12 June 2003
Powell Says U.S. Determined to Help Move Toward Mideast Peace
(Spent most of morning talking to leaders in region) (3300)
Secretary of State Colin Powell, in remarks June 12 at the State
Department to the annual meeting of the Bretton Woods Committee, said
"The Middle East is much on my mind this morning, and I'm sure in your
mind. I have been on the phone most of the morning talking to the
leaders in the region to encourage them to come down hard on Hamas,
and Palestinian Islamic Jihad, and these other terrorist organizations
that are determined to deny us this latest opportunity for peace."
Powell says the United States is "just as determined to not let that
happen, and we are encouraging the Palestinian leadership. We are
encouraging the Israeli leadership to act with determination to punch
through this wave of violence, to make sure that it does not stop us,
so that we can continue moving forward on the roadmap."
In his remarks Powell also talked about Iraq, North Korea, the fight
to stop the spread of HIV/AIDS, and U.S. foreign aid programs.
Following is a transcript of his remarks:
(begin transcript)
U.S. DEPARTMENT OF STATE
Office of the Spokesman
Secretary of State Colin L. Powell Address to Annual Meeting of The
Bretton Woods Committee
June 12, 2003
Loy Henderson Conference Room
Washington, D.C.
SECRETARY POWELL: Thank you very much. Thank you very much. Well,
thank you very much, and welcome to the State Department. It's always
a great pleasure for us to host the committee every year. And I
remember very vividly when I did it for the first time in 2001, and
I'm pleased to be here again for a repeat in 2003.
I noted in 2001 that, as a result of my coming back in the government,
my government stripped me of every one of my memberships in any
charitable or other organization imaginable. But I did save $250 a
year, every year thereafter, as a result of no longer being a member
of the Bretton Woods Committee.
But, nevertheless, I do have a fondness of the organization, and I do
appreciate the work that you do. I always have to now introduce myself
as the good Powell. I said that to somebody last night. I said, "Which
is the good Powell, which is the bad Powell, me or my son, Mike, the
chairman of the FCC?"
And the very delicate answer was, "Well, you're both good Powells,"
which I thought was a perfectly diplomatic answer.
But it is, nevertheless, very nice to be here and see you all again,
and, especially, see so many old friends in the room, a number of
individuals who had something to do with my life and times and career
over the years, and I am very pleased to have you all here. I don't
think the work of the Bretton Woods Committee is any less important
than it's been throughout its long and distinguished history, and, if
anything, it's more important.
I have now been Secretary of State for a little over two years -- two
years and four months, and we have been through, during that time, a
number of crises. We are working our way through the post-Iraq
conflict period, a difficult period where we are trying to stabilize a
country -- try to give the people of that country, try to replace an
infrastructure that was destroyed, not by the war but by the 30 years
of dictatorship, that went before that war.
We are working in a country that has no history of democracy, no
history of market economics, no history of commercial activity of the
kind that we would understand, and all of that was taken out a few
months ago or during the course of the war, when we brought down the
Baath Party, which, essentially, was the political structure, but it
was also the basis of the administrative structure and the economic
structure.
And we have an opportunity to put in place now something that will be
much better -- and I am confident will be much better -- and may well
turn out to be one of the most powerful examples to other nations in
the world, especially other nations in that region, as to what is
achievable. So many members of our willing coalition are coming back
together to help us with this -- not only those who fought the war,
but more friends of America and friends of democracy, are joining the
effort to stabilize the country and to send in experts to help with
the reconstruction.
The United Nations now has a representative on the ground, Sergio De
Mello, who is working closely with Ambassador Bremer and other
coalition political leaders, to help in this process. And the groups
that are represented here, especially the IMF, and the World Bank, and
other IFIs will certainly be involved in this reconstruction project.
So this is a crisis that was thrust upon us, frankly, and we dealt
with it.
And now, I think, we have removed the dictator, and the results of his
dictatorship for the past 30 years are now open for all to see,
especially mass graves, and the people who were liberated. They are
anxious about their future. But, nevertheless, they will have a choice
in that future, as opposed to the way they had been governed for the
previous 30 years. There are other crises that we have to deal with.
But, you know, there are always crises of one kind or another facing
the world.
The Middle East is much on my mind this morning, and I'm sure in your
mind. I have been on the phone most of the morning talking to the
leaders in the region to encourage them to come down hard on Hamas,
and Palestinian Islamic Jihad, and these other terrorist organizations
that are determined to deny us this latest opportunity for peace.
Who are determined to deny the Palestinian people the opportunity to
have their own homeland. Who are determined to use terror to destroy
the promise that was put before the world last week in Aqaba. We are
just as determined to not let that happen, and we are encouraging the
Palestinian leadership. We are encouraging the Israeli leadership to
act with determination to punch through this wave of violence, to make
sure that it does not stop us, so that we can continue moving forward
on the roadmap.
There are other challenges we worry about. North Korea is another that
comes to mind. I still remain confident that a diplomatic solution is
possible. We are working with our friends in the region, South Korea,
Japan, China, Russia, Australia, others to make sure the North Koreans
realize that the challenge they are presenting is not just a challenge
to the United States, but a challenge to their neighbors, who are most
directly threatened by the possibility of North Korea being a nuclear
weapons holding state. And I am confident that with increasing
pressure and with a clear way for the North Koreans to get out of the
box that I believe they are in, a solution can be found.
There are other crises in the world. But what really dominates so much
of my time and attention is not just these crises that I have touched
on, but the broader issues that affect the world. As I go around to
different parts of the world, having just come back from Latin America
two nights ago, what I find is more and more nations that have moved
into the right column. They have moved into the column of democracy.
They have moved into the column of the free enterprise system.
Fifteen years ago, when I was National Security Advisor, we had so
many countries in our own hemisphere that were being run by Generals
or dictators. Now all of them, in one way or another, have freely
elected leaders, have market economic systems. They are in different
stages of the development process and it is not easy for all of them.
Some are doing better than others, some are struggling, some see their
democracy put at risk by bad political policies or corruption or by
terrorism and narco-trafficking, but all of them are trying to move in
the direction that we pointed them in so many years ago, to believe in
democracy as a political system, and to believe in open economics,
market economics, as a proper economic system.
I see the same thing when I travel to Europe, and when I meet with the
leaders of the new nations that emerged freely, once again, after the
end of the Cold War. I see it also in Africa, as nations try to take
advantage of AGOA, and see how they can use that to jumpstart their
development activities in their march up the economic ladder.
And what I have found, as I have gone around the world, is that so
many nations that in the late '80s and early '90s came out -- so many
of them that came out of totalitarianism, and the Cold War, and the
past and adopted democracy have discovered that it isn't easy -- that
you are held accountable now that we have an open political process.
And I have had a number of leaders sit in my office and say, "Well,
you know, it was terrific. We had a great celebration. We had parades.
We had elections. And I became the Prime Minister or President of my
country -- and as my Foreign Minister, my Minister for Economic
Affairs. But guess what? It's much harder to give the people what they
want and what they expect, as a result of going into the democratic
column."
It's hard for them, and slowly, slowly we have to make the case to
them. And they have to understand that democracy means not just having
an election, it means having a non-corrupt system. It means putting in
place a rule of law. It means putting in place stability and some
predictability in your economic policies. It means investing, finding
ways to invest in your people, in the infrastructure of your country,
so that you can participate in the global economic system that is now
available to you, as a result of your commitment to democracy.
It means that those of us who are wealthy, those of us who are in the
developed world stand ready to assist you and to provide aid to you,
but aid only as a means of jumpstarting your system, so that you then
can attract trade. Because, ultimately, there isn't enough aid in the
world we can give you to help you if you don't help yourself by
putting in place the right economic and political policies and
infrastructure development policies that will attract trade.
All of the pieces then start coming together, as I think about these
issues on my long plane rides back and forth across the world. If you
don't have educated children, if you don't have children that are
healthy, so that they can get an education because they're healthy
enough to go to school, then what are we talking about, with respect
to economic development, if you don't have young people coming up, who
have the skills that are going to be needed and used in a 21st Century
globalized world, and this country's role in that globalized world.
And if you are able to invest in education, if you are able to invest
in the other things that children need, so that they can grow up and
become contributing members of that society, then how does this play
into the greatest weapons of mass destruction that is waiting out
there to cut them down, HIV/AIDS?
And so, we have to go after that as well, otherwise, to raise a young
generation in an undeveloped country only to see it smitten, cut down
by HIV/AIDS and other infectious diseases. And I am not just talking
about a few people going to hospitals -- I am talking about a whole
generation being wiped out. You see societies that have infection
rates that go to 10, 20, 30 percent, and they're not all societies in
sub-Saharan Africa.
It's going to happen in Russia. It's going to happen in India. It's
going to happen in China. As sure as the Lord made little green
apples, it's going to happen. And so, you see that kind of issue. And
what we have tried to do in the administration is to see this in a
holistic manner, to recognize that while we have to deal with crises
with military force sometimes, because political action has not
produced the desired result, diplomacy came up short and military
force was necessary and we were prepared to do that -- the greater
challenge that American foreign policy faces, and the greater
commitment that the President has made is to the issues I have just
talked about.
And that's why this President, President Bush, went before the
American people in the State of the Union address and said, on top of
everything else we are doing, with respect to HIV/AIDS, on top of what
we have done with the Global Health Fund, on top of all of the
billions of dollars that Tommy Thompson uses to try to find a cure for
HIV/AIDS, and all of the money we put into the National Institutes of
Health, all of the effort we are doing to reduce the costs of
anti-retroviral drugs, we, the United States of America, must do more.
And he said to the American people, "Let's start with $15 billion."
We now have the authorization for that program. I'm in the process of
creating an office here in the Department that will administer that
program. And if all goes well in the near future, I expect to see the
Congress act to appropriate money for the office and for this
important effort. It doesn't stand alone as a health care issue. It is
a foreign policy issue. It is a basic issue of our obligation to
people desperately in need.
It is a basic economic issue. Because if we don't do something about H
IV/AIDS, it has a health care impact, a societal impact, an impact on
the promise of democracy and an economic impact. And it must be dealt
with, not only because without it you are removing HIV victims from
the workforce, but you are placing an enormous economic burden on
those who are able to continue to work to take care of those who are
no longer able to continue to work.
The President also sees this in a holistic sense, in the manner in
which he has applied the concept of the Millennium Challenge Account.
As this program ramps up by the year 2006, five billion additional
dollars a year will be added to our foreign affairs budget, our
development programs. It will be done in a different way with an
independent corporation that will provide the money to developing
nations, but only if they have met some basic tests that we're going
to put before them, one that will be a "needs test. "
But, too, there will be a test of intent. Is this country with its
leadership committed to democracy? Is it committed to the end of
corruption? Is it on a solid basis, with respect to the rule of law?
Is there a transparent system? Is there an accountable government? Are
they moving in the right way, with respect to market economics? In
other words, are we putting good money after good policies?
We will still have our traditional aid programs. And they, of course,
will also direct resources to nations that will use those resources
well. But the Millennium Challenge Account will be different, in that
there will be a higher standard, with respect to the expectations from
those countries. And if we use this money well, we will be building
that infrastructure that is needed that will help youngsters become
educated, that will put in place other elements of infrastructure
needed to have a functioning society, a functioning economic system in
this rapidly changing globalizing world.
You take the Millennium Challenge Account, you take what we are doing
with respect to HIV/AIDS, you take also the President's commitment to
free trade, free trade of the kind manifested in the free trade
agreement we signed with Chile last week, other free trade, bilateral
free trade agreements we are working with other nations around the
world -- our commitment and the President's personal commitment to the
free trade area of the Americas, all for the purpose of breaking down
barriers, encouraging trade, making sure that goods can move back and
forth more rapidly.
But it links into making sure people are healthy, it links into making
sure that people have the infrastructure, making sure that the money
circulates in the economy and is not ripped off and sent off to
foreign banks and personal accounts of untrustworthy political
leaders. It all fits together. It's all part of our national security
strategy. You play a very, very important role, the institutions and
organizations represented here. Your work is vital. Your work is
essential to our accomplishing our foreign policy mission.
Yes, there are wars that will come along. There are crises that have
to be dealt with. Some days I come in and I look at these issues and I
wonder, "How are we going to get through this?" We will get through
this. I have seen crises come, I have seen crises go over the years,
and you have to deal with them. But I always make sure that we end the
day here at the Department touching on these crises, but really
thinking about the broader issues that are facing us.
Millions of people around the world, we have said to them -- we have
said to them, "Democracy is the way to go." We have said to them,
"Representative government is the way to go." We have said to them,
"The dignity of the individual is paramount." We have said to them
that, "The market economic system is what works."
And now, having said that to them, and having seen so many of them
accept that and move in that direction, we now have an enormous
obligation, moral obligation. It's also, not only the right thing to
do, it makes economic and foreign policy sense to us, to help them in
every way that we can with programs such as free trade agreements,
moving aggressively on Doha, Millennium Challenge Account, HIV/AIDS
program and encouraging other developed nations to do more than they
are doing, with respect to programs such as that, and then
organizations of the kind founded by Bretton Woods so many years ago
that it is still providing a valuable role in providing expertise and
providing funding and making sure that you're investing in those
nations that are committed to the right kind of future for their
people.
And so, my friends, we have much work to do together. We have
collaborated so effectively over so many years. And as long as
President Bush is in office, I can assure you that he and his humble
Secretary of State and other members of the Cabinet will continue to
do everything we can, collaborate with you closely, as we go about
this common task of helping people all over the world achieve their
dreams, putting hope in their heart, food on their table, and making
sure that they truly believe that the system we believe in will work
for them too. Thank you very much.
(end transcript)
(Distributed by the Bureau of International Information Programs, U.S.
Department of State. Web site: http://usinfo.state.gov)
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