Powell Sees Need for International Role in Forming Afghan Government
(Secretary of State discusses Afghanistan, Middle East in TV interview) (950) By Thomas Eichler Washington File Staff Writer Washington -- There is broad agreement among the United States, Russia, Pakistan and the countries of South Asia that Northern Alliance forces, successfully advancing southward in Afghanistan in recent days, not enter the Afghan capital Kabul at this time, says Secretary of State Colin Powell. Speaking November 11 on the NBC program "Meet the Press," Powell said that Northern Alliance leaders themselves have said for weeks that they did not want to physically enter Kabul, although if there were a power vacuum they might have to reconsider. "There's too many uncertainties as to what might happen," Powell said. "Entering a city is a difficult thing. You put people in close quarters, they are of different tribal loyalties. We have seen what has happened previously when you had an uncontrolled situation and two forces arriving in Kabul at the same time not meaning each well, so we think it would be better if they were -- if we invest -- if I can pull an old military term out of my background -- invest the city, make it untenable for the Taliban to occupy Kabul, and then we'll see where we are." Powell said it will be important for the international community and the United Nations to be ready to move quickly to help Afghan elements come together in some form of a government and have some kind of temporary administrative presence in Kabul, "so that we don't have the kind of vacuum" that is of concern to the Northern Alliance. Asked what is the U.S. "exit strategy" out of Afghanistan, Powell said that unlike 10 years ago, "this time we can't just exit, get up and walk away. We will be committed to help with humanitarian relief through the winter, and after the demise of the Taliban regime, there'll be a need for humanitarian relief, and we are committed to help with the reconstruction effort so that we can give the people of Afghanistan a sense of hope that the international community is not going to abandon them. ... [T]he United States will remain engaged as part of the international community that will bring hope and a sense of a positive future, a new future to the people of Afghanistan." Powell said terrorist leader Osama bin Laden remains a target of the military action in Afghanistan. Bin Laden "threatens the world; he claims he has weapons of mass destruction. He cannot be left free to run around, so sooner or later, we, the international community, all of us coming together, are going to make sure that this [al Qaeda] network is ripped up and the leader of this network is brought to justice, that justice is brought to him." Asked about a recent bin Laden threat to use chemical or nuclear weapons, Powell said "I think it unlikely that he has any nuclear weapons. I can't say about chemical and biological." "But this is the kind of threat that this evil person likes to toss around," Powell added. "It just shows you the nature of Osama bin Laden, the nature of his actions. I mean, how can he profess to be a representative of a faith that preaches love and acceptance and nonviolence and say things like this? ... "This should be a wake-up call to Muslims around the world that this is not a man of faith, this is a man of evil. This is a man who means no good, clearly not to the United States, but he means no good to any civilized nation. He is the worst form of pirate on the face of the earth." On the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, asked about President Bush's use of the name "Palestine" in his November 10 speech to the United Nations General Assembly, Powell said: "The president used it yesterday quite deliberately to show that if one is moving forward with a vision of two states living side by side, just as Mr. Sharon has that as his vision, something that he hopes can be mutually agreed upon, and the whole international community wants to do that on the basis of U.N. Resolutions 242 and 338, it's appropriate, and as we start to reach more aggressively toward that vision, to call those two states what they will be: Israel and Palestine." In response to a question, Powell said President Bush feels that there may be a time in the future when it would be appropriate for him to meet with Palestinian Authority Chairman Yasser Arafat, but "this weekend and this occasion was not the appropriate time." The president, he said, "is totally committed to the peace process. ... He has given me my instructions to work as hard as the administration can, and I'll represent the administration to get this started." The president's expression of a vision of two states living side by side, Powell said, is "certainly an indication of the president's commitment. No Republican president has ever made a statement as forthcoming as that with respect to the future vision of the two states in that region." Powell said he thinks the president gave this vision a "jump start" in his speech, and said "I'll be following up on that jump start. There are other things that are now happening in the region that I think we're going to see in the next day or so, and I believe I can build on those actions." (The Washington File is a product of the Office of International Information Programs, U.S. Department of State. Web site: http://usinfo.state.gov)
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