08 June 2003
U.S. Says Latest Mideast Terrorist Attacks Must Not Stop Peace Process
(Secretary Powell, NSC's Rice appear on Sunday talk shows) (1080)
By Thomas Eichler
Washington File Staff Writer
Washington -- Bush administration officials deplored a June 8
terrorist attack that killed four Israeli soldiers in the Gaza Strip,
but said the attack should not be allowed to stop the Middle East
peace process.
"I grieve along with the Israeli people for the loss of these four
soldiers," Secretary of State Colin Powell told reporters in
Washington hours after the attack. "But we've got to keep moving. We
cannot allow this to derail our efforts."
Powell said both the Israelis and the Palestinians "made important
commitments at the Aqaba summit, and we must not allow terrorist
organizations such as Hamas and PIJ and the al-Aqsa Brigade and
similar organizations to derail this."
Powell said the international community must speak out, and the
Palestinian Authority must act. "Israel will do what is necessary to
defend itself," he said. "But we have to move forward. It would be a
tragedy, with this new momentum in the peace process, if we allowed
terrorists to derail it and stop it."
Speaking on Fox News Sunday, Powell said "we have made our choice. We
are going to be supporting [Palestinian] Prime Minister Abbas. We are
going to do everything we can to help him and his cabinet develop the
capability to deal with terrorism in Gaza and in the West Bank."
Powell said "we have to move in this direction and we are hoping that
Israel will also do everything they can to help Prime Minister Abbas
by taking some of the steps that Prime Minister Sharon announced the
other day in order to make it easier for Prime Minister Abbas to take
the difficult steps he has to take."
Appearing on CNN's Late Edition, Powell said Abbas "has to build up
his capacity and his capability to deal with these kinds of
organizations. But based on the conversations we had with him over the
past week, and the past several weeks, for that matter, I know that he
is committed to doing that, taking these organizations down."
National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice, appearing on NBC's Meet
the Press, said Abbas "understands and made very clear to everyone at
the summit [June 4 in Aqaba] that he understands that the future of
the Palestinian people rests in a two-state solution in which Israel
and Palestine live in peace and security side by side. We believe he
is committed to that. We never expected that the rejectionists would
find this a welcome development. But it is now time for all of those
who stand for peace and who say that they stand for peace to reject
the rejectionists."
Rice said all parties understand that the way forward to peace will be
difficult. "The Israelis understand that, the United States
understands that, the Arabs understand that. But this is the best
chance the Palestinian people have had for statehood and for an
enduring peace for a very long time. Everyone needs to be supportive
of what Prime Minister Abbas is trying to do. It was really a quite
remarkable statement that the armed intifada needs to end. It was a
remarkable statement that he accepts that a two-state solution also
has to have a place for Israel. He is a remarkable man, he has put
together a remarkable government, and he deserves the support of the
entire international community. That is really what Sharm el-Sheik and
Aqaba were about, is ensuring that support. And we believe that he
will get that support and he will succeed."
On ABC's This Week, Rice was asked about Israeli Prime Minister Ariel
Sharon's commitment to dismantle "unauthorized outposts." Rice said
Sharon "has said that he would begin that immediately and we expect it
to begin immediately. He made very important statements both leading
up to Aqaba and at Aqaba that he understood that he had to reassure
the Palestinians that he believed in a contiguous, viable Palestinian
state. And the dismantling of the ... illegal outposts is one of the
first steps that can do that."
Asked about charges that the Bush administration may have pressured
U.S. intelligence agencies to produce information on weapons of mass
destruction that would justify an invasion of Iraq, both Powell and
Rice strongly defended the administration's claims.
Rice pointed out that U.S. officials have been reporting Iraqi weapons
developments for many years, going back into the Clinton
administration, and these claims have been supported by intelligence
from other nations and from United Nations weapons inspections.
Rice said on ABC that "[t]here's a bit of revisionist history going on
here, because of course, going all the way back to 1991 and the Gulf
War when Iraq had weapons of mass destruction; going back prior to
that when they used weapons of mass destruction; going to 1994 and
1995 when a high-level defector left and the Iraqis were spooked into
admitting to a biological weapons program; going back to 1996 when the
then director of Central Intelligence, John Deutsch, talked about the
Iraqi weapons of mass destruction that were there; going back to 1998
when President Clinton, after the inspectors had left the country in
December of 1998, sat in the Oval Office and said that he was going to
launch an attack against the Iraqis because, heaven forbid, that the
Iraqis would use their weapons of mass destruction. It goes on and
on."
Rice said "there were multiple sources that talked about, as we got
ready for the run-up to war, Iraqi preparations to actually use
chemical weapons, leading the president to deliver a very strong
measure of deterrence to those who might in fact try and use them."
Powell told CNN that "Iraq had chemical weapons. They used chemical
weapons. They had biological weapons. They admitted it. We have no
doubt whatsoever that over the last several years they have retained
such weapons, they have retained the capability to start up production
of such weapons."
Powell said the intelligence community has reviewed the evidence about
vans recently discovered in Iraq and "reaffirmed yesterday to me
again, through [CIA] Director Tenet, that they are confident of their
judgment" that the vans were designed to produce biological weapons
materials.
(The Washington File is a product of the Bureau of International
Information Programs, U.S. Department of State. Web site:
http://usinfo.state.gov)
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