answer: First, let me say this; when I was in the United Nation's General Assembly in September last year, I had a meeting with the American Secretary of State, Colin Powell and one of the issues we discussed was the US and Iraq. By then, the US had not gone to the United Nation's Security Council. And I don't know whether it was inclined to go there. But I made it clear and it's not me alone. Others probably did; that we will want the US to go to the UN Security Council and that any action that will be taken against any country for that matter, but particularly against Iraq, must be a collective DECISION of the UN Security Council. It was after that the US went to the UN Security Council. Whatever may be the concern of the US and one may say with some element of understanding that a country that regarded itself as impregnable that was taken up one morning on 9/11/2001 and from the blues a country that thought that it was defended by land, by air, by sea, was made so cheaply attacked but if that worries the US which is understandable, the US also should realize that it is the only superpower in the world now and whereas it may want to do things and damn the consequences, then it must think of the repercussions of damning the consequences. Well, on the other hand, the concern for non-proliferation of weapons of mass destruction is the concern of all of us, not just the concern of the US, so if, as it has now been the case, the 15 members of the Security Council on behalf of all of us who are members of the United Nations ask IRAQ to disarm, I believe that IRAQ will be better advised to disarm peacefully and totally, peacefully and totally. Then the inspectors who have been given the opportunity to look at every nook and corner must also be given time to do their job. I even say that, well, we still have probably what I can call "quarter to". Now, within that short space of quarter to, the world can still bring sanity on both sides. Sanity on the side of IRAQ to do what it should do. Again, I have had the opportunity to say that the Americans now have at least 200,000 troops in the Gulf area. If the President of the most powerful nation in the world has done that, now, you have to give him reason to withdraw those troops without a loss of face, and the only reason you can give is to be able to say, yes, what we should have achieved by attacking or by bombing, we have achieved by the threat of that force, therefore there is no need to launch that force into battle or into war. End Text. JETER