25 October 2001
Transcript: Powell Discusses Coalition in Senate Testimony
(U.S. also focusing on post-Taliban Afghanistan) (3100)
Discussing the creation of the international coalition which formed
around the United States in the aftermath of the terrorist attacks
September 11th, Secretary of State Colin Powell told senators,
"[W]hether we wanted it or not, it showed up."
Testifying before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee October 25,
Powell said, "Within 24 hours, NATO acted. Before I could really get
on the phone and ask them, they were there. The U.N. showed up within
48 hours."
In his remarks, Powell acknowledged that the coalition itself has come
under criticism in past weeks: "[P]eople have said, well, coalitions
come with problems. ... [D]on't these kinds of coalitions sometimes
hamstring the president and his ability to do what he thinks he has to
do?
"The answer to the question," Powell continued, "is: the president has
not given up any of his authority. There are no arrangements within
this coalition which in any way, shape, fashion or form constrain the
president and the exercise of his constitutional responsibilities to
defend the United States of America and to defend the people of the
United States."
Powell also pointed out that the coalition is allowing the effort to
target terrorist sources of funding through the international banking
system, as well as obtaining overflight permissions and military force
basing rights and even contributing forces to the military effort.
"Without this coalition, the president couldn't do what needs to be
done," Powell said.
Turning to the current effort in Afghanistan, Powell said there needs
to be a post-Taliban regime which represents all of the people of the
country, and one that "is not dominated by any single powerful
neighbor." Moreover, Powell sees a need to continue "helping
Afghanistan finally find a place in the world, by helping its people
build a better life for themselves, by making sure they get the food
aid and other aid they will need to start building decent lives for
themselves and for their children."
Following is a transcript of Powell's remarks:
(begin transcript)
U.S. DEPARTMENT OF STATE
REMARKS BY SECRETARY OF STATE COLIN L. POWELL
BEFORE THE SENATE FOREIGN RELATIONS COMMITTEE
October 25, 2001
Washington, D.C.
SECRETARY POWELL: Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and thank you for welcoming
me back to appear before the Committee. And let me also say that I
happened to read the same newspaper articles that Senator Helms did
this morning, and when I saw the glaring headline, I said whoa, wait a
minute, this can't be right. So I immediately asked my staff to get
the transcript of what you had said. And I saw that it was not right,
that it was clear that you were speaking in a stereotypical, what
other people think. And then, at the tail end of that sentence that
was taken out of context, your final words were, "And that's not
right."
And so I was much relieved, because I knew that couldn't have been
your view, and appreciative, as I have been, for these past weeks, and
since I became Secretary, of the support, Mr. Chairman, that you have
provided to the Department, that you have provided to me on a personal
basis. And I express to you, and to Chairman Helms and to the other
members of the Committee the same sentiment: thank you for your
support, and especially, thank you for the solid bipartisan support
that the Administration has enjoyed from the Committee during this
crisis that began on the 11th of September. It means a lot to us, it
shows a lot to the world about what kind of a nation we are, what kind
of a people we are. And in the midst of all the anthrax scares and
other things that are going on, we are here on Capitol Hill to conduct
the people's business. We will not be frightened, we will not be
scared. We will get on with the people's business, and I am pleased to
be here today to participate in that solid, historic, democratic
process that we enjoy and that we believe in to the depth of our
hearts.
THE CHAIRMAN: Thank you for your comment and your confidence. I
appreciate it.
SECRETARY POWELL: Mr. Chairman, if I may, I'd like to provide a
written testimony for the record, and I'd like to summarize it very
briefly.
THE CHAIRMAN: Let it be placed in the record.
SECRETARY POWELL: Mr. Chairman, we will always remember the 11th of
September, where we all happened to be on that day, it's seared into
our individual memories, it's seared into our individual souls. I was
in Lima, Peru at breakfast with the President of Peru, President
Toledo, when the notes were handed to me, two notes in a quick row,
making it clear that it wasn't an accident, but my country had been
hit by the worst terrorist act that we had seen in our history.
And it was a long day for me, as I got in my plane and flew all the
way back from Peru, unable to communicate with anybody in Washington
until I arrived and joined the President in the White House with the
other national security advisors to the President.
And when I walked into the Situation Room and joined the President, I
found a President who was seized with the mission that had been handed
him that day, a President who had already seen that a challenge had
been presented to him that would change the entire nature of his
presidency and his administration. And a President who took up that
challenge, I think, in a bold way, a way that history will long
remember.
He knew right away that he not only had to go after the perpetrators
of these terrible attacks against us; he knew also that we had to go
after terrorism. It wouldn't be enough just to deal with these
perpetrators, who were soon identified as the al-Qaida network and
Usama bin Laden. But in order to be the kind of leader that he is, in
order to show leadership to the world, we had to undertake a campaign
that goes after terrorism in all of its many forms around the world.
And it's a campaign that has many dimensions to it. It's a campaign
that some days involves financial attacks, other days law enforcement
attacks, intelligence attacks, and sometimes, as we see now in
Afghanistan, military attacks. We have to secure our borders. We have
to do a better job of talking to other nations about who travels
across our borders. We have to make sure we go after the financial
networks that support terrorist activity.
And to do that, we built a broad coalition, a coalition of nations
that came together to respond to this attack, not just against
America, but against civilization. Hundreds and hundreds of people who
were not Americans died in the World Trade Center. Five hundred
Muslims died in the World Trade Center. Usama bin Laden and al-Qaida
killed Muslims on the 11th of September 2001 in New York City, as well
as men and women representing every race, color and creed on the face
of the earth, and a large number of American citizens.
Are we're going after them with this broad coalition to make sure that
they are brought to justice or justice is brought to them. It was an
attack against civilization; civilization must respond.
People have said, well, you know, it was an attack against America,
really not civilization. No, it wasn't. It was the action of an evil
man, and it was an evil act. There is no connection or relationship to
any faith; there is no faith on the face of the earth that would
sanction such an evil strike against innocent people. And we cannot
let Usama bin Laden pretend that he is doing it in the name of helping
the Iraqi people or the Palestinian people. He doesn't care one whit
about them. He has never given a dollar toward them. He has never
spoken out for them. He has used them as a [co]ver for his evil,
criminal, murderous, terrorist acts. And he has to be seen in that
light.
We have put together a grand coalition, and people have said, well,
coalitions sometimes come with problems. When you bring all these
people together, don't you have to take into account all of their
interests, and don't these kinds of coalitions sometimes hamstring the
President and his ability to do what he thinks he has to do.
The answer to the question is: the President has not given up any of
his authority. There are no arrangements within this coalition which
in any way, shape, fashion or form constrain the President and the
exercise of his constitutional responsibilities to defend the United
States of America and to defend the people of the United States. So
that should not be a concern in anyone's mind.
At the same time, without this coalition, the President couldn't do
what needs to be done. Without this coalition, we couldn't be
cooperating with 100 nations around the world on going after financial
networks of terrorist organizations. Without this coalition, we
wouldn't have countries that were supporting us in the prosecution of
our military campaign, giving us over-flight, giving us basing rights
and contributing military forces to fight alongside American forces.
So this is a coalition that is of enormous value, and what is unique
about this coalition that makes it different than any other coalition
anyone has ever put together is that, except for about three or four
countries, every other country on the face of the Earth has signed up.
They have signed up in many ways, whether it was NATO, 19 nations
invoking Article 5 of the Washington Treaty, the NATO Treaty, for the
first time in history, saying that an attack on one is an attack on
all, and that attack in New York City and Washington and Pennsylvania
was an attack on one and was an attack on all of us, and NATO has
responded.
The United Nations Security Council, the United Nations General
Assembly, the OAS, the Rio Treaty was invoked, the ANZUS Treaty was
invoked. The Organization of Islamic Conference had a meeting earlier
this month, and 56 Muslim nations came forward and said this was a
dastardly attack which does not represent Islam; it's a disgrace; the
United States is right to see it as an attack on civilization and an
attack on America.
One more point I would make about the coalition is that, whether we
wanted it or not, it showed up. Within 24 hours, NATO acted. Before I
could really get on the phone and ask them, they were there. The UN
showed up within 48 hours. A lot of people pat me on the back and
said, "Good job with the coalition." I have to sort of drop my head
slightly. They all showed up. Our friends showed up when we needed
them.
People have also said, "Well, this coalition will start to come apart
after a while. They won't stick together." Well, they've stuck
together. It's now six weeks. The President just returned from an
important meeting in Shanghai, the APEC conference, where 21 Asian and
Pacific nations all came together to talk about economic issues, to
talk about the world trading system, to talk about breaking down
barriers to trade. But the first thing they talked about was
terrorism, and all 21 of these nations reaffirmed their support for
what we are doing.
As my colleague Don Rumsfeld often says, "It's not just a single
coalition. It's a shifting set of coalitions, really, that come
together." And members will do different things at different times in
the life of this coalition. Some member-nations have said, look, all
we can do really is give you political and diplomacy support. We don't
have the wherewithal, or because of our political situation, we can't
do much more than that. Others have said we'll participate fully on
intelligence-sharing and financial digging-up of terrorist
organizations, and we'll provide military assets as well.
We have said let each contribute according to your ability to
contribute, your willingness to contribute, and the situation you face
within your country. And so far, after six weeks, this coalition is
gaining strength, not getting weaker.
Our attention now is focused on the military campaign in Afghanistan.
I am so proud of the men and women in uniform that I used to be so
closely associated with, as they once again go in harm's way in such a
professional manner to serve the American people, and in this case to
serve the cause of civilization. They are doing a fine job. But, as
the Chairman noted, it is going to be a tough campaign. It's a tough
campaign, tough in the air and even tougher on the ground, as we use
not American forces directly, but other forces who are like-minded in
recognizing that the Taliban must be removed. It's quite difficult to
coordinate them, but we are working on that very hard, and with each
passing day the coordination links between the air campaign and what
is happening on the ground become tighter, become more direct, and are
moving in the right direction.
Our work in Afghanistan, though, is not just of a military nature. We
recognize that when the al-Qaida organization has been destroyed in
Afghanistan and as we continue to try to destroy it in all the nations
in which it exists around the world, and when the Taliban regime has
gone to its final reward, we need to put in place a new government in
Afghanistan, one that represents all the people of Afghanistan and one
that is not dominated by any single powerful neighbor, but instead is
dominated by the will of the people of Afghanistan.
We are working hard at that. Ambassador Richard Haass, the Director of
Policy Planning at the State Department, is my personal
representative, working with the United Nations, Ambassador Brahimi,
the King and others to try to help Afghan leaders around the world
find the proper model for the future Afghanistan.
But we have got to do more than that. We also have to make sure that
when the Taliban regime is gone, we remain committed to helping
Afghanistan finally find a place in the world, by helping its people
build a better life for themselves, by making sure they get the food
aid and other aid they will need to start building decent lives for
themselves and for their children.
And while we are going through this conflict period now and thinking
about the future, we also have to make sure that we are pumping as
much humanitarian aid into the country now as winter approaches so
that we don't leave anybody at risk of starvation. There are lots of
reports about that, but I can say that the reports I have this morning
suggest that we have got quite a bit of food going in, blankets going
in. It is still a tenuous situation, but the situation has improved in
recent days, and I think it will improve in the days ahead.
We are giving it the highest priority, working with our friends in
Pakistan and Uzbekistan, and I was pleased to see the Foreign Minister
of Uzbekistan in the hearing room today, and it gives me the
opportunity to thank him and his government for the terrific support
that they have provided to us.
The Chairman mentioned that new strategic opportunities may come out
of this crisis. I think that is absolutely right. We have seen Russia
do things in the last six weeks that would have been un-thought-of
five or six years ago even, long after the Soviet Union was gone. We
are working with the Russians to take advantage of these new
opportunities.
At the APEC meeting in China, Mr. my other dear chairman, you would be
pleased to know that while we were talking about trade and economic
development with the People's Republic, we made sure that they
understood that even though we want to move in that direction, we are
not forgetting about human rights, we are not forgetting about
religious freedom. The President talked about the Dalai Lama. He
talked about relations with the Vatican. And we have seen improvement
already with respect to dialogue between the Vatican and Beijing, just
within the last 24 hours.
We talked about proliferation. We told them what we don't like about
what they do with respect to rogue nations. So Senator Helms, I can
assure you and assure all the other members of the Committee that we
are clear-eyed about this coalition building. We are clear-eyed about
the campaign we have embarked upon. We understand the nature of some
of the regimes that we are having some opening discussions with. And
they are not going to get in on the cheap. "We are against the
Taliban, but you've got to tolerate our actions with respect to other
terrorist organizations that we like" -- it won't work. The President
says you've got to choose now to move into a new world, where you no
longer support those kinds of activities if you want a better shot at
good relations with the United States of America.
And so I think we are off on a noble cause. I think it is a cause that
is just. It is a cause that we will prevail in, because we are doing
the right thing.
Let me close by once again thanking the Committee for the support that
they have provided to us. I know how much it means to the President
for you all to visit with him every week or so. And let me once again
express my admiration for the men and women in uniform who are doing
such a great job. And let me also express my admiration for the men
and women of the State Department, and the other civilian agencies of
the United States Government, who are serving in missions all around
the world, sometimes in great danger, sometimes at the risk of their
lives. They are doing a terrific job, and I know that you share my
admiration and pride in the men and women of our diplomatic service.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
(end transcript)
(Distributed by the Office of International Information Programs, U.S.
Department of State. Web site: http://usinfo.state.gov)
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