29 December 2002
Powell Interview on Fox News Sunday
(Discusses North Korea and Iraq) (1,950)
Following is the transcript of Secretary of State Colin Powell's
January 29 interview concerning North Korea on Fox News Sunday with
Tony Snow:
(begin transcript)
Interview on Fox News Sunday with Tony Snow
Secretary Colin L. Powell
Department of State
Washington, DC
December 29, 2002
MR. SNOW: Secretary Powell, James A. Kelly, our Assistant Secretary
for East Asian Affairs, is heading off to South Korea to talk with the
government. Is he also going to speak with the North Koreans?
SECRETARY POWELL: Not at this time. He'll be going to South Korea
within the next week or two to consult with our friends and allies. We
believe it is very important that with this serious situation we are
facing we stay in close touch with our friends and allies. And I am
very pleased that the entire international community has come together
on this issue to say to North Korea you're moving in the wrong
direction, this is not the right thing to do, and you'd be better off
cooperating with the international community to find a way forward to
end this uranium enrichment program that we have discovered, and also
to put the plutonium program at Yongbyon back under international
supervision.
MR. SNOW: Is there any doubt in your mind that the reactivation of the
Yongbyon reactor is designed not for domestic energy for the North
Koreans, but instead for weapons development?
SECRETARY POWELL: It certainly has that capability. It doesn't make
sense to reactivate it for electrical production. It's only five
megawatts. It's peanuts. It'll barely produce enough electricity to
run itself. And so there's a danger, then, that it could be used for
reprocessing spent fuel rods into weapons grade plutonium, and that's
of concern to us. The North Koreans say they're doing it for
electricity. I don't know if this is brinkmanship or whether or not
they're serious, but we're taking it seriously.
But we don't believe it rises to a crisis atmosphere. Nobody is
alerting forces. It's a serious problem and we're deeply engaged in
trying to do something about it. We discovered this problem. I mean,
everybody thought the Agreed Framework froze North Korea's nuclear
aspirations. It turned out that it was misdirection. While everybody
was watching Yongbyon and seeing that it was frozen, the North Koreans
had started moving in a new direction with respect to the enrichment
of uranium.
And this didn't happen just in the last year or two. It's a decision
they made and a program they started four or so years ago. And we
found out about it this summer and we confronted the North Koreans
with it. We wanted to talk to the North Koreans, saying, look, you've
got to stop this kind of activity, stop with the weapons
proliferation, and the United States and all the other members of the
international community are standing ready to help you in bettering
your economy, in providing for your people. And they didn't respond to
that request.
MR. SNOW: It seems that it's completely contrary to their
self-interest to pursue the course they have. Why do you think they've
done it?
SECRETARY POWELL: I don't know. They do many things that are contrary
to their self-interest. I mean, if you think of where we were just six
months ago, the Japanese were prepared to begin normalization
discussions and a huge economic package in due course for the North
Koreans.
MR. SNOW: $10 billion.
SECRETARY POWELL: $10 billion, perhaps. We were about to put two
railroad lines through the demilitarized zone from south to north. The
Russians want to bring the extension to the Trans-Siberian Railroad
through North Korea, South Korea. North Korean soccer teams were on
their way, were in South Korea.
So there were a lot of things underway. The President had given a
speech in South Korea that said I have no hostile intent toward the
North, we're not going to attack the North, we're not going to invade
the North. And then suddenly we discovered this. And it wasn't
anything we were looking for, but our intelligence community said
look, this is real. And we had to share it with the international
community. We had to show it to the North Koreans and give them a
chance to step back from this dangerous course they were on. And they
did not.
Now what they're saying is we were in violation of our obligations
when we started this enriched uranium plant and now we're going to be
in violation of our obligations once again when we start up Yongbyon.
Are we supposed to suddenly reach out to North Korea and say, "You're
scaring us to death and therefore we want to appease you in some way"?
Or do something which suggests we have to reward them for this
multiple bad behavior?
MR. SNOW: We will not appease them; correct?
SECRETARY POWELL: We can't appease them. I mean, they will not -- the
wrong lessons will be drawn from us stepping forward and saying we are
so concerned and afraid of this that we will do whatever it takes,
whatever you ask us. This is what we saw in the past. They created the
same situation in 1994. The Agreed Framework did stop plutonium from
being developed into weapons for a period of eight years, but it did
not stop North Korean ambitions. So we have to do it right this time.
MR. SNOW: A lot of Americans, when they see this story, are reminded
of what was happening when the Iraqis were building the Osirak
reactor. The Israelis came in and bombed it in 1981. You have said
that we are not prepared to take preemptive military action. Have we
ruled it out as a potential option for the future?
SECRETARY POWELL: We don't see it as anything we have to look at right
now. The President, of course, always has every option. It's a
standard phrase that we use. But at the moment, we're not looking at
an action like that. I mean, this would -- it's now a functioning
facility so it would be a "dirty hit" if one were to go after it.
You'd contaminate an area.
And secondly, we are not looking to create a potential for conflict on
the Korean Peninsula. All of North Korea's neighbors have looked at
this askance and said, you know, what's up? The Chinese have said
clearly that they want a denuclearized Korean Peninsula. That is what
President Jiang Zemin said to President Bush in Crawford when he was
with him a few weeks ago. And so the North Koreans are flying in the
face of that. The Japanese have pulled back with respect to
normalization. The South Koreans, the new president-elect,
President-elect Roh has made it clear that this will be an obstacle to
future progress, and he is for progress.
MR. SNOW: Let's run through a couple options. Do you expect the United
Nations Security Council to pass a resolution regarding North Korea?
SECRETARY POWELL: I can't answer that question yet. What we are
waiting to see happen now is that in early January, perhaps as early
as the 6th, the International Atomic Energy Agency will meet in Board
of Governors session and make a judgment as to what North Korea has
done, and then make a judgment as to whether they bring that forward
to the UN.
MR. SNOW: So you expect the IAEA to bring it to the UN, not the United
States?
SECRETARY POWELL: The IAEA will make a decision on the 6th of January
whether they're going to refer it to the United Nations or not. We are
not, at the moment, preparing to introduce a separate resolution, but
I don't rule out what might happen in the weeks ahead. I've been in
close touch with Kofi Annan, spoke to him about it a day or two ago.
MR. SNOW: Then, now, there is a story the United States intercepted a
North Korean vessel headed toward Yemen with scud missiles. Now it's
reported that those scuds were not, in fact, intended for Yemen, but
for Iraq. Is that true?
SECRETARY POWELL: It's reported in one paper, but I don't have any
reason to believe that story is correct. I talked directly to the
president of Yemen as this was unfolding and spoke to his foreign
minister, told them that we had decided to let the shipment go through
with their assurances that it was always intended for Yemen and it was
the last such shipment in an order that they had made some years
earlier. We have an agreement from Yemen that they will not be
importing any more weapons of that type.
MR. SNOW: Are North Korea and Iraq cooperating militarily?
SECRETARY POWELL: I don't know if you have a specific question in
mind. I don't know of any particular area of cooperation at the
moment. But as you know, North Korea is a proliferator -- one of the
concerns we have had, one of the concerns the previous administration
had -- and Iraq is always looking toward those countries that will
proliferate the kinds of things they're trying to get their hands on.
MR. SNOW: Now, we have said that we will intercept arms shipments
coming from North Korea. Have our allies in the region -- the Chinese,
the Japanese and others -- also agreed to try to intercept such arms
shipments?
SECRETARY POWELL: We haven't been in touch with the Japanese or the
Chinese and Russians specifically on the issue of interception. In the
case of the ship we did stop and search its cargo and found the scuds,
we did it in cooperation with the Spanish navy, which did a terrific
job. They did the job as part of our multinational interdiction
operation in that part of the world.
MR. SNOW: Let's switch quickly to Iraq. Iraq now is permitting some
scientists to be interrogated by the United Nations, but they're doing
it in the Al Rasheed Hotel. I've stayed in that hotel. It's bugged.
Can one credibly hold such interviews in a bugged hotel?
SECRETARY POWELL: Well, whether it's bugged or not is not the issue,
so much as whether or not the individual is free to talk. The first
one who came in had a minder with him, somebody with him. That's why
we believe it is important that for those key people that we believe
have knowledge that would be useful and who might have a willingness
to share such knowledge, such interviews would be better held outside
of the country, and also with protections for their family, protection
for their families. And that's why we have pushed that and that's why
it is part of the UN resolution.
MR. SNOW: Iraq has supplied a list of 500 names of scientists involved
in various weapons development programs. Do we think that's a
legitimate list?
SECRETARY POWELL: I haven't seen the list and I don't think our
intelligence community has had enough time to analyze the list. But
it's a list that Dr. Blix had asked for and Iraq made the deadline in
providing the list.
MR. SNOW: Final question. Has the President decided to use force
against Iraq?
SECRETARY POWELL: He has not. He hopes for a peaceful solution. But at
the same time, we are taking prudent actions, positioning our forces
so that they will be ready to do whatever might be required.
MR. SNOW: Secretary of State Colin Powell, thanks for joining us.
(end transcript)
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Department of State. Web site: http://usinfo.state.gov)
