Wednesday, March 28, 2007

"QUESTION: Another subject. The Arab summit just started in Riyadh and in his opening statement, King Abdullah made a very harsh comment on U.S. He said -- criticized particularly the illegitimate foreign occupation of Iraq. So I wanted to know if you have any reaction on that.
MR. CASEY: Well, I've seen the press reports citing those remarks. Look, Sylvie, all I'd say to you is it's clear, I think, to everyone that the multinational forces are in Iraq at the invitation of the legitimate Iraqi Government and that that presence has been endorsed and given a mandate specifically by the UN Security Council and that that mandate has been renewed several times. So certainly there's no question in our mind that our forces are there in a legal and legitimate capacity in every sense of the word. And again, their objective there is to assist the Iraqi Government and the Iraqi people so that they will ultimately be able to manage security for themselves."