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Military

27 November 2001

Transcript: Secretary Powell on CNN's "Larry King Live"

(Says "difficult compromises" required of both sides in Mideast)
(6220)
Secretary of State Colin Powell said both Israelis and Palestinians
will have to make "difficult compromises" to get back to the
negotiating table in the Middle East. Describing the Middle East as
"the toughest account" he deals with every day, he said, that within
his lifetime he expects to see a Palestinian state living in peace
with Israel. Secretary Powell was interviewed by CNN's Larry King on
November 26.
Powell said his November 19 foreign policy speech in Louisville,
Kentucky was intended to lay out "the whole situation as we saw it,
for both sides."
"We're prepared to engage at a higher level with General Zinni and
Assistant Secretary Burns. But both sides have got to come to the
table prepared to give, prepared to compromise," Powell said. "This is
not something that can be solved by Colin Powell or President George
Bush or General Zinni. It can only be solved by the two parties."
On Iraq, Powell noted that the U.S. has been pressing Iraq since 1998
to let the inspectors back into Iraq, to ensure that Iraq is complying
with the agreements it made at the end of the Gulf War to give up all
weapons of mass destruction.
With the expiration of the current Iraq sanctions rollover period
later this week, Powell said he was working with Russian Foreign
Minister Igor Ivanov on what the new rollover should look like. "We
believe that smart sanctions, the position the United States has been
pushing, is the way to go," Powell said, because it removes the Iraqi
regime's argument that the U.S. is using sanctions to hurt the Iraqi
people.
Smart sanctions would make it easier for civilian goods, including
medicine and food, to get into Iraq but would deny the regime of goods
that can be used for developing weapons of mass destruction. "We're
not doing this just to protect America, but to protect the region,"
Powell said.
Turning to Afghanistan, Powell said the war is "going darn well" right
now. But he cautioned that the campaign against terrorism is a
long-term campaign that will likely go on for years, "even if we got
Usama bin Laden tomorrow."
"It's terrorism and terrorists we are after, and there are other
terrorist organizations and other forms of terrorism around the world
that we have to turn our attention to."
Following is the transcript of Secretary of State Powell's November 26
interview with Larry King on CNN:
(begin transcript)
Interview on CNN's Larry King Live
Secretary Colin L. Powell 
Washington, DC
November 26, 2001
3:05 P.M. EST
QUESTION: We're at the John Quincy Adams Reception Room, the United
States Department of State, Washington, DC, and it's our special
pleasure to have as our guest Secretary of State Colin Powell. We are
old friends, but I will call him Mr. Secretary.
SECRETARY POWELL: Thank you, Larry.
QUESTION: You're welcome.
SECRETARY POWELL: I'll call you Mr. King.
QUESTION: No, don't. Don't do that. First, before we get to anything
else, how does this job compare to all the other posts you've held?
SECRETARY POWELL: Oh, it's quite different. The reach of the job is so
much broader. When I was Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, I
essentially focused on things military. But in this job, it's
political, it's diplomatic; a large economic content to the job.
Everybody wants to talk about trade. The travel demands are a lot
greater. And the urgency of the issues with which I deal are much
greater than when I was even Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.
QUESTION: Are you enjoying it?
SECRETARY POWELL: Yes, very much so. It's exciting to see history
being made every day, to work with the dedicated people who are here
in the State Department, to work with my colleagues in the
Administration, to take on challenges, such as Afghanistan, but at the
same time, to take on opportunities, such as a new relationship with
Russia or China, helping African nations enter the world of trade in
the 21st century, work with our friends here in the Americas on a new
free trade agreement for the Americas and see democracy spread
throughout the Americas.
So even though we're in a war right now, it is also a time of
opportunity, and I feel privileged to have been given the opportunity
to help President Bush seize those opportunities.
QUESTION: I remember when you were National Security Advisor, and they
used to say that there's a -- there automatically is a clash between
the National Security Advisor and State. Do you ever clash with
Condoleezza Rice?
SECRETARY POWELL: No, I have no clash with Dr. Rice. There is always
tension between State, Defense, National Security Advisor and the CIA,
and this is creative tension. We each bring different perspectives,
and we bring different constituencies to the process. And the National
Security Advisor's job is to reconcile these different points of view
and to make sure that all the tensions are creative tensions and not
destructive tensions. And her final job is to make sure that the
President gets the best information that he needs to make a decision,
and that's also our jobs as Cabinet officers.
QUESTION: So you do argue?
SECRETARY POWELL: Oh, sure. What -- heck, Larry.
QUESTION: Hey, you're from New York.
SECRETARY POWELL: But I mean argument is how you get the best out of
people. It's how you test the strength of somebody's position, through
arguments. And so within this team, between Vice President Cheney,
myself, Dr. Rice, Don Rumsfeld and George Tenet, you have people with
strong views, with strong constituencies, and I think it serves the
President well for us to bring it all on the table and not hide
anything.
QUESTION: Before we get to current issues, there's lots of stories
around that the far right wing element of the Republican Party, is
very angry, mostly at you. They feel that you are the least warlike of
this group, and there's more criticism coming from that end of the
party than from the liberals on the left or the centrists. How do you
react?
SECRETARY POWELL: Well, in the first place, I've seen more at war than
most of them have, so I know what war is about, I've been in wars,
I've run wars, I've conducted a number of military operations. So I
think I know a little bit about what war is, and I think I know how to
prosecute a war when a President has decided that that's what we ought
to do.
And so I take criticism as part of the job. I sometimes get hit from
the left, I sometimes get hit from the right, and it's part of working
in the Washington environment. But the client I serve is the President
of the United States, and the client he serves is the American people.
And as long as I'm serving those two clients, I'm doing my job.
QUESTION: The late "Chappy" James, the first black four-star general,
told me once, nobody hates war more than a warrior. True?
SECRETARY POWELL: I think every sane person, to include warriors, and
especially warriors, hate war, because we see the consequences of war.
But when it is necessary to go to war, then you do it, and you do it
to the best of your ability.
QUESTION: President Bush, when asked what would happen if Iraq did not
allow inspectors in, Hussein did not allow inspectors in, he said
today, "He'll find out."
SECRETARY POWELL: It's an excellent answer. He'll find out.
QUESTION: What does that mean?
SECRETARY POWELL: Well, the President didn't say what it meant today,
so I'm not going to prejudge what it might mean. But we have been
pressing Iraq for the last several years, since 1998, when they threw
the inspectors out, to let the inspectors back in. The inspectors are
not there to do anything harmful to the Iraqi people. The inspectors
are going back in for one single purpose, and that's to make sure that
Iraq is complying with the agreements it made at the end of the Gulf
War to give up all weapons of mass destruction activity. And the only
way we can be sure of that is that the inspectors go back in and are
allowed to do their work the way they see it proper to do their work.
And that's what these UN resolutions are about, and that's what the
economic sanctions are about.
QUESTION: But a term like "he'll find out" is, I mean, threatening,
isn't it?
SECRETARY POWELL: Well, I  -- 
QUESTION: Mr. Secretary, I mean, "he'll find out" ain't "I'm going to
send you a postage stamp."
SECRETARY POWELL: Well, I think he should see it as a very sober,
chilling message: "He'll find out." There are many options available
to the international community and to the President.
QUESTION: Do you talk to the Russian -- your Russian counterpart today
about sanctions and Iraq?
SECRETARY POWELL: Yes.
QUESTION: Can you tell us anything about that?
SECRETARY POWELL: Well, I talk to Foreign Minister Igor Ivanov
frequently. This is the second time we've spoken in the last five
days. As you know, the current sanctions rollover period expires at
the end of this month, which is the end of this week. And so he and I
have been working on what the new rollover should look like. We're
talking to our other friends in the Security Council, and we have
instructed our two ambassadors and other members of the Security
Council to get together in New York today to see if we can come to
some compromise.
It's been a tough issue. We believe that smart sanctions, the position
the United States has been pushing, is the way to go, because it
removes the argument that the Iraqis have been using that we're trying
to hurt the Iraqi people. Smart sanctions says, no, we'll let the
civilian goods go in, because we don't want to hurt the Iraqis.
QUESTION: Medicine goes in?
SECRETARY POWELL: Medicine, food. What we don't want to have go in are
equipment that can be used for developing weapons of mass destruction.
And we're not doing this just to protect America, but to protect the
region. He has demonstrated he will use chemical weapons against his
own people and against his neighbors. So this is something to protect
the region, not just for the United States' interests.
QUESTION: And the Russian  -- 
SECRETARY POWELL: And that's why the international community feels so
strongly about it. The Russians also understand this, and they are
supportive of that position. But they have certain commercial
interests that --
QUESTION: They want to sell them things.
SECRETARY POWELL: -- they are concerned about. And we have been trying
to find a way. Fourteen of the 15 members of the Security Council have
been supportive of a new way of going about this through smart
sanctions, and we have been working with the Russians to see if we can
find a compromise that would satisfy their needs.
QUESTION: Do you ever look back, Mr. Secretary, and say, we should
have gone there 11 years ago?
SECRETARY POWELL: Gone where?
QUESTION: Iraq. Should we have gone in?
SECRETARY POWELL: We did go to Iraq.
QUESTION: I mean, go in and take them, you know.
SECRETARY POWELL: What we did was exactly what the international
community said we should do. A coalition came together to kick the
Iraqi army out of Kuwait. We accomplished that mission. When that
mission was accomplished and was finished, President Bush, on the
advice of all of his military and civilian advisors, said time to stop
the war. There was never, ever any plan, intention to go to Baghdad
during that conflict. It was not the mission that was given by the
international community; moreover, it was not the mission that the
President had selected for the United States Armed Forces. Moreover,
when the proposition was put to the United States Congress for them to
pass resolutions supporting the President's efforts, they only
supported it to accomplish the UN mission, which was not to overthrow
the regime or go to Baghdad, but to kick the Iraqi army out of Kuwait.
That mission was accomplished, and we all would --
QUESTION: So even in hindsight, that's correct.
SECRETARY POWELL: In hindsight, we did what we set out to do. Now,
there are a lot of people who said, well, you should have changed the
mission at that point and gone on to Baghdad, but that was not the
mission, that was not the decision that the President and the
international community was prepared for. We all hoped that Saddam
Hussein would not survive the aftermath of that. But he has. And
that's why these sanctions remain in place, that's why the President
said the kind of thing he said earlier today, and why we have kept
this regime fairly well bottled up. They are a danger, they continue
to try to develop these weapons, and we will keep the pressure on them
to make sure that these weapons do not become a serious threat to the
region or to the world.
QUESTION: We'll be right back with United States Secretary of State
Colin Powell, right after this.
(Pause.)
QUESTION: We're back with the Secretary of State Colin Powell. We're
at the State Department in Washington on this edition of Larry King --
"almost" -- Live, because it was done this afternoon for tonight. We
never lie to our public. (Laughter.)
Mr. Secretary, you're going to Russia next week. What's the agenda?
SECRETARY POWELL: I'll be in Russia two weeks from today, I guess it
is, and I'll be meeting with Foreign Minister Ivanov and President
Putin. We'll talk about many things, the strategic framework that
President Putin and President Bush have discussed, with respect to
strategic weapons, and I'm sure we'll be talking about missile defense
as well.
I'd like to explore other parts of our agenda as well: the campaign
against terrorism, economic issues, regional security issues --
QUESTION: Iraq?
SECRETARY POWELL: -- the situation in Chechnya, I'm sure we'll talk
about Iraq. The full range of issues. We have very good discussions
with the Russians. Foreign Minister Ivanov and I have become quite
close, and we have met something like nine times now. This I think
will be the 10th time. In fact, I'll be seeing him three times next
week at three different conferences.
QUESTION: How have they done, Mr. Putin and the Russians, since you
have taken office?
SECRETARY POWELL: It's been an interesting 10 months. We had a rocky
start, you may recall, when we had the spy caper, which people forget
about just a few months later, when we threw out 52 of their spies and
they threw out 52 of our citizens, who had done nothing wrong. But we
got over that. And ever since then, the relationship has been on the
upswing.
From the day that the President met President Putin in Slovenia, in
their first meeting, they have now met again in Genoa and they have
met now in Crawford and Washington, D.C. And with each meeting, the
relationship has become closer, not only in a personal sense, but as
you begin to understand each other's policies and each other's needs.
And so I think we are now seeing a very, very strong and growing
relationship with the Russians on areas where we are in agreement, and
where we still have differences, we pursue those differences
QUESTION: A relationship is similar to Reagan-Gorbachev, isn't it?
They really got along.
SECRETARY POWELL: Yes, they got along. And these two gentlemen,
President Putin and President Bush, get along very well. I was down at
Crawford for part of the visit, and I watched them in Washington. I
have seen them on other occasions, and they get along very, very well.
They respect one another, and they appreciate each other's point of
view. And that's the basis of a strong relationship.
QUESTION: You're a military man, and now you're our chief diplomat. So
this question is military. How's the war going?
SECRETARY POWELL: Well, the war is going pretty well, I think. In
fact, better than pretty well; I think it's going darn well right now.
I think that we started off with the good political and diplomatic
strategy of bringing the coalition together. We couldn't have gotten
to the war without a coalition, without the Pakistanis and the Uzbeks
and the Tajiks and the Turkmens, and even the Iranians and others all
coming in to help us, without our strong British friends, who have
been so terrific, without all of the other organizations and
countries, international organizations and countries that helped us.
So we brought that coalition together, and then the Pentagon put
together a very strong military plan that we all participated in
watching it being shaped and putting our advice forward. And that plan
unfolded in a very, very sensible and effective way. Sometimes you
don't see exactly what's happening.
But the first thing you have to do is build your force up. You can't
start out with a major air campaign on day one. It takes time to
generate the force. And that's what the Pentagon did so well, under
Tommy Franks' leadership, General Franks and under Secretary
Rumsfeld's direction.
And then they slowly went after air defense systems to make our skies
free for our planes to fly. Then they went after Taliban military
installations. They went after the camps. And then slowly but surely,
as we started to get our special forces people in on the ground, they
were able to direct that air power down to assist the Northern
Alliance to take Mazar-e Sharif initially, and then to do what they
have done in Kabul, which is essentially to have their forces outside
the town, but they do have some forces inside the town providing
security inside the town. And that's gone very well.
The real challenge now is in the southern part of the country, where
there is no Northern Alliance equivalent. And now we have Marines
going in, we have other forces operating there. It will probably take
a little bit longer, but I think the military campaign is going just
about the way we anticipated it would.
QUESTION: With no loss of life. Should we expect loss of life?
Military men do talk in that language, how many might we lose.
SECRETARY POWELL: Military men always understand that there will be
casualties. And you should never go into a conflict thinking it will
be casualty free, or trying to conduct it casualty free. You should
always try to conduct it in a way that you minimize loss of life to
your side. That's sensible, and that's what we're taught. But the
mission comes first. And in the accomplishment of that mission, you
have to expect that you will take casualties, lives will be lost. And
that's why they're called soldiers.
QUESTION: Do you think the public will continue to support when and if
lives are lost?
SECRETARY POWELL: Yes. It's a mistake to think the American people are
not able to make sacrifices of this kind. They only want to understand
that it's for a proper cause, that the mission makes sense, it is for
an interest that is important to us or our friends, or our
international alliances. And the American people have shown throughout
the course of our history that we can take casualties when those
casualties are in a good cause.
QUESTION: The Russians fought in Afghanistan for a long time. Did they
help us with regard to advice?
SECRETARY POWELL: They have given us a great deal of advice. We have
gone to school on their experience.
QUESTION: They had a rough time.
SECRETARY POWELL: They had a rough time. But this is a different kind
of conflict. They were fighting a nation that was united against them,
and they tried to do it with blunt force. We are fighting a nation
that really isn't in the hands of the Taliban. They didn't really want
this kind of regime over them.
And so you can see those fissures start to break it up into its
different components: Pashtuns, Northern Alliance, Tajiks, Uzbeks, all
sorts of folks who are now very happy to see the Taliban regime go. So
it's quite a different campaign.
QUESTION: Is Usama bin Laden's capture or death a must?
SECRETARY POWELL: I think it is something that we have to pursue. We
have to get Usama bin Laden because he is the head of the organization
we are after.
QUESTION: He's more than just a symbol; he's the head.
SECRETARY POWELL: He's the head. He's the symbol, and he is the head.
And so as long as he is there, then you can expect him to continue to
try to regenerate any part of the organization that we do take down.
But it is not just Usama bin Laden; it is also the al-Qaida network
that he runs, but which is semi-autonomous. In about 50-plus countries
there are cells. We have to go after all those cells.
But as the President made clear from the very beginning, it's
terrorism and terrorists we are after. And there are other terrorist
organizations, there are other forms of terrorism around the world
that we have to turn our attention to. That's why he keeps reminding
the American people, reminding the international community, reminding
all of our friends that this is a long-term campaign that will go on
for years, even if we got Usama bin Laden tomorrow.
QUESTION: And might we -- you don't want to comment on specifically
when he said he'll find out. Might we have to go on to Iraq? Might we?
SECRETARY POWELL: I don't want to answer that in the speculative
manner that the question often comes to us. The President has all of
his options.
The Iraqi regime, led by Saddam Hussein, is an evil one. They are
developing, trying to develop weapons of mass destruction. The UN
inspectors and the UN sanctions have kept them rather constrained. We
control something like 80 percent of the money available to Saddam
Hussein. We know what that money is being spent for through the
Oil-For-Food program. And so the President has all of his options and
he will look at all of those countries that continue to provide safe
havens and harbors for terrorists.
But it is not useful to try to draw out from us what is the President
going to do, when the President has all of his options. He can decide.
QUESTION: But when you say long, long, long time, that's not just
Afghanistan, right?
SECRETARY POWELL: It's not Afghanistan, it's not just Iraq; it's
terrorism. What we are after is terrorism.
QUESTION: Wherever it is.
SECRETARY POWELL: Wherever it is. If it is the type of terrorism that
has a global reach that could affect our interests, the welfare of our
citizens or the interests of our friends in a way that it becomes an
interest of ours, that is on our agenda.
QUESTION: We will be right back with the Secretary of State Colin
Powell right after this.
(Pause.)
QUESTION: We're back with Secretary of State Colin Powell.
SECRETARY POWELL: Something wrong, Larry?
QUESTION: No, you should show your sense of humor more on television.
You do have a great sense of humor. I know this is a very serious
business you're in, but you do have a great sense of humor.
By the way, if Iraq happened -- and again, I am not saying you're to
speculate -- would that destroy the coalition, if we had to take
action there?
SECRETARY POWELL: Larry, this is all speculative. What we might have
to do will be something we will make a judgment on in the future, and
at that point you can be sure the President would consult with his
coalition partners.
QUESTION: Fighting terrorism. In World War II, there were kamikaze
pilots, right? The poor men are on a ship and here comes a plane. How
do you fight someone who is willing to die?
SECRETARY POWELL: Well, you give them every opportunity to show that
willingness before they're able to conduct the attack. You have to use
your intelligence assets, your law enforcement assets, try to get into
their networks, use your financial tools to find out how they're being
funded, and you've got to stop them and hopefully have them commit
their suicide before they have a chance to do it against one of our
targets.
QUESTION: Which didn't happen pre-9/11.
SECRETARY POWELL: Didn't happen pre-9/11. But I think we are doing a
much better job now working within the coalition on rooting up
financial networks, finding people who have buried in -- people in
Spain and Germany, elsewhere. Some of our friends in the Gulf region
are giving us tremendous access to bank records and information that
will help us trace these kinds of organizations. Not only will this
lead to people willing to kill themselves to get at us, but it will
also make it harder for them to do that because they are now being
watched and we are now ripping up those networks.
QUESTION: Have we stopped some things we'll never know about?
SECRETARY POWELL: I'm sure we have. When you put this amount of effort
against it, FBI, thousands of agents, the Central Intelligence Agency,
other intelligence agencies. When you get all of our coalition
partners working together to do the same thing, this gets inside their
planning and decision cycle. They have to be far more careful than
they ever were before. They could with impunity say, let's get a visa
and go to the United States -- a little harder now, and they're being
watched more carefully. So this gets inside their planning cycle and I
am sure that we have stopped some attacks, just as sure as I am that
they are still planning other attacks.
QUESTION: Any thoughts on John Ashcroft's decisions to hold people,
people not of American birth, against -- without, you know, sort of
habeas corpus, without having charges?
SECRETARY POWELL: Well, you know, what happened on the 11th of
September was not just an average crime. It was a crime against the
United States, but a crime against humanity. Some 4,000 people lost
their lives. This wasn't routine. And we discovered that we had a lot
of vulnerabilities in our society.
And I think what the Administration is trying to do, what Attorney
General Ashcroft is trying to do is to go against these immediate
vulnerabilities we have and do it as quickly as possible. So interview
people that we think may be sources of information -- in this
emergency are warranted and the American people expect us to take in
order to protect them during this very, very serious time of high
tension.
QUESTION: So we have to bend a little then?
SECRETARY POWELL: I think we have to show a little willingness to do
things we might have not done before September 11th. But I'm also sure
that as we find ourselves more secure again, once again secure in our
own society, that some of the things that are inconveniences now will
go away and go back to our normal way of doing business.
QUESTION: Did the scenario of September 11th ever come up in your
years of discussion? Was it ever said, you know, what if they ever
take a plane and go into a building?
SECRETARY POWELL: It may have happened. There may have been some
people who had war-gamed that out. But I had not war-gamed it out, and
it was a shock to all of us.
But it was a very well executed, well planned, extremely sophisticated
operation, very, very difficult to intercept unless you had
intelligence that it was going to happen and you could have found the
people who were planning such a thing.
QUESTION: As a New Yorker, was it particularly painful to you?
SECRETARY POWELL: Very. I know those two buildings. I watched them
being built. I remember when they opened. And to see my city hurt that
way, it was very painful.
QUESTION: You were a young guy when they started to build those.
SECRETARY POWELL: No, I was already in the Army at that time. But,
nevertheless, having grown up as you did, Larry, with the Empire State
Building being the tallest, the biggest, and then to watch the World
Trade Center come up in the early '70s -- late '60s, early '70s, as
the new symbol of New York and then to watch on television as they
both collapsed --
QUESTION: And you were in Peru, right?
SECRETARY POWELL: I was in Lima, Peru.
QUESTION: Watching it from somewhere else.
SECRETARY POWELL: I was with the President of Peru, President Toledo,
at breakfast. We were having a meeting, talking about economic issues,
talking about how he wanted a better trading relationship with the
United States when the notes came in. I got my note just a little
before he wa
s being handed a no
te. And when I saw the note and realized there were two planes  -- 
QUESTION: That's what it said?
SECRETARY POWELL: It said two planes, first a jet and then a prop
plane. The first report is always a little off. But when I saw it was
two, that immediately said it wasn't an accident; it had to be a
terrorist incident. And then within a few moments after that, other
notes came in and then the magnitude of the disaster was obvious. And
our meeting was about to finish.
I was in Peru for an Organization of the American States meeting, to
pass a charter of democracy for the Western Hemisphere. And so I went
to that meeting while my plane was being readied. I canceled the rest
of my trip and, while my plane was being readied, I went to that
meeting and received the condolences from all of my colleagues in the
Organization of American States, 34 nations, and then they rose and
applauded. And then we, by unanimity, we all stood up and endorsed
this charter for democracy as a response to the terrorists.
QUESTION: We'll be back with our remaining moments with Colin Powell
right after this.
(Pause.)
QUESTION: We are back with our remaining moments with the Secretary of
State, Colin Powell.
The speech in Louisville, the reaction to it, any surprise?
SECRETARY POWELL: The reaction was far more favorable than I had
anticipated. I am very pleased by that reaction. In that speech, I
tried to lay out a comprehensive vision that the United States has for
the Middle East, for Israel and Palestinians, Israelis and
Palestinians. We have to end the violence, we have to recognize the
frustration that exists on the Palestinian side. We have to move
forward to land for peace and find a way for these two peoples to live
in peace in this wonderful land.
QUESTION: Has this been a change, Mr. Secretary, from the hypothesis
originally of the Bush Administration was sort of hands off, solve it
yourself. Then September 11th changed all that. Nation building is
part of our process now. We are involved.
SECRETARY POWELL: No, it really wasn't changed by September 11th. In
fact, if it hadn't been for September 11th, I would have given the
speech earlier.
QUESTION: Oh, really?
SECRETARY POWELL: We were planning this speech from early August on.
And what we were trying to do for the first months of the Bush
Administration was to try to bring in effect the Mitchell plan, which
was a plan put together by Senator George Mitchell and a number of
distinguished international leaders who came together, which said
let's get a ceasefire and then from ceasefire to confidence-building
measures, then get back to negotiations under UN Resolutions 242 and
338, land for peace.
So we have not been able to get there. We haven't been able to get
this ceasefire going. And we have made a judgment that, let's try to
escalate the level of dialogue with respect to security relations and
getting to the ceasefire. And this speech was for the purpose of
laying out the whole situation as we saw it, for both sides, and
saying we're prepared to engage at a higher level with General Zinni
and Assistant Secretary Burns. But both sides have got to come to the
table prepared to give, prepared to compromise.
This is not something that can be solved by Colin Powell or President
George Bush or General Zinni. It can only be solved by the two
parties. And anybody who thinks there is some new magic plan waiting
in a closet somewhere, they're going to be disappointed. Prime
Minister Sharon has made it clear that he has to have security and the
absence of violence in order for him to do the things that he is ready
to do for the Palestinian people.
The Palestinian people know that they have to get the violence down in
order to get what they want, opening of the closures, removal of the
Israeli defense forces from places that they shouldn't be, ending of
settlement activity and getting to negotiations. So both sides require
things and both sides are going to have to work this out face to face.
QUESTION: Do you see in your lifetime a Palestinian state and Israel
living in peace?
SECRETARY POWELL: Yes.
QUESTION: You do?
SECRETARY POWELL: I think it is possible. Now, I don't know what my
lifetime is anymore, Larry, at my age --
QUESTION: Every time I moderate a debate on this issue they get
"upset-er" and "upset-er."
SECRETARY POWELL: It's the toughest account that I deal with every
day. But the reality is that it will only be resolved when the
violence ends, when both sides realize they are going to have to make
difficult compromises to get back to the negotiating table. But it can
be done if they come to the negotiating table with a willingness to
understand the point of view of the other and a willingness to see
each other as partners to move forward.
QUESTION: Are we pro-Israel?
SECRETARY POWELL: We are pro-Israel. We have been pro-Israel since the
day we --
QUESTION: That has not faded?
SECRETARY POWELL: Never. Never will. But I'm also pro-humankind. And I
am also pro-Palestinians, to the extent that they are human beings, to
the extent that they have a desire to see their children grow up in
peace. And so my job is to try to bring the two sides together so that
they can find a way to live in peace in this blessed, wonderful land.
But the security of Israel will never be put at risk as we move
forward.
QUESTION: Two other quick things. A post-Taliban government, are we
going to be involved in that?
SECRETARY POWELL: We have an ambassador, Ambassador Jim Dobbins, who
is in Bonn now. He was instrumental in getting --
QUESTION: At conference  -- 
SECRETARY POWELL: -- the Northern Alliance to send representatives. I
am very pleased with what Ambassador Dobbins has been able to do.
Now we are helping. We are there as facilitators, we are I like to say
pushing and prodding. And our presence is very, very important. But it
is going to have to be the Afghan leaders who decide what kind of
provisional government they will put in place.
QUESTION: And finally it has been said that no matter who was elected,
Gore, Bush or McCain, Colin Powell would have been Secretary of State.
So give me your assessment of this President. Now, I'm not asking for
some flowery thing. We all got to know him. You got to know him,
right? You didn't know him that well beforehand. Give me your
assessment in closing.
SECRETARY POWELL: I think he's doing a great job and the American
people think he is doing a great job. He was tested mightily on the
September 11th events, and I think he has shown what he is made of. He
has shown the strength of his character. He has shown the kind of
determination that is built into his very fiber, and I think he is a
great leader for this nation and a great leader for the world at this
time.
QUESTION: And you see it in meetings, when we don't see him.
SECRETARY POWELL: I see it all the time. I see it in meetings, I see
it in international conferences. You know who you're talking to when
you looking at George Bush across a table. He is straightforward,
direct, honest, and people know they're looking at America when they
talk to George Bush.
QUESTION: Thank you. Always good seeing you.
SECRETARY POWELL: Thank you, Larry.
QUESTION: Secretary of State Colin Powell.
We will be back with more of Larry King Live right after this.
3:35 P.M. EST
Released on November 26, 2001
(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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