clinton background briefing in vancouver the white house office of the press secretary vancouver british columbia background briefing by senior administration officials april canada place vancouver british columbia a m pst folks we re about to start the background briefing on the aid package senior administration official good morning the president president clinton and president yeltsin agreed yesterday on a series of american initiatives to support economic and political reform in russia and it s valued at billion before taking your questions and running through the basic outlines of this package i want to make a few points first this is the maximum that the clinton administration can do with available funds to support russian reform all of the funds have been allocated and appropriated by the congress there is no need for the administration to go back to the congress to fund any of these programs all our fiscal year funds currently are available so in effect all of these programs can begin tomorrow the second point is that this package is designed to support russian reformers all of the initiatives in the package are directed at reformers and for their benefit and all have been worked out with prior consultation with the russian government third the president is determined that we will deliver on these commitments this year the package is designed to maximize our ability to support reform in designing it we wanted to avoid making commitments that we could not meet and we feel very confident that we can meet all of these commitments in front of you fourth i d like to note the special importance of trade and investment i think it s fair to say that russia s capital and technology needs throughout the next decade extend well into the hundreds of billions of dollars no collection of governments can meet those needs only the private sector can do so and so the president and president yeltsin agreed to make trade and investment a major priority in the relationship they also agreed that there would be a new joint commission on energy and space formed headed on the u s side by vice president gore on the russian side by prime minister chernomyrdin and the goal of this effort is to break through the barriers to trade and investment on both sides and to promote a vastly expanded relationship if it would be helpful i d be prepared to run down the first page which is a summary of u s assistance and just give you some general background on what these programs are i ll do it quickly and then i ll be glad to take questions the first group of initiatives are humanitarian food and medical assistance this is part of our effort which has been underway for several years to provide basic humanitarian grant food assistance so that the russian government can assure there s at least a minimal amount of bread on the shelves in the major cities that s million in grant that is from food for progress the grant portion of food for progress we ll also be continuing our grant assistance in medicines and pharmaceutical supplies and that s million the second item is concessional food sales as you know the united states has had a long term grain relationship with russia it s important to us and it s important to russia that we continue that relationship the president has chosen the food for progress program which is a concessional loan program the value over the next seven months is million these are concessional terms the exact terms have not been worked out but i think it s fair to say there will be a grace period on principal of six or seven years and concessional rates thereafter for the life of the deal the third program is a collection of private sector support we think this is one of the most important things we re going to do privatization and the creation of small businesses is the number one priority of the reform government in moscow and so the president has decided to create a russian american enterprise fund capitalized this year at million and the goal of this fund is to make direct loans to small businesses in russia to take equity positions in those businesses the president has also decided to create a privatization fund which would work directly with the russian government in its priority objective of trying to convert state enterprises from a state owned basis to a private basis he has also agreed the president has also agreed to establish a eurasia foundation this would be a private foundation led by prominent americans to fund democratization projects in russia the fourth grouping you see there in the summary page is democratization itself i think it s fair to say that this administration has given a new impetus to the goal of pursuing democratization in russia you see that we have a total of million in programs various programs the detailed tables give an indication of some of the programs that we re launching the president is also calling for the development of a democracy corps which will be an overarching umbrella group to try to incorporate all of the disparate private and public efforts now underway from the united states to support reform in russia the fifth program you see is russian office of resettlement this is a new initiative created and conceptualized by this administration this is a demonstration project what we d like to do is work with the russian military to help resettle russian officers returning from the baltic states and other parts of the former soviet union we want to make sure that we work out the best way to do that whether it s with russian labor and russian materials or using prefab american construction and so we ve decided to fund on a demonstration basis the construction of housing units we ll be working very closely with the russian military on this and i would say that we have a long term commitment to this project the sixth area is energy in the environment they are two issues that the president feels strongly about our initial efforts will be feasibility studies to look into the possibility of enhancing their energy production both oil and gas and equally important trying to cut down on the leakages in the oil and gas pipeline systems which cause so much environmental damage i ve talked a little bit about trade and investment about the new group being created that the vice president will chair on our side secretary ron brown will also be cochairing with deputy prime minister shohkin a business development committee which will work in all other sectors of the economy to break down the many barriers that currently exist and impede trade and investment we are also going to appoint a full time investment ombudsman in the american government to work on this problem full time and the point i d like to make here is trade and investment in the s is every bit as important to draw an analogy as arms reductions was in the s and s and we just thought that in looking at this we needed to make a commitment within our own government to have people work on it senior people on a full time basis because it is terribly important you ll notice that the united states is going to support russia s membership in the gatt russia has had observer status russia has requested our support and in fact requested our advice in becoming a member of the gatt we think that the long term goal of drawing russia into the global economy is paramount a very important goal and that is why we are supporting the membership in the gatt we are also supporting their access to gsp the generalized system of preferences you ll note that ex im has extended million in credit for a caterpillar deal in siberia that opic has extended million in credits and loan guarantees for a conoco oil project i d like to emphasize that we are very close to an agreement between russia and the united states for a billion framework facility through the ex im bank that would finance russian purchases of american oil and gas equipment and services we think this is a very important development we think we ll get there by april th which is the opening day of the tokyo conference the g conference before i take any further questions i d like to defer to my colleague who will review the security assistance objectives with you senior administration official our major unfinished agenda with the russians and with their counterparts in ukraine kazakhstan and belarus is in the area of the safe and secure dismantlement of the nuclear arsenals on their territory under the terms of the start i and start ii agreements recently we completed in moscow three i think very important agreements that devote a significant chunk of nunn lugar funding to three important programs the first is the program of million for the strategic nuclear delivery vehicle dismantlement program that is for submarines for icbm dismantlement and for bomber dismantlement million the second is a million tranche of funding for the construction of a facility to store nuclear materials removed from the warheads as they are dismantled this will essentially contribute to the overall design and the early phases of the construction of that storage facility and finally a million tranche of money to help in the establishment of a monitoring system for the nuclear materials as they are withdrawn from the weapons system so we add that million total to the extant nunn lugar assistance which has been flowing about million for some overall safety improvements for various kinds of equipment and safety measures that we have been working out with the russians over the last couple of years so this is an area where we will be going a lot more work with not only the russians but with the ukrainians kazhaks and belarussians belarus for example has just in the last couple of weeks received up to million in fy funds for safety security and dismantlement programs on belarussian territory and this was in the wake of their ratification of start i an agreement to accede to npt so we are working very hard with all the parties to the lisbon protocols and will continue to work very hard with them and i look upon these three recent agreements with russia as a very important step in that process q the opic funds to is that for the field in kazhakstan and conoco already signed this deal with kazhakstan why do you feel now it is necessary if it s the same one why do you feel it s necessary senior administration official it s not the same deal chevron signed a deal with kazhakstan the tenges oil field this is a new investment project it s a polar lights oil development and renovation project and it s being announced today so it s completely new q can you tell us more about what s involved senior administration official yes conoco like other american oil companies has been searching for ways to do two things one to prospect for new oil in siberia west siberia and two to try to get into the business of renovating oil wells and renovating pipelines both oil and gas in russia the objective here obviously is to take advantage of the natural resources in russia increase energy production which will in turn increase hard currency revenues which is what russia needs so we think this deal is very very good development for russia the russians do as well and it s good for an american company and the american government has played a leading role in pulling this together through the credit facility in opic and through the loan guarantee q so it s to search and also to renovate fields that are already there senior administration official that s right q on that point should other american companies expect to get administration support for such deals or should they now go to the ex im and try to get the money out of the billion senior administration official well as you know ex im is part of the u s government and various parts of the u s government have been pushing including the state department and the white house for this deal to be consummated and we think it will and if we arrive at this agreement by april th there will be billion in financing available for american companies to sell their equipment and sell their services q that should take up all of the rest of the deals and their won t be and their will or there won t be support for opic sort of deals such as this conoco senior administration official there s a tremendous amount of interest on the part of american oil and gas companies to invest in russia we think that the ex im oil and gas facility the billion facility once it is concluded will soak up a lot of that interest but i think the interest may even extend beyond that and if so the government will respond q what s the current year budget costs of that billion agreement should it go forward and is there any current year budget costs senior administration official i ll have to refer you to ex im for that i don t know the details of that q the concessional food sales is there any current year costs to that or is it delayed until the years in which the payments are due senior administration official the concessional food sales are from food for progress which is a usda program usda has the funds we don t need to go back to the congress to expend those funds there will be a hit in the budget i d refer you to usda and omb for the details on that q can you talk about the democracy corps q and the private sector how many folks are going to be involved in that senior administration official why don t i start with the democracy corps first i think the administration felt coming into office that there were literally thousands of organization private organizations in the united states that in one way or another were working at the goal of trying to achieve democratization in russia helping on a farmer to farmer basis and there were literally or u s government agencies that had a variety of programs in this area and so the administration felt the president felt it was important to try to draw all of these initiatives together under one group to give some coherence to the efforts and to give some impetus to the efforts and so this is a presidential initiative it will be headed by ambassador tom simons who will soon take up his duties as the coordinator for u s assistance in the former soviet union and we re very hopeful that we might use this democracy corps not only to draw upon the resources of our own government but the resources of the american private sector and schools and communities across the nation q any kind of commitment yet any kind of word yet on fy and any new money that needs to be appropriated besides the million the president talked about senior administration official the administration is requesting additional funds in fy of million what the president has done this weekend is to consult really intensively yesterday with president yeltsin about additional measures the united states could take in some of these areas to support reform he ll be consulting with the congress when he returns to washington he ll be consulting also with the other ally governments and we ll make a decision at that time q two questions about the billion agricultural money first of all i thought it was the sort of consensus that what russia did not need was more loans for food so why did you decide to do it that way secondly could you explain agriculture has been stopped from making further loans for food because of russia s inability to pay how does this fit into that situation senior administration official as you know the united states for a long time has been a major supplier of grains and food commodities agricultural products to russia i think between and we had extended a little bit of history here about billion in credits credit guarantees through the commodity credit corporation that was the principal vehicle to ensure the sale of american grain products on december of last year the russian government stopped its payments on that program they are now in arrears to us on that program and therefore by law the united states cannot continue that program and so the president working with secretary espy and other officials in the cabinet looked for other ways that we could promote american grain sales and i think we have two ways to do that we ve announced today million in grant food assistance through the food for progress program but we do not have sufficient authority to spend million in grant food and so we looked for a concessional loan program i think everybody agrees that russia that a short term loan program for russia would not make sense now but a long term concessional loan program would and that is what this program is it will provide once the final details are worked out for a six to seven year grace period on payments of principal and then from years seven through which is the life of the deal it will provide for concessional rates of interest generally around three to four percent and so we believe and the russian government believes this is a good deal for them because it will avoid the imperative of early payments and put them into the out years but it will also continue this very important grain relationship which is important for them and it s important for the american farm community q i gather from what you say that this could make it explicit the russians failure to pay the interest on ecc loan does not in any way affect this kind of loan going through is that right senior administration official let me be explicit about that we are prevented under the law to from continuing the commodity credit corporation short term credit program because of russia s arrearages to the united states all of you know about those arrearages they total about i think around million usda can give you an exact figure so having taken that into consideration and wanting to preserve american market share and a long term grain relationship wanting to respond to a specific request from the russian government for major food assistance knowing that we couldn t take it from the grant programs because we don t have sufficient authority there we looked at food for progress which is a program we ve used to great effect in other parts of the world and we consulted with the russian government and arrived at this solution i think the russians are pleased because it provides them with the food but also gives them a little bit of relief on the short term payments q where do those funds actually come from senior administration official they come from the food for progress program which is a program under usda s authority usda has the authority to spend these funds we do not need to go back to the congress for these funds and i want to make that general point again everything in this package the billion package comprises funds that have already been allocated and appropriated by the congress the administration can begin to spend these monies tomorrow and it s very important in our eyes that we expend all the funds this year that we meet these commitments and we are confident we ll be able to do so q how did you arrive at the figure of million does that max out that program or did you actually have a range from to senior administration official there s a reason for it the reason was that the russian government told us that s about the amount of grain that they needed between now and harvest time and so the idea is that we would begin the shipments probably million per month from now until the harvest in the autumn at which time russia won t require the same level of food imports from the west q i would imagine there s going to be some considerable envy and jealousy on the part of some of the other republics because of the size and the scope of this with russia have you given any consideration to advancing negotiations for the same kinds of projects with the ukraine with georgia with some of the other republics senior administration official yes we re very conscience of the fact that we also have an interest in extending american support to the other countries of the former soviet union we have told ourselves and we have planned that in the area of technical assistance the grant technical assistance that you see roughly percent of the funding will go to russia and roughly percent to the other countries in the area of food sales we have been active with ukraine in grant food assistance with georgia and armenia we will continue that and i think it s fair to say that after this summit we will go back and look at all of our programs with the other countries to ensure that they are adequate and they are productive and they re hard hitting q has anything happened at the summit to lead american energy companies and other companies to believe that russia is going to be more user friendly toward them in terms of taxing legalities bureaucracy senior administration official well one of our primary objectives coming into this summit was to highlight not only the economic agenda but also trade and investment and i d like to refer to the point i made at the beginning we re convinced in talking about this problem the problem of how to support russia long term we re convinced that no collection of western governments have the financial resources over the next decade to fuel the continuation of reform that only the private sector can do that we look at our own society and we see tremendous capability in resources in the oil and gas sector it is a very good match with what the russians need now which is financial investment in the existing oil and gas wells and pipeline and new technology and new capital to finance new production that s what the russian government has told us it wants to do and so that s why we have made such a major emphasis on it that s why trade and investment was a prominent issue on the first day of these talks and in fact figured prominently last night in the meeting between president yeltsin and president clinton and we re hoping that together we might send a strong signal to the american business community that we support their efforts to invest in russia that the united states through ex im and opec and the department of commerce will be there to support them q my question is is yeltsin in any position to deliver on making russia a more senior administration official we think he is i would note that president yeltsin s prime minister mr chernomyrdin worked for years in the russian oil and gas sector he will now chair a high level commission with the vice president vice president gore to try to break through the barriers that currently exist to western investment in the oil and gas sector we believe we have a commitment to make that committee an important committee and we re looking forward to the work q what type of mechanism is already in place to administer the private sector portion of the program and will the u s be directly involved in the tail end of distribution of the actual funds or is the money simply turned over to the russian government for distribution at their will senior administration official are you talking about the variety of programs listed here it depends on the program itself in most cases though we are either working through american pbos or american government agencies to ensure that the money obviously is well spent that the money gets to the intended source that s an obligation we have to the congress to ensure the money is well spent and that we can account for the money we have done that in the last couple of months intensively and we will continue to do it for each of these programs but they are all quite different for instance in the area of grant food and medical assistance for grant food it is carried out through usda and usda accounts for the delivery of the food for grant medical assistance we ve been working through project hope which is a private organization for the housing for instance the resettlement of russian officers we ll be working with a group of american pbos on some of the democratization projects we re working directly with russian private individuals and private foundations we re working with journalists in russia on a media project that you may have noticed so we literally have here to different activities under all these rubrics and they re all going to be carried out in slightly different ways some directly with the russian government some with russian citizens q the jackson vanik restrictions that remain and on the cocom restrictions that remain can you tell us what the president has to do on that senior administration official well as george noted yesterday president yeltsin raised these as irritants in the relationship the president has noted that i think it s fair to say we will go back now in our own government when we return to washington and look at both of these questions and we ll get back to the russian government q you were not prepared for these questions when you got here senior administration official we were prepared for these questions we ve looked at them but we re not prepared to make a quick decision this weekend they require let me just explain particularly on jackson vanik they require consultation with the congress they require consultation with the american jewish community and we re very sensitive to those concerns and so we ll want to go back and talk to them before we take any action q is this package designed so that you will not have to go to congress for anything at this point senior administration official as i said at the beginning the advantage of this particular package is that all the funds have been allocated and appropriated by the congress so the administration will not have to go back to the congress to seek any additional authority to fund any of these efforts in effect they can all begin tomorrow and i know that many of the agencies responsible for these projects will begin tomorrow and that s the advantage of this particular initiative q if this as the president says is a long term long haul thing and members of congress are at this moment heading for moscow why aren t you talking about going to congress and suggesting to the president of russia that you are prepared to go to congress for various things senior administration official i think we ve been clear about that the president is discussing this weekend with president yeltsin some additional ideas that we have for american funding of additional projects and ideas that he has we have a major congressional delegation that left last night headed by representative gephardt and we ll want to consult with that delegation and other members of congress before doing anything and we ll also want to consult with our allies so that s where it stands now q we ve been told repeatedly that a number of these items represent different or new ways of spending the money already appropriated could you just tick off which of these items represents reprogramming or at least spending money in ways that it was not previously set to be senior administration official i think that we ve said that these are all projects that either congress had allocated money for through the freedom support act there were some funds that were left over from fy and this administration took office and had some new ideas about how the funds might be expended we didn t use just the freedom support act funds or the fy funds we went into some of the agency allocations ex im opic and usda and tried to look for creative ways to further our programs and example of that is the food for progress concessional loans we had hit a brick wall with another type of funding through usda we could not go forward legally and so we looked for a more creative way to ensure continued american market share and ensure continued grain sales and we think we found it q where for example are you getting the money for this russian officer resettlement senior administration official that s from the freedom support act funds q in other words all of the money is being directly spent in new ways so to speak senior administration official most of the grant projects that you see if you look at the general chart the second chart it s broken down into grant and credits and if you look under grants the technical cooperation projects that total million that is almost all freedom support act funding a little bit of it is leftover funds from fiscal year the nunn lugar funds of course you know about the legislative history of those funds q cooperation senior administration official from fy i don t have the exact figure it was not a considerable figure q could you tell us please has anything happened here this weekend that will break the log jam between ukraine and russia over start for start i and ii as a result of what s happened here senior administration official both presidents president yeltsin and president clinton will be discussing this issue this morning in fact we haven t yet gotten to security and arms control related issues that will be this morning s session i know that president clinton will be very strongly reinforcing that this is a top priority for us we ve been talking to the russians and the ukrainians over the last couple of weeks about ways that we might help to facilitate the discussions between them up to this point this has been a very important negotiation that s been going on essentially between moscow and kiev and we are at the point now of essentially discussing with them if there are ways that we could contribute to this discussion help to move things forward essentially but in terms of what is coming out of this weekend i don t yet know in a couple hours we ll know q just a follow up on the financing here is any of this robbing peter to pay boris since it s all current year appropriations have you taken it from anyplace that s been earmarked and put it into this fund senior administration official there are smoke and mirrors here and i think it s an important point to note we could have given you a page of assistance numbers that included out year funding we re going to make a long term commitment to many of these projects for instance the enterprise funds the privatization effort the housing effort and we ve already talked to the russians about our long term commitment we could have put in really big numbers and this could have been a bigger package but we wanted to make a point this package is fy it s funds that we have and we re going to do what we say we re going to do and the president feels very strongly about that in the past there is a legacy that the western governments the combination of governments put up large budget figures and for any number of reasons we re not able to meet them we re determined and the president is determined to carry out every single program in this package and we ll do it but we do have a longer term commitment and that s part of the discussions on economics this weekend we re looking for russian ideas on what it is we can do to most effectively support reform and we ve told them that we do have a commitment on some of these programs beyond this fiscal year q taken it way from any senior administration official no we haven t okay the question is have we reprogrammed any of these funds so have we taken it from other countries to pay for programs in russia the answer is no we have not done so q in terms of funding there is no available monies left and you simply find a creative way to find money somewhere else doesn t that in fact support the theory senior administration official not at all i don t think it does that s a particular example and the example is grain sales the commodity credit corporation credit guarantee program was short term loans that russia had to pay back within to months you all know about russia s debt problem and russia was unable to meet those commitments so we looked for a way to do two things to meet russia s requirement for grain they re a net grain importer on a massive scale and also meet our objective of making sure that the american farmers have a chance to sell their products to russia and we simply look for another way to finance that and we have legislative authority to do it this program has been successful in other areas we had not tried it before in the former soviet union but we thought we should now q isn t this really the bush clinton aid package for russia since these funds were really first derived by initiatives put forward by president bush senior administration official no i don t think that s a fair characterization a lot of these funds were appropriated by the u s congress is in this administration took office and inherited some obligations that the bush administration had made but we had a long six to seven week review of this program we decided to meet the commitments that had been made by the previous administration but we have gone well beyond them in funding the enterprise fund which was just an idea but the idea had not been filled out with a program there was no number attached to it in grouping together some projects and trying to make them into a coherent whole in the privatization effort i would say is another clinton initiative further we listened to the russian government and listened to the russian military who told us that the resettlement of their officers was important to them for political and economic and social reasons and president clinton has responded to that and we are making a long term commitment that beyond this demonstration project we re going to figure out a way to do much more in trying to settle those officers i would also say that the president has given impetus to all of us in the agencies to think much more broadly about what it is we can do on democratization because there we have some experience and some comparative advantage that lends itself to the russian experience and in calling for the creation of a democracy corps which is another new initiative we re hopeful that we can take the resources of the private sector as well as the american government to achieve that objective so i would not characterize it that way at all and as most of you know i am a career civil servant i was in the last administration i m very familiar with what the last administration did and i would characterize this as a clinton assistance package for russia q there s been a lot of criticism that aid in the past has not gotten to the people is there anything in this outside of the ombudsman that will guarantee that this money will not just disappear because it s being administered by the russian government senior administration official i think that i know that the president and other senior officials of our government are concerned that american money be spent wisely and that it get to the source that it s intended for which it s intended and so we re going to take great care aid and the state department will take great care in making sure that the funds are expended properly and that they re reaching their source i would not that this package is not simply a package of support solely to the russian government some of these projects especially in democratization and exchanges are going to be worked out directly with russian private individuals with businesses the private enterprise support is another example of that senior administration official if i could just add a word on this point with regard to the ssd related programs one area that we ve been looking at very very closely is consideration of actually using russian firms in subcontracting for these kinds of programs they would be working very closely of course with the american firms who would be the prime contractors but this is a fine example i think of a more of a imaginative and flexible approach toward getting some of that funding down to the grassroots level down to the ground in russia but at the same time ensuring that it is spent efficiently and for the purposes for which it was intended q when would the democracy corps start exactly when do you see this happening how would get it off the ground senior administration official well the president is today calling for the creation of a democracy corps i think it s fair to say that we re going to work out its framework over the next couple of weeks ambassador simons takes up his duties on may st but in effect we ve already started because over the last couple of weeks the administration has begun to reach out to people in the private sector who have come to us asking us to help facilitate their activities in russia and we ve said that we will be helpful we ve also tried to kind of coordinate in a much more effective way the activities of our own government we do have or agencies that are active in russia in one way or another we think it makes sense to draw them together and to focus their efforts q excuse me how much of this billion will actually be spent in the united states by american made goods senior administration official i don t have any figures for you now but perhaps we could try to work something up in the next couple of days on that q this figure is larger than the figure that has been in the press did this program grow yesterday as a result of the discussions or have we just been that far off the mark senior administration official no i think unfortunately the press has been a little bit off the mark and i m sorry to say that no this package president clinton put us to work about seven weeks ago on this package and he was briefed intensively on this he contributed a lot of the intellectual leadership in this package he contributed a lot of the ideas in the package and i think it s fair to say that we had this rough package worked out about two weeks ago we have been refining it ever since we spent a couple of days last week going over it with the russian government both the embassy in washington and the government in moscow through our own embassy and so it s been evolving but this particular package has been together for about two weeks q where is yeltsin s input into this then there was so much talk before about the president wanted to get yeltsin s views about specifically what was needed and so forth is that in the out years senior administration official no it s both president yeltsin has on several occasions told us for instance that support for the creation of private businesses is important to him that the resettlement of russian military officers is important and that first and foremost the effort to privatize the state industries is important to them and so what we did was to try to make those the centerpiece of our technical assistance part o the package we listened to him on the privatization effort we have been working with the russian government for months on this trying to work out all the details so the russian government on most of these programs was involved every step of the way but let me get at the other part of your question the president is also using this weekend to talk about a broader set of initiatives that we might undertake and we re looking for his ideas the president has brought his own ideas to the table for instance on energy and the environment and in housing but we re looking for russian ideas not we need to consult with the congress and we need to consult with the other allied governments that are also active q there s essentially nothing that happened in the last day and a half that measurably altered the package that you came in with senior administration official this particular package as i said was worked out and was ready about two weeks ago we have since then consulted with the russian government on the final stages of its development and so this weekend we ve primarily talked about future about what more the united states and other western countries can do to support reform in russia which is our base objective here q i noticed that you that money appropriated to train bankers and businessmen and officers can you tell me what about job training for workers who are displaced by privatization senior administration official you re right we have a program to train russian young russians in banking and financial services in the united states part of the housing initiative it s not just to build housing units it s to retrain russian officers who are retiring into other professions q money for job training for workers whose jobs are disappearing because of privatization senior administration official we have not yet allocated any money for that q why not q of the million is going to build housing units isn t that a lot of money per unit given what the western dollar will buy in the former soviet union senior administration official if you want to do housing the right way it s not just the building the framework of a house you ve got to think about all the utilities you ve got to think about the purchase of land you ve got to think about sewage and gas and electricity and so forth and it s also retraining it s not enough to put retired an officer coming out of riga or tallin or vilnius in a house in western russia we think we have an obligation to try to retrain those officers as well this is responding to a request from the russian government q of the million will go to retrain senior administration official that s right q are you talking about apartment buildings or single senior administration official we re talking about single individual dwellings q you re saying that only families will be served by this senior administration official what i want to i thought i pointed out earlier this is a demonstration project what we didn t want to do given the experience that the germans and the turks and the italians have had in building housing in western russian we did not want to leap into it with a huge amount of money what we want to do is work over the next couple of months and try to figure out with american organizations in the private sector the best way to get this job done i noted that we have a long term commitment to that and so i would expect that we would put a lot more money into this in the future but we want to do it wisely we want to spend the money wisely q what is it about this program that convinces you that it will protect russia s reforms and that russia will be in a position to may back the money they re supposed to pay back especially considering their other debt problem senior administration official well look i think it s important to note that the united states on its own does not have the capability to fuel a continuation of russian reform it s got to be a collective western effort and we re looking to our allies to do more as well but beyond that it s really what the russians do that is going to decide the fate of reform we can simply play a role and we feel we have an obligation to do so which is consistent with our national interests q did the president say that the value of the u s contribution was that it would create security and prosperity for the united states so what is it about this program that does this senior administration official i think you have to go back to the fundamental objective of our policy toward russia and that is we want to do everything we can to support the continuation of reform we are convinced that if reformers stay in power then we ll be able to continue the drawdown of nuclear forces foreign policy cooperation and economic interaction which are the three benefits to the united states from reform in russia so it s not a simple question you can t just say that this program is the answer it s a long term question and we have to make a long term commitment to it q and then on the question of russia s ability to repay what convinces you they ll be able to pay seven to years from now senior administration official well the russian government has made a commitment to repay and what we re hoping is that if reform continues and if they can continue to improve their oil and gas sector and earn additional hard currency revenues that russia will be in a position six or seven years from now to pay back those loans q substantial government to government loan we ve ever gotten into with the russians senior administration official i don t want to answer authoritatively on that i don t go back or years on this but in the last four or five years yes it is because the previous way that we financed grain exports was really to just ensure private bank loans this is a different type of effort q government loans in any other sector that you recall i know it wasn t done in senior administration official i think it s fair to say this is a new and unique effort end a m pdt
