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16 May 2003

Transcript: Powell on German TV Discusses Bilateral Relations, Iraq

(May 16 interview on ZDF Morgenmagazin in Berlin) (2600)
In an interview on ZDF Morgenmagazin May 16 in Berlin, Secretary of
State Colin Powell said he hopes the United States and Germany can
begin to bridge the differences that emerged as a result of their
debate over what to do in Iraq.
"The last several months have been very, very difficult," he said. "We
had a basic disagreement, and we cannot paper it over. And we will
just have to take some time, and it'll take some work for us to put
that disagreement in the past."
Powell noted that he speaks by telephone with German Foreign Minister
Josckha Fischer "on a regular basis several times a week" and that
President Bush and Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder would be seeing each
other as part of the upcoming G-8 summit.
"There won't be enough time at a meeting such as that for bilateral
meetings or long conversations," he added, "But I think as part of the
G-8 meeting, they will certainly have a chance to see one another and
to speak with each other in a group setting."
Asked about talk of "old Europe" and "new Europe," Powell said that
both he and Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld understand "that the
United States has to work with all of Europe" -- the original members
of NATO, the new members of NATO, the European Union, and other major
European organizations.
On Iraq, the Secretary of State said he is quite sure coalition forces
will find the weapons of mass destruction that the UN Security Council
agreed Saddam Hussein possessed, pointing out that "in fact, we have
found a couple of items of equipment, some mobile vans, so that with
each passing day the evidence is clearer to us that they were used for
biological weapons purposes." He also noted the mass graves and other
evidence of Saddam's brutality now being uncovered and said the United
States has "no second thoughts about the wisdom of what we did or the
legality of what we did" in Iraq.
Following is the State Department transcript of the television
interview:
(begin transcript)
U.S. Department of State
Office of the Spokesman 
(Berlin, Germany)
May 16, 2003
INTERVIEW
Secretary of State Colin L. Powell with ZDF Morgenmagazin
Berlin, Germany
May 16, 2003
QUESTION: Mr. Secretary, welcome to our ZDF morning show. It's a
pleasure to have you here.
SECRETARY POWELL: Thank you very much. It's good to be here.
QUESTION (as translated): Your visit, Mr. Secretary, has been awaited
with great anticipation. Does this visit signify the end of the "ice
age" that has characterized German-American relations in the past
months?
SECRETARY POWELL: Well, I'm looking forward to my conversations with
Chancellor Schroeder and with Foreign Minister Fischer, and I hope we
can begin to bridge the differences that have emerged in our
relationship in recent months as a result of the debate we had over
Iraq. There is so much that keeps Germany and the United States
together as partners and allies, and it was unfortunate that we had
this recent, very major and serious disagreement over the Iraq issue.
It was a major problem, we should not ignore that, but we'll find ways
to move on.
QUESTION: The Chancellor and your President haven't talked to each
other for months. During that time a war took place. Does that mean
you are taking a first step today to end this catastrophic situation?
SECRETARY POWELL: Oh, I have always stayed in touch with my colleague,
Foreign Minister Fischer. We talk on a regular basis several times a
week. The Chancellor and the President have had maybe one conversation
in recent months, and they'll be seeing each other as part of the G-8
meeting that is coming up in the near future.
QUESTION: And there they will talk with each other in detail?
SECRETARY POWELL: I don't know that we'll have a detailed discussion.
There won't be enough time at a meeting such as that for bilateral
meetings or long conversations. But I think as part of the G-8
meeting, they will certainly have a chance to see one another and to
speak with each other in a group setting.
QUESTION: Yesterday you contradicted your colleague Donald Rumsfeld
and said, "We don't want a separation between 'old' and 'new' Europe".
Was that the voice of Europe's friend Colin Powell? More importantly,
was it the voice of the Administration in Washington?
SECRETARY POWELL: It's the voice of the Government, but I don't think
that I'm necessarily disagreeing with Mr. Rumsfeld. Don understands
that the United States has to work with all of Europe, just as I do.
And there are, you know, the original members of NATO and the new
members of NATO. We have a European Union that is expanding in size.
And the United States wishes to have good bilateral relations with
every nation in Europe and with the major European organizations, the
European Union, and, of course, we are part of a great alliance, the
North Atlantic Treaty Alliance, and, in fact, the United States Senate
last week by unanimous vote expanded the size of NATO, at least from
our perspective. We agreed to the ratification for seven more members
to come in. So, it shows that the United States still is interested in
a strong transatlantic relationship and good bilateral relationships
with all member of the transatlantic community.
QUESTION: Mr. Secretary, the next test for German-American relations
is the UN resolution ending the sanctions against Iraq. The Germans
want more than just humanitarian aid through the United Nations. They
want a central and vital role for the UN. Will Washington move on this
point?
SECRETARY POWELL: We believe that we have provided a suitable role for
the United Nations in the resolution that we have put before our
colleagues at the Security Council. We've received a number of
comments on the first draft of the resolution, so we have incorporated
many of the comments we received, and we put down a new text yesterday
afternoon in New York. And our ambassadors in New York will be working
on it today.
We believe that the United Nations must play a vital role. There is
probably still continuing discussion as to how large a role it should
play. We have to remember that it is the coalition that went in, the
coalition of the willing that went in and removed this dictator, this
horrible man, Saddam Hussein. And we've now exposed all of the
terrible things he was doing, how he was terrorizing his population.
Mass graves are being opened up. So, we have no, no, we have no second
thoughts about the wisdom of what we did or the legality of what we
did.
Now, what we are trying to do in this new resolution is to bring the
international community together again to provide for the Iraqi people
and to help the Iraqi people move from the provisional authority being
run by the coalition to a government where the Iraqis run themselves.
The UN has a role to play. All of us have a role to play. I think the
most important role that has to be played, has to be played by the
coalition provisional authority, the military government, as we help
the Iraqi people create a government of their own and then, finally,
turn it over to them. And the UN has a vital role to play in that
effort.
QUESTION: Does that mean, Mr. Secretary, that you are willing to take
the UN more seriously again than at the beginning of the war?
SECRETARY POWELL: The United States has always taken the UN seriously.
Remember, it was President Bush who went to the UN last September and
pointed out the problem with Iraq, told the UN that Iraq had violated
multiple resolutions over the years and called on the United Nations
to act. And then, by a vote of 15 to zero in November of 2002, we
succeeded in getting the UN to act with resolution 1441.
What happened was that, subsequently, we were not able to agree to the
necessity of using force. We believed force was appropriate. And we
can see now that was the only way we were going to deal with this
problem. Unfortunately, our German friends didn't agree with us, and a
number of our other friends didn't agree with us. So, the United
States had to act with a willing coalition. But we are now back at the
UN once again, using the UN to help bring hope to the Iraqi people, to
help them rebuild their society, not because the military operation
destroyed their society and their infrastructure, but because 30 years
of dictatorship did so.
So, I believe that what the United States and its partners have done
was the right thing to have done. And we are pleased that now we have
the opportunity of working with the UN again to give a better life to
the people of Iraq, and we hope that Germany will play a very positive
and contributing role as we bring this resolution to a vote.
QUESTION: I'd like to follow up on this. Do you expect from your
German friends the deployment of German peace troops in Iraq?
SECRETARY POWELL: That is, that is up to Germany to decide as a free
and sovereign nation. As you know, we are approaching NATO to see if
NATO wishes to play a role. And I know there have been conversations
between Germany and other nations in Europe that are interested in
playing a peace-keeping role. So, we would expect Germany to play
whatever role it chooses to play, as it decides as a sovereign nation
what the government of Germany decides and what the Bundestag will
approve.
I'm pleased that in recent years Germany has played a much more active
role in peace-keeping around the world, in Afghanistan and the Balkans
and in other places. So, Germany is a responsible partner on the world
stage, and we know it will continue to play that role even though we'd
had a serious and rather disturbing disagreement over the issue
whether or not to use military force in Iraq.
QUESTION: Russia, Mr. Secretary, would like the return of the UN
inspectors before ending the sanctions. Why is Washington against it?
SECRETARY POWELL: We don't think it's necessary. We think it is
important now to lift the sanctions. The regime is gone. Saddam
Hussein is not there anymore. His regime is gone. And we have full
control of the country. And so there is no need to link inspections or
UNMOVIC to the lifting of the sanctions.
The reason we want the sanctions lifted as soon as possible is so that
we can begin selling oil. Why? Because the Iraqi people need the
revenue from those oil sales. And the sooner we can get that revenue
flowing, the more assets will be available to the Iraqi people. And
when the money comes back in, it will be put in a fund that will be
internationally supervised; it will only be used to benefit the Iraqi
people. And the only way to do that in a way that will make the oil
marketable so people will be willing to buy it, is to lift the
sanctions so that there'll be indemnification on the sale of oil and
we'll be able to pass title to the oil as it's sold.
QUESTION: Many people here in Germany, Mr. Secretary, ask themselves
where the weapons of mass destruction are, the weapons of which you
also talked before the United Nations. Where are they? Do you still
believe that you will find any?
SECRETARY POWELL: Yes, I'm quite sure. And, in fact, we have found a
couple of items of equipment, some mobile vans, so that with each
passing day the evidence is clearer to us that they were used for
biological weapons purposes. And, the van we have and other materials
we're finding look exactly like the sketch that I provided to the UN
when I made my presentation.
Remember that we all agreed when we passed the resolution unanimously
that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction. That was the purpose of the
resolution in the first place. We found Iraq guilty. Iraq would not
answer basic questions about their weapons' program. And now that we
are in the country, we are flooding it with inspectors, we are
flooding it with experts who will look in every place that one can
look in to find documents and to get evidence of their programs of
weapons of mass destruction. And we're quite sure we'll find it.
QUESTION: The wars in Afghanistan and in Iraq couldn't suppress
terrorism. To the contrary. Haven't they made terrorism stronger?
SECRETARY POWELL: No, I don't think it made terrorism stronger. It
showed us that terrorism is still a threat to the whole world, and we
all have to cooperate. In Afghanistan, we broke the back of the
Taliban and Al Qaida and forced Al Qaida to disperse. We knew we
didn't destroy Al Qaida. This is even more reason why we have to work
closely with all of our friends around the world on law enforcement
activities, on intelligence sharing, on information sharing, on
shutting down the flow of funds to terrorist organizations. And so
this is a long-term campaign that we are on.
It is also why we have to start targeting, going after, and I don't
mean military targeting, but dealing with those countries that are
havens for terrorists or do not clamp down on terrorist activities
within their borders. This is a worldwide campaign, as President Bush
said in the beginning, we have to prosecute it over a long period of
time using all the assets available to us.
QUESTION: Do you expect still more cooperation from the Germans?
SECRETARY POWELL: Yes, and Germany has been cooperating fully. Germany
has been doing a very good job in exchanging intelligence information,
but it's also been acting in arresting people who have been involved
in terrorist activities, and I would expect even more cooperation.
QUESTION: One last question, Mr. Secretary. Could the German-American
relations ever return to what they used to be? Or will they become
better, but in the end more sober than before?
SECRETARY POWELL: I hope so. We are friends and allies with Germany.
The last several months have been very, very difficult. We had a basic
disagreement, and we cannot paper it over. And we will just have to
take some time, and it'll take some work for us to put that
disagreement in the past. One way to get started is to begin
cooperating with each other now on such issues as the UN resolution
that is to [sic] before us in New York. It's a complex resolution, but
at the same time it is a simple UN resolution. It says, let's get
together and help the Iraqi people. This is not a resolution about
war, it's not a resolution about what happened in the past. It's a
resolution to move forward and help the Iraqi people by lifting the
sanctions, giving the United Nations a role and calling on all members
of the international community to help the Iraqi people. And I hope
Germany will find it possible to support the resolution. And let's see
if we can get agreement very quickly.
QUESTION: Thank you, Mr. Secretary.
SECRETARY POWELL: Thank you.
(end transcript)
(Distributed by the Bureau of International Information Programs, U.S.
Department of State. Web site: http://usinfo.state.gov)