22 October 2001
Transcript: Powell Briefing on Missile Defense, Mideast, Afghanistan
(Secretary talks to press en route Washington from Shanghai) (4320)
Secretary of State Colin Powell said that during President Bush's
meetings with Russian President Vladimir Putin October 21 in Shanghai,
the United States "did not give formal or informal notification of an
intention to withdraw from the ABM [Anti-Ballistic Missile] Treaty.
But the President has said repeatedly to President Putin and the
Kremlin that we have to get beyond the constraints of the ABM Treaty."
Bush and Putin held bilateral talks following the Asia-Pacific
Economic Cooperation (APEC) forum, and Powell briefed reporters while
en route to Washington from Shanghai October 22.
Powell said President Bush "will not allow our missile development
program to be constrained artificially by a treaty that he believes no
longer serves a useful purpose in the 21st century."
Asked whether some testing of the United States' proposed missile
defense system could be done under the ABM treaty, Powell said the
treaty "is subject to enormous interpretation. That's why we think
that it is time to move beyond it, and we had a long discussion about
it last night."
He also reiterated that the United States and Russia "are not enemies.
We are all in the 21st century. There is no Soviet Union. There is no
evil empire. There is no Iron Curtain."
The two countries need to develop a basic strategic framework that
includes "a significant reduction in the number of strategic offensive
weapons.... Secondly, moving beyond the ABM Treaty so that we can
develop missile defense, which at the new lower numbers on both sides
will not be a threat to either side. And third, you have to consider
all of the proliferation issues that are involved in this so that we
are not creating other ballistic missile armed nuclear entities that
could upset the balance," Powell said.
Following is the transcript of the briefing, during which Powell also
discussed China's response to missile defense, the Middle East,
Afghanistan and the war on terrorism, and India/Pakistan issues.
Following is a transcript of the briefing, released by the State
Department October 22:
(begin transcript)
U.S. DEPARTMENT OF STATE
Office of the Spokesman
(En Route Washington, D.C.)
October 22, 2001
Secretary of State Colin L. Powell Press Briefing on Board Aircraft En
Route Washington, DC
QUESTION: Did you give formal or informal notification of intent to
withdraw from the ABM?
SECRETARY POWELL: No, we did not give formal or informal notification
of an intention to withdraw from the ABM Treaty. But the President has
said repeatedly to President Putin and the Kremlin that we have to get
beyond the constraints of the ABM Treaty, and he reinforced that again
to President Putin last night, but he did not give, to answer your
question precisely, either informal or formal notification of an
intent to withdraw.
QUESTION: But was it a talking point?
SECRETARY POWELL: The only talking points that count were the ones
that came out of the President last night. Look, talking points are
prepared for officials all the time, everywhere. I get them all the
time. Sometimes I even read them. But what the President said was that
he did not give any formal or informal notification of the United
States intention to withdraw from the ABM Treaty under the provisions
of the treaty. But, he reinforced to President Putin as he has done
repeatedly, once again, that we've got to get beyond the constraints
of the ABM Treaty because it keeps us from doing things that we need
to pursue missile defenses.
QUESTION: Do you expect that you will give formal notification during
the summit in Washington, in Crawford?
SECRETARY POWELL: We have not made a decision on that because, as both
Presidents said last night, both sides are working in earnest to see
if there is a way that we can go forward. That is what we are doing.
My colleague, he's flying home right now, today is Monday? We'll talk
sometime Monday and see how we follow up with our respective staffs.
I'm sure Mr. Rumsfeld's staff will be doing the same thing. So I
cannot tell you where we will be at Crawford. As Mr. Putin has said in
the past, a unilateral withdrawal from our part is certainly an option
for us, and he acknowledges that that's our option, an option that's
on the table. But as both Presidents said last night, we are
continuing to talk to each other and pursue a process.
QUESTION: Mr. Putin has said, as he is apparently telling his own
people, that the treaty can stretch and he's ready to accommodate
President Bush on the whole testing program. Does that mean the treaty
could survive this process as he's arguing it should?
SECRETARY POWELL: I haven't quite heard him say that. Although -- but
I have had discussions with some Russian colleagues of mine who
suggest we can probably do more testing than we think we can under the
treaty, or the 1997 New York protocol as it is called. We are looking
at all of that. The important point in all of this, the President will
not allow our missile development program to be constrained
artificially by a treaty that he believes no longer serves a useful
purpose in the 21st century.
QUESTION: (inaudible).
SECRETARY POWELL: Elaine's asking if I can give an estimate of the
range of times when it will come in conflict, and I can't. I really do
have to defer on that because I'm really not into the technology of it
all. Nor am I watching it as closely as I used to in my previous life.
Very often it becomes a matter of differing groups of lawyers making a
legal interpretation of what the treaty permits you to do and not do.
They have their lawyers. We have our lawyers. The State Department
lawyers all have fascinating debates with the Defense Department
lawyers. That's one of the reasons that we think that this treaty has
outlived its usefulness. Some of you who have been around as long as
Robin remember back in the eighties, when we used to argue over
physical principles, remember that one, Robin? You were around then,
too, Pat. We used to have these (inaudible) arguments about physical
principles which can be used which are or not permitted. Those of you
who were around that long will remember that we used to argue over
broad versus narrow interpretations. Remember how my beloved friends,
Cap Weinberger and George Shultz, used to go on about that month after
month after month.
So the treaty, even though it is really easy to read -- you can read
it in just a few moments -- it is subject to enormous interpretation.
That's why we think that it is time to move beyond it, and we had a
long discussion about it last night.
QUESTION: President Putin's comments to the contrary, do you all sense
any give on the Russian side, and do you think that this discussion of
drawing down offensive weapons is perhaps a way to give the Russians
an ABM out as working?
SECRETARY POWELL: What I am trying to give them an out -- we are
trying to persuade them that in this new -- we are not enemies. We are
all in the 21st century. There is no Soviet Union. There is no evil
empire. There is no Iron Curtain. We really do need a basic strategic
framework that involves a number of pieces. One is a significant
reduction in the number of strategic offensive weapons and we expect
our colleagues at the Pentagon will provide the President with a
number in the very near future that will serve as the basis for that
part of the framework.
Secondly, moving beyond the ABM Treaty so that we can develop missile
defense, which at the new lower numbers on both sides will not be a
threat to either side. And third, you have to consider all of the
proliferation issues that are involved in this so that we are not
creating other ballistic missile armed nuclear entities that could
upset the balance. So we think -- I would not couch it as we are
trying to give the Russians an out -- we are trying to show them what
we think is the correct way, how to look at it at this point. To look
at this problem right now.
But as you have heard from them, repeatedly, and Mr. Putin said it
again yesterday in his meeting with President Jiang Zemin, that they
still view the ABM Treaty as one of the cornerstones of this strategic
framework. We think it no longer serves that role. The Russians have
been forthcoming enough to say yeah, we do realize it is an audible
environment and let's continue to talk about this and let the process
continue. That's what we are trying to help make happen. We are under,
and I don't want to use the word deadline, we are under no constraints
with respect to our thinking. We'll see where we are in three weeks'
time in Crawford.
QUESTION: That's the Russians. Let's talk about the Chinese who still
on missile defense have strong concerns. Can you explain how missile
defense doesn't erode the Chinese deterrent and how any attempt they
make to build up a response to that does not signal an arms race,
doesn't set off an arms race between Pakistan and India?
SECRETARY POWELL: The Chinese have always kept a relatively small
amount of intercontinental ballistic missiles and they have never
viewed them the same way as the United States and Soviet Union. The
Soviet Union did during the years of the Cold War where we were
constantly building up. You know, if we put them in SSBNs, they'd put
them in SSBNs. If we moved, they moved. If we had a triad, they had a
triad. It was this competition. The Chinese were never a part of that
competition in the same way. We tried to have treaties with the
Russians, not the Chinese. They built a relatively small number of
(inaudible) first strike intercontinental ballistic missiles that had
in the theology of this steel (inaudible). They were not designed to
go after somebody else's nuclear forces to keep those forces from
striking you. They were designed to go after something of enormous
value, San Francisco, Los Angeles, Seattle, and as long as they could
do that, their nuclear forces were serving their purpose. It is
expected that over time, we would modernize, one would modernize such
a force. Can't keep an old force around forever. The Chinese have been
working to modernize that force. Modernizing also tends to make it way
more stable and safe (inaudible).
I have seen nothing to suggest that the Chinese are so concerned about
missiles defense that they are poised for a breakout in the sense that
they would significantly by factors of two, three, four, or five,
increase the numbers of their intercontinental ballistic missiles in
order to get through a shield, not to go to a counter for strategy,
but to get through a shield. We have been talking to the Chinese
(inaudible). It came up again this trip, but it wasn't a lingering
conversation. Even when I was here in July and I had a long
conversation over the long lunch table with Foreign Minister Tang, I
took him through all what I'm giving you now and he listened, and they
all listened, and when I finished, they said thank you. So they are
taking it all aboard and I'm sure they are making their calculations
and we will try to give them every assurance that we can that this is
not directed against them. We are directing it against others in their
neighborhood who are pursuing this kind of capability that we're
worried about. People who are not under what we would consider
responsible leadership, and we will continue to make that case with
the Chinese government. If I were a Chinese general, I would still
have to have one small part of my brain continuing to look at that
capability and wondering no matter what they say it is for, perhaps it
can be a way of defending against my missiles as well. We will have to
see what they do with this whole calculus, but frankly, they have been
rather subdued about it in recent months in my discussions with the
(inaudible). They listen. They want to learn more. We send briefers
over. But they have been rather subdued. Yesterday, Jiang Zemin
reaffirmed the ABM Treaty to which he is not a signatory.
QUESTION: But what if you were an Indian general?
SECRETARY POWELL: If I was an Indian general, it wouldn't trouble me
because they are really, the Indians and the Pakistanis, are really
concerned about the problems in their neighborhood. I don't think any
of the nations, China, India, Pakistan, in light of this new 21st
century world, view America as the kind of nation they are likely to
get into conflict with. Bu nonetheless, I can't really speak for an
Indian or Pakistani general, or for that matter, I don't speak for
American generals anymore, either.
QUESTION: Following up in India and Pakistan, that group of I's and
P's, you have another group of I's and P's that are at each other's
throats now. The tensions rose quite significantly, during your time
away next week in both places. How do you see that calming down, if
you do, and what's the effect of that on the coalition?
SECRETARY POWELL: You know, this was not a good week in the Middle
East. It started out as a promising week. The first day was the most
promising day I had seen in many months with the Israelis opening up
some crossing sites, pulling back their forces from Hebron or a number
of other places. You may recall Mr. Sharon, also that same day, once
again, indicated in due course the existence of a Palestinian state.
We had security meetings going on (inaudible) getting better.
So for the first time in a long time, I was seeing some progress
toward the Mitchell plan and I was very encouraged. But the very next
day, we had a terrorist attack, killed a minister who had just left
government. He would have been out of the government in another hour
and he left the government because Mr. Sharon had been asking actions
that were starting to move in a direction of trying to get the process
going. So it could not have been a more tragic incident as a personal
matter of course for the minister and his family, but for the region.
So, as a result, we had a deterioration all week long with the
Israelis feeling the need to go back into a number of these Zone A
cities and towns and making demands on the Palestinians with respect
to arresting the perpetrators. Mr. Arafat is trying to find the
perpetrators.
New demands have been placed on the table. I spent most of yesterday
working on this. I spoke to Prime Minister Sharon. I spoke to Mr.
Arafat, Foreign Minister Maher, King Abdullah, Igor Ivan, of course,
maybe a couple of others that Richard can get to you. And trying to
see, not forget where we have been a week before.
Mr. Sharon had indicated he felt it absolutely necessary to go in and
arrest those who are planning terror and he did not want to remain in
those zones and would be coming out as soon as he could. I encouraged
him to exercise all the restraint that he could because we have to
think about the day after. I also encouraged Chairman Arafat to do all
he could in order to arrest those who are responsible for this latest
act of terror and to continue to do all that he could to reduce the
violence to hopefully zero, the lowest level possible. So it was not a
great four days. So far today, there's been violence but it hasn't
been as bad as yesterday. We will see where we are tomorrow. It's a
day-by-day thing, I regret to say.
QUESTION: Did the Palestinian party just outlaw the armed group of the
PFLP?
SECRETARY POWELL: I heard they were getting ready to do that, and I
think that is a good move. I think the (inaudible) have given
instructions to his various organizations to implement a cease-fire.
If they don't follow his instructions and violate that, it's a
challenge to his authority. I'm glad to see that he's responding to
that challenge.
QUESTION: (inaudible)
SECRETARY POWELL: I would hope that both sides would make whatever
reciprocal moves they can in order to reduce tension. As I said a
moment ago, Mr. Sharon said he does not want to stay into these
occupied areas, so as the violence is ended in those areas, in the
Zone A areas he went into(inaudible). As soon as the violence has gone
down and he has done whatever arresting he planned to do, he wants to
come back out. He also gave me his assurance that he is still
committed to the Mitchell committee process. I look forward to my
conversations with Foreign Minister Peres. I can't give you a specific
yes, if they do that, they should do that. I can just give you a
general, I hope both sides will look for every opportunity to go back
down the ladder of escalation and try to do everything they can to
reduce tensions.
QUESTION: (inaudible)
SECRETARY POWELL: I do that; I do that almost every day. I do it in a
way, in different ways, in different methods, in different channels,
and this isn't one of the channels that I want to use today.
QUESTION: Secretary Powell, I don't know nearly as much arms control
as you do, so please explain to me what the difference is when you say
the Chinese have a small arsenal that's meant to go after all the
cities you mentioned. No, I know the Chinese have said that in the
past. So what is the difference between a small Chinese arsenal that
targets American cities and a rogue state, whether it be North Korea,
Iraq or Iran, that has a small arsenal? How is our missile defense
system not something that might spark China to build in a more
expansive way than they might have otherwise?
SECRETARY POWELL: It is a possibility, as I tried to answer Bill's
question. I'm sure part of their calculus, they wonder if that is
appropriate. But I think they are all speculating to see how our
program develops and make a judgment as to whether or not they still
feel secure with the level they have now and the strategy they have
now. I hope as they see our program develop, and see how it is being
developed against certain rather specific kinds of threats, very
limited in nature, they will not find the need to explode the size of
their arsenal. I don't think they'll find such a need or see such a
need.
QUESTION: While we were refueling, my desk said that Javier Solana had
come out and said he hoped that the Afghan King would soon be able to
form a new government. You just spoke with him. Did he say anything
that specific that the former king would be able to form a new
government? That sounded a little odd to me. I know that we're never
saying that we have an (inaudible) and the Afghans have to choose. Do
you know whether or not -- have you heard?
SECRETARY POWELL: I talked to Javier yesterday as he was getting ready
to travel. He is heading to the Middle East. We talked about
Afghanistan, in general terms, about the need for a new government to
be considered and work to be done to put one together in a
post-Taliban regime to be ready. I don't think we've gone so far so to
say that it is the king that would be the head of this country. I
think we all recognize that the king has unique authority and unique
ability to perhaps convene the different parties (inaudible).
QUESTION: (inaudible)
SECRETARY POWELL: Until I hear what he says, until I've heard what
he's said and see it myself, I don't think that I would wish to
characterize it as strange.
QUESTION: You've talked about trying to go to the next stage --
building, reconstruction, humanitarian aid and so forth. Now that
you've got this strategy in place, can you tell us about what you're
going to be doing about that? And, secondly, on the force that may be
going in, there are two very different kinds of ideas -- an Islamic
force, and a UN force. Can you tell us?
SECRETARY POWELL: On the first question, what I will be doing this
week is getting a report from Richard Haass, who had good discussions
last week, not only on the political piece of it, but also some of the
ideas with respect to rebuilding. Many of the APEC nations or APEC
economies, as they euphemistically prefer to call them, were very
interested in participating in the reconstruction effort. I think
there will be solid support for that, and a number of them said, and I
think it was Prime Minister Koizumi said at one point, this is not a
country that needs to have its industry rebuilt. It isn't a huge
Marshall Plan kind of investment. We are talking about an agrarian
society, some extracted industries, some oil and gas potential, but
fairly modest investment could do wonders, and we're looking at that.
I think that part will fall into place fairly quickly once there is
stability. There seems to be a solid understanding within the
coalition, where we say APEC, NATO, EU and OIC, that we all have to
get together to help with this rebuilding, reconstruction, whatever
one chooses to call it.
On the military force, I don't have the view on it, but the
alternatives are pretty straightforward. You can put in something
under Blue Helmet, a UN force, or you can try to assemble willing
nations who might put in a force, not necessarily under the UN but
will work with whatever UN presence is in the region. That is another
way to do it.
Another alternative is, just to exhaust them all, is to just see if
you can rapidly put together an Afghan force. That seems to be tricky
until you've established some form of government and some form of
understanding among the various groupings as to how they will share
power and authority before you can really put an army together or a
police establishment in place.
So right now, it is not that there is a fight going in. It's that we
are trying to debate it, trying to figure out what the right answer
is. Some reporting last week suggested that we were at odds with Mr.
Brahimi in the UN. I think a better way to characterize it is that
we're looking at alternatives to see what would be best supported.
QUESTION: Do you think your trip to Pakistan and India did more than
just buy time for the war on terrorism? Given India's continued deep
mistrust of Musharraf, how would you assess the stability of Musharraf
as a leader and both the relations between India and Pakistan in
general?
SECRETARY POWELL: I found President Musharraf to be very much in
charge. I think he has a very good understanding of the situation that
he's in, and he has good support for the decisions that his government
has taken. He has also popular discontent with respect to the military
actions in Afghanistan and, as he said several times during our press
conference, he would like to see those actions go on for as short of a
period as possible. So would we all. But it is more important to make
sure that we accomplish the mission, and he also understands that. So
I found him to be in secure position. But nevertheless, we are trying
to do whatever we can to help him with respect to economic aid, which
is what he wanted more than anything else. He emblazoned two words on
me, which I think that I have used, which is debt relief, so we're
going to try to get him all the assistance we can.
Obviously, there's tension between India and Pakistan still and that
flared up on my last night in Pakistan on my way to India the next
morning when we saw the firing over the line of control. At the same
time, I think both sides are realizing, even though this is a very
difficult issue for them, they can't let it get out of control. The
stakes are too high. Both sides are committed to the coalition. Both
sides are helping the United States and other coalition members. Both
sides are working with us on a future for Afghanistan, and both sides
realize that for peace and stability in their part of the world,
they've got to get this right. So I sense that even though there's
tension, I understand that they have to act with enormous restraint.
Both sides said that they are anxious to get a dialogue started. They
are having a little difficulty getting that dialogue started. I will
try to be helpful in that regard. I think they are both committed to
the campaign against terrorism, and I was pretty satisfied with the
trip.
(end transcript)
(Distributed by the Office of International Information Programs, U.S.
Department of State. Web site: http://usinfo.state.gov)
|
NEWSLETTER
|
|
Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list
|
|
|
