Richard Boucher Quotes

"They report that the conditions of detention are fine and that the people are in good health."

"Its charter says that they should explain U.S. government policy and present responsible discussion about it. We don't consider Mullah Omar to be responsible discussion."

"And, as I said, this has been something the whole U.S. government has worked on."

"Carrying the interview would be confusing to the millions of listeners to what is essentially a U.S. government broadcast, paid for by the U.S. government."

"a Libyan government operation from start to finish."

"We've made clear that we would like to see all these people released and able to return home."

"The Israelis need to understand that incursions like this will not solve the security problems. They only make matters worse. As a consequence, we believe the Israelis should withdraw their forces from this area."

"Unfortunately, in addition to these wild charges and ridiculous statements that we've seen, we haven't seen any concrete progress on reversing the negative trends,"

"We're told the session was useful. Preliminary reporting indicates that they made some progress."

"Ms Tanaka said she understood the need for the United States to pursue this area, to conduct the research,"

"We're not running on a 22-year-old schedule,"

"Reconstruction work is not possible while the fighting is going on or while the insurgents have been in charge of the town. But once it's back in government hands, we'll be able to get on with these projects very quickly."

"Clearly, the continuation of the fighting creates concerns and complicates that. So alongside the movement toward deployment has been an effort to try to get the parties to abide by the cease-fire."

"We understand that conceding to terrorists will only endanger all members of the multinational force as well as other countries who are contributing to Iraqi reconstruction and humanitarian assistance."

"the United States will respect decisions of the sovereign Iraqi government regarding the presence of the multinational force."

"We'll look at it when it comes out and see if there are any ideas we want to deal with at that point."

"I think the secretary has made quite clear over the past few days that the ideas and parameters that were discussed in the last few months were President Clinton's parameters, ... And therefore, when he left office, they were no longer a U.S. proposal or a presidential proposal."

"We have made quite clear that the influence that Syria has, and others have, on Hezbollah needs to be used in a positive direction and needs to be used to try to restrain these kinds of attacks."

"We urge all parties to fully honor the agreements negotiated by NATO and the European Union,"

"We would hope that the governments involved -- that would be Australia, Norway and Indonesia -- would cooperate to resolve the issue."