17 July 2004
Powell Defines Meaning of "Finishing the Job" in Iraq
U.S. Secretary of State interview on "Charlie Rose" show
U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell says "finishing the job" in Iraq means having elections that produce a representative form of government, building up an Iraqi police force and border patrol, having an army and paramilitary forces that are confident they can handle the remaining security challenges, and giving Iraqis the full responsibility for their own security that would allow U.S.-led coalition forces to go home.
In a wide-ranging interview July 16 on the Public Broadcasting Service's "Charlie Rose" program that also touched on the situation in Iran, Sudan, the AIDS crisis in Africa, and other trouble spots around the world, Powell said a plan is in place for Iraq to have transitional elections by no later than January 2005, and to have a constitution written and full elections held by the end of that year.
In the interim, Powell said, he was confident "we will be able to put sufficient resources and expertise into the building of the Iraqi armed forces and police forces that they will be better able to take care of their own security." He said the coalition is hoping to have beaten down the anti-government insurgency over the next 18 months.
The secretary said he was confident of an ultimately successful outcome in Iraq for the coalition "as long as we don't lose our will, as long as we are patient, as long as we remain determined, and as long as we continue working with Iraqi leaders who are willing to step forward and to be leaders of this new nation."
Powell said Iraqis don't want an insurgency, and that the 25 million Iraqi people "want to be left alone. They do not want us there. We've done the job; we have gotten rid of an evil dictator. We have gotten rid of a horrible regime that destroyed this country. It wasn't the war that destroyed this country. It was Saddam Hussein. He's gone. There's no longer going to be any question about weapons of mass destruction or terrorism."
On Iran, Powell said he believes that nation's government still harbors a desire to develop a nuclear weapon.
But because of U.S. and international warnings against such a move, he said, whatever timeline the Iranians have for producing a nuclear weapon is a "much longer timeline now, and I hope they (the Iranians) come to the responsible conclusion and the only satisfactory conclusion that 'the game is not worth a candle and we are better off abandoning this program and trying to find a better relationship with the rest of the world.'"
The secretary said the Iranian government would benefit from devoting its resources to other areas.
Pointing out that Iran is a country where upwards of 60 percent of the population is under age 25, he said, "These young people are looking for jobs and a better future to raise families."
"You can't eat a nuclear weapon. You can't eat fissile material. It is not doing anything for you," Powell added.
On the crisis in the western Sudanese province of Darfur, Powell said that the prospect of a humanitarian disaster in that region remains an "open question."
He said humanitarian aid is available in Darfur, but that "we need to do a better job of retailing it out away from stockpiles out to the various camps where people are located and we have to get access to people who are not yet in camps."
Many people in Darfur are ill, said Powell, and may succumb to their illnesses during the region's rainy season.
The biggest problem facing Darfur and the biggest problem facing the international community in that province, he added, is to get the Sudanese government "to do everything possible within their capability or with other capabilities being brought in by the African Union, to break the back" of the Jingaweit militia so it will stop terrorizing villagers.
Powell said the international community will continue to keep pressure on the Sudanese government to fulfill its obligations to the people of Darfur.
"We're not going to let the Sudanese government get away with just promises," he pledged. "We're expecting action (from the government) and we'll be measuring them against the action they take, not the promises they make."
Turning to the issue of HIV/AIDS, Powell said it represents a "terrible
threat" of destabilizing Africa and parts of Asia.
Powell said HIV/AIDS is a "destroyer of societies, a destroyer of families, a destroyer of middle-aged people of child-bearing age and from which you get your future leaders and teachers and doctors and everything else. It is a weapon of mass destruction killing 8,000 people a day and it is spreading to other parts of the world. So the international community has to come together" to fight the disease.
Powell outlined steps the Bush administration is taking to confront the HIV/AIDS crisis, pointing out that the United States has given twice as much monetary aid as the rest of the world combined to fight the disease.
He said that success in fighting HIV/AIDS in Botswana, where the problem was particularly acute, suggests that "you can make a difference" in fighting the pandemic in many other countries in Africa and elsewhere around the world.
(begin transcript)
U.S. DEPARTMENT OF STATE
Office of the Spokesman
July 16, 2004
INTERVIEW: Secretary of State Colin L. Powell On PBS's Charlie Rose
July 16, 2004 Washington, D.C.
(11:30 a.m. EDT)
MR. ROSE: First, Sudan, a recent trip of yours. Do you believe that government in Khartoum will keep their promise and avoid genocide and a Rwanda situation?
SECRETARY POWELL: It's not what I believe; it's what we're going to watch.
MR. ROSE: And make sure it doesn't happen?
SECRETARY POWELL: Right. When we -- when I went to Sudan a couple of weeks ago, Kofi Annan was there about the same time and so were a number of members of Congress, and we made it clear to the government in Khartoum that the entire international community had the deepest concern about what's happening in the Darfur region of the Sudan and that we needed action and we needed action right way.
We needed action in several areas. One, we needed there to be no more restrictions on the provision of humanitarian aid and allowing humanitarian workers to get in, the nongovernmental organizations to do their work. We needed all of the restrictions removed.
Second, and perhaps most importantly, we needed security restored to the region. The Government of Sudan had to take action against the Jingaweit militia, those individuals who are out terrorizing the population of Darfur.
We also needed a political process started so that the two parties, the Sudanese and the rebels, can start to talking to one another and find a political solution or else this will never go away.
And the fourth thing we asked them for was that they allow the buildup of the African Union monitoring group that would determine whether or not a ceasefire was taking hold or what the situation was in the region.
We have seen some limited movement with respect to the humanitarian aid. More aid is getting in and today it was announced that the Libyans have agreed to open a new route into Darfur from the north coming through Libya. That's helpful.
MR. ROSE: Another product of a good relationship?
SECRETARY POWELL: Another product of a good relationship, a new relationship, a better relationship, with Libya.
And so we have got enough humanitarian aid in the area to take care of these people. It's a matter to getting to all of them. And Kofi Annan and other nongovernmental organizations are doing a terrific job, but they have to do a lot more. We've got to get a lot more people taken care of.
MR. ROSE: But you are sure there will not be a Rwanda there, that too many people --
SECRETARY POWELL: No, I'm not sure.
MR. ROSE: You're not sure?
SECRETARY POWELL: No, it's an open question. The fact of the matter is it's an open question and I'm not going to answer the question before I know what the real answer is. Humanitarian aid is available. We need to do a better job of retailing it out away from stockpiles out to the various camps where people are located and we have to get access to people who are not yet in camps. So we still have a difficult situation and a lot of people are already ill and may succumb to those illnesses as the rainy season goes on and as we get deeper into the year. So we still have a problem.
I don't think we have a problem of a Rwandan nature, where tens of thousands of people were lined up and slaughtered en masse. That is not what our problem is.
MR. ROSE: It is not genocide by the legal definition.
SECRETARY POWELL: By legal definition, it does not yet rise to that level. But I have got a team of experts in Darfur now and on the other side of the border in Chad talking to those who have been displaced and they will be reporting back to me next week as to whether the legal standard has been met or not met with respect to genocide.
But too many people are spending too much time arguing about whether it's genocide or not. That's not the issue. The issue is people are in need now and we've got to make sure we're loading the humanitarian pipeline. We've got to make sure that we're getting access for NGO workers, nongovernmental workers to get out there, for the UN agencies to do their work.
And the biggest problem that we have right now and the biggest challenge we have right now is to get the Government of Sudan to do everything possible within their capability or with other capabilities being brought in by the African Union, to break the back of the Jingaweit so that these people will stop terrorizing these villagers.
And that is an obligation of the government and we will not turn loose the pressure. We will continue to pressure on the government till that happens. We are talking to our colleagues in the Security Council in New York about whether additional action on the part of the UN with a Security Council resolution is appropriate. Members of Congress are deeply upset about this and they're considering whether additional congressional action is appropriate.
So we're not going to keep -- we're going to keep the pressure up. We're not going to let the Sudanese Government get away with just promises. We're expecting action and we'll be measuring them against the action they take, not the promises they make.
MR. ROSE: Also in Africa there's the question of AIDS, which I want to come to later in this conversation.
Secondly, Iraq, today. Has the transfer of sovereignty, in your judgment, changed the dynamic so that insurgents now know they're not attacking the United States, they're attacking their own people, they're attacking their own government?
SECRETARY POWELL: They are. They are attacking their own leaders. They are attacking their own election process. They are attacking those people who have come to help the 25 million people of Iraq achieve a better life. They are attacking their own dreams, their own aspirations. Any excuse that they may have had in the past about, well, the Americans are in charge -- the Americans are not in charge. Ambassador Negroponte is there to support a sovereign interim government of Iraq and these former regime elements who are still setting off bombs, still conducting ambushes, and the terrorists who have come into the country to make trouble, they are attacking the people of Iraq, they are attacking the leaders of Iraq.
We are trying to get elections underway. We want elections by the end of this year or by the end of January of 2005 at the latest. And the government that's in place now is a caretaker government to take us to that point. And these individuals who are attacking, this insurgency that is underway, let there be no mistake about it, they are attacking their own people, they are going after the dream of democracy and a better life that the Iraqi people have and that, through our efforts and the loss of life on the part of wonderful young Americans and other coalition soldiers and on the part of Iraqi police and others in positions of responsibility in the Iraqi government who have given their lives to this, are denying -- these insurgents are denying the dreams and hopes and they are betraying the sacrifices that people have made to give the Iraqi people a chance for a better life in a democratic system.
MR. ROSE: My question, again, though, is: Have you seen some evidence that that idea has taken hold?
SECRETARY POWELL: I have seen, yes, some evidence. I have seen evidence that the Iraqi people, by and large, are glad that they have their own government now, a government of Iraqis. They see their own president, their own prime minister, their own ministries doing business. They know that we have to be there for a while longer until they're able to take care of their own security and we hope --
MR. ROSE: And they want us there?
SECRETARY POWELL: Yes. Now, there is a group that is fighting back hard -- the insurgents -- and so the insurgency hasn't gone down like I would like to have seen it go down because they know that if they don't win now they're going to lose in the long run. They're going to lose when the Iraqi police forces and Iraqi military and Iraqi national guard have the capability and confidence to deal with them, and so they are striking out hard now, as we expected they would.
But the fact of the matter is we fundamentally changed the whole equation on the 28th of June when the new leadership took over. And you don't see Ambassador Bremer's face on television. He did a great job. He's now home for a well-deserved rest. And the face you see on television is Prime Minister Allawi and Sheikh Ghazi, the President, the ministers. And what they are saying to their people is we now have an opportunity to build a better country, free of weapons of mass destruction, free of terrorism, free of mass graves, free of rape rooms, and so you now have to rally to the government and speak out and act against this kind of insurgency.
MR. ROSE: All right, two questions. One, can you imagine what scenario might cause the United States to leave?
SECRETARY POWELL: None.
MR. ROSE: None?
SECRETARY POWELL: We will leave --
MR. ROSE: None?
SECRETARY POWELL: None. We will leave when the job is done and we have been asked to leave because --
MR. ROSE: Well, do we finish the job or they ask us to leave?
SECRETARY POWELL: When we have finished the job and they have asked us to leave. If they ask us to leave, we'll leave, and they will be responsible for their own security.
MR. ROSE: And the definition of "finishing the job"?
SECRETARY POWELL: Finishing the job, it seems to me, is quite clear: We have elections; the elections have produced a representative form of government; and, as a result of our efforts under General Casey and General Patraeus and Ambassador Negroponte, we have allowed this government to build up, permitted them and empowered them and given them the wherewithal to build up a police force, border patrol people, an army and paramilitary forces that are confident that they can handle the security challenges that might still remain. And at that point, our troops will come home, coalition troops will come home, and Iraqis will have full responsibility for their own security and their own destiny.
MR. ROSE: And no one can say with any accuracy when that day will come?
SECRETARY POWELL: No, but we do have a plan in place to have transitional elections by the end of the year or January 2005, constitution written in 2005, full elections at the end of 2005. During that same period, I'm confident we will be able to put sufficient resources and expertise into the building of the Iraqi armed forces and police forces that they will be better able to take care of their own security. And, hopefully, we will have beaten this insurgency down quite a bit over the next year and a half, but I can't tell you --
MR. ROSE: Do you think the chances --
SECRETARY POWELL: -- when all of our troops will be out.
MR. ROSE: Okay. Do you think the chance of beating down the insurgency is better than 50/50 today?
SECRETARY POWELL: I don't want to handicap it with numbers like that, because you can't. We are there to do the job, and when the job is done, no one will be happier to see these troops leave than their families, me and the President.
MR. ROSE: Do you believe, you and the President believe, that this is going to turn out all right in the end?
SECRETARY POWELL: Yes.
MR. ROSE: Notwithstanding great sacrifice --
SECRETARY POWELL: Yes, yes.
MR. ROSE: -- on the part of America and other people who have gone there in terms of lives and resources and reputation and questions of competence?
SECRETARY POWELL: As long as we don't lose our will, as long as we are patient and as long as we remain determined, and as long as we continue working with Iraqi leaders who are willing to step forward and to be leaders of this new nation, yes, it will turn out. Why wouldn't it turn out? The Iraqi people don't want an insurgency. The 25 million Iraqi people want to be left alone. They do not want us there. We've done the job; we have gotten rid of an evil dictator. We have gotten rid of a horrible regime that destroyed this country. It wasn't the war that destroyed this country. It was Saddam Hussein. He's gone. There's no longer going to be any question about weapons of mass destruction or terrorism. That's what they want. And they want to get it done. They want to have their own leaders. They will be grateful for the sacrifices that we have made and they appreciate those sacrifices, but they want us to leave. Why wouldn't they want us to leave?
MR. ROSE: Suppose someone said your reputation as Secretary of State is, in part -- the tenure in this building over the last four years -- is, in part, based on the success of our effort in Iraq. Are you satisfied with that? Because the President has said that he knows that his presidency rides on success in Iraq. Your reputation as Secretary of State rides on success in Iraq.
SECRETARY POWELL: I think the President's reputation certainly rides on this, as does mine, as do all of my colleagues here in government, but not so much that people will not take note of other very, very important and positive things that we have done in the area of foreign policy --
MR. ROSE: With China, North Korea, Russia -- you're not talking about --
SECRETARY POWELL: China, North Korea -- many other things -- free trade, all sorts of things that we've done: Millennium Challenge Account, HIV/AIDS, and we may get to that. But certainly, Iraq is top dead center in terms of our legacy. And what have we done? We've gotten rid of this regime, we've gotten rid of the dictatorship. We're pulling the international community back together. Nobody wants to see the United States fail at this point. It's not in the interest of any nation in the world for us to fail right now, except for a couple of the rogue nations that are out there.
But when you look at all of our European friends, our friends in Asia, it is in their interest for this to be a success. And it is a success so far in that we have gotten rid of this regime. Where we have not yet been successful is to put down this insurgency. If this insurgency was not going on right now, if we were not seeing these terrible scenes every morning of car bombs, people would be applauding us. People would be saying what a great thing to --
MR. ROSE: But then the question comes, did we do certain things that allowed the insurgency to survive as long as it has? And those are questions of mistakes and policy and execution of policy.
SECRETARY POWELL: Yeah. The insurgency has turned out to be much more vigorous and vibrant than we had expected when we first went in last year.
MR. ROSE: Well, why did we make --
SECRETARY POWELL: Well, I think there are -- there was more of a residual to the Saddam Hussein armed regime than we expected or anticipated and they had the opportunity over the last year, or they found ways over the last year, to remain intact, to remain together. We defeated an army easily last year, but remnants of that regime are still there and they have been able to mount this insurgency and terrorists have come in to add to the problem. And there are a lot of disaffected people who don't have jobs yet. Reconstruction will take care of that.
MR. ROSE: Is it more Baathists or outside forces now? More Baathists or outside forces, former Baathists?
SECRETARY POWELL: I think it's both. I think it's both. And I think the preponderance of what we are seeing are indigenous; it's inside. It's these former regime elements, these individuals who feel that they have now lost power. And they have. And they should have lost power. But they're fighting. They don't want a democracy. They want -- they don't want the Iraqi people to vote for who they want as their leaders. They don't want a national assembly. They want a dictatorship of the kind that we got rid of last year and they will not get such a dictatorship. They're not coming back and they have to be defeated and they will be defeated. And when they are defeated, and when this insurgency runs out of steam, as I think it will, then you will see that the Iraqi people will welcome this freedom that they have gotten, they will want to participate in open, free and fair elections.
Look what we did in putting in place this Transitional Administrative Law, which is a precursor to their constitution. Rights are protected and defended. The rights of women are protected. The military is under civilian control. The judiciary is independent. This sound familiar? Yes, it sounds like a democracy is emerging. And it will be a democracy of a kind that doesn't exist in that part of the world, and I think it can be an example. But will it be tough? Is it going to be hard to get to that point? Yes. But does that mean we should say, "Well, geez, it's going to be too hard, let's quit." No, we don't quit. We'll stick with it. And the President is prepared to put his legacy on it, as am I.
MR. ROSE: You're prepared to put your legacy on the success?
SECRETARY POWELL: Yes. Yeah.
MR. ROSE: And does that mean, for history's sake, with your commitment to service that are reflected in your opening remarks on this conversation, that, for history's sake, it was worth it? For all the mistakes in intelligence, for all the mistakes in execution, for the loss, it was worth it; and the world is a better place because the United States went to Iraq; and thirdly, the battle against terrorism is in a better place because the United States went to Iraq?
SECRETARY POWELL: Iraq is in a better place, the region is in a better place, the world is in a better place, because Saddam Hussein and that regime are gone and they're not coming back. Now what we are doing is consolidating the win. The consolidation is difficult and it will take time, it will take energy; it will take, unfortunately, the loss of life. Increasingly, the lives being lost are Iraqi leaders who have stepped forward to lead this new country and they're being assassinated, or policemen who are volunteering in droves to go out and help secure their cities who are being attacked.
And so, yes, I think the region, the world, and certainly Iraq is a lot better off. Terrorism is a worldwide phenomenon, not just restricted to Iraq and those terrorists who have come into Iraq. And what the civilized world is recognizing increasingly, with each passing day, that all of us have to do our part in -- wherever we are in the world. We have to do our part in Iraq to defeat the terrorists there, we have to defeat them in Madrid, we have to defeat them in Bali, we have to defeat them wherever they are. And are the terrorists finding encouragement from this? I'll let others try to deal with. But --
MR. ROSE: Well, they're saying that it is a recruiting -- it is a recruiting poster for Usama bin Laden, what's happened in Iraq, what they say.
SECRETARY POWELL: Well, I don't know if that's true or not. We have been able to remove most of the key leaders in al-Qaida. Will they generate new leaders? Sure they will.
MR. ROSE: With a whole new generation already.
SECRETARY POWELL: Yeah, but that happens as long as there is still a desire to have this kind of terrorist organization. And we will now have to identify these new leaders and go after them again until they realize that they will not prevail. We can't say that, let's not go into Iraq, let's not do this, let's pull out as soon as one of our citizens has been kidnapped because we are generating more terrorists. What we have to do is do what we think is right and go after terrorists wherever they are. And if they are still generating themselves, then we'll have to deal with them as well.
What we also have to do is go to the world and deal with some of these problems that are out there, problems of poverty --
MR. ROSE: That create terrorists?
SECRETARY POWELL: That create circumstances and conditions which provide fertile ground for the recruitment of terrorists. Usama bin Laden was not a poor man. He was a man with an evil vision, and he has been able to attract people to his cause who share that evil vision or are disenfranchised or do not believe there is a future for them.
And what we have to do is to use other aspects of our foreign policy to let the people of the world know that there is a better future for them, and the President is doing that. He's just as committed to making sure that we get $5 billion a year, beginning in '06, to invest in undeveloped nations that are on a path of democracy and reform.
MR. ROSE: Okay, two questions about that. Number one is the President's doctrine of preemptive action that was enunciated in 2002, the national security document. Has that changed, basically saying that there were cases in which inaction, the failure to act, as we did in Iraq, would create a problem that was -- an issue that was unacceptable to the United States?
SECRETARY POWELL: No, of course. Nobody --
MR. ROSE: But preemptive action, as a doctrine, is still in force. And anybody who looks at Iraq might fear that the United States might react --
SECRETARY POWELL: But the National Security Strategy that you made reference to has a very small section on preemptive action. Most of the National Security Strategy, which nobody ever talks about, is partnership, working with friends and allies, economic development, human rights, how to help people come along. It talks about -- I know you'd rather talk about preemption, but I'm not going to let you, Charlie.
MR. ROSE: No, you don't know that I would rather talk about that.
SECRETARY POWELL: I'm going to --
MR. ROSE: You don't know that I would rather talk about that.
SECRETARY POWELL: Yes, I do, because -- because you do. That's what you want to talk about.
MR. ROSE: No, no, you don't know where I'm going.
SECRETARY POWELL: No, I'm going to tell you where I'm going. (Laughter.) Where I'm going is that we have to look at how we've been dealing with other problems that exist. We are not on an invasion course with North Korea. What did we do? We enlisted all of our friends in that part of the world.
MR. ROSE: You gave multilateralism a good name.
SECRETARY POWELL: Well, multilateralism does have a good name, and we practice it. What are we doing with Iran? We are working with our European foreign ministers, with the IAEA to put the spotlight on what this country has been doing.
MR. ROSE: Are you creating the kind of dialogue that's necessary in Iraq, as you -- in Iran? As you know, there's a new Council of Foreign Relations report out, with a whole group of people, Zbig Brzezinski and others, saying that we need a lot more dialogue there, because that's a place in which it may be even more dangerous than Iraq if they have a nuclear capacity.
SECRETARY POWELL: Well, guess who took this issue to the world? Thank you very much for the report, but it's the United States.
MR. ROSE: By naming them in the State of the Union as well?
SECRETARY POWELL: It is the United States. It is President Bush who recognized the danger in Iran's pursuit of a nuclear weapon, while the Russians were not paying a lot of attention to it, let's put in a nuclear reactor; when the IAEA is not doing as -- the kind of job that it should have been doing --
MR. ROSE: The kind of scrutiny and monitoring that might have taken place?
SECRETARY POWELL: Well, let's just say that we don't think it was going as well as it should. It was the President who said, Okay, I've got to get your attention on this problem. It is a member of the "axis of evil." Oh, my heavens! How terrible for him to have said that. But now everybody recognizes that Iran has been trying to pursue nuclear weapons.
MR. ROSE: So the President, in retrospect, the President in that State of the Union speech was right in saying there is an "axis of evil" and it is Iran, Iraq and North Korea?
SECRETARY POWELL: Yes.
MR. ROSE: And to include Iran -- and they got very upset about it at the time.
SECRETARY POWELL: Well, they got upset, intellectuals got upset, a lot of people got upset.
MR. ROSE: Elites got upset.
SECRETARY POWELL: Elite got upset. A lot of people got upset. But the fact of the matter is, the President drew the world's attention to the problem that the Iranian Government was pursuing a program to develop nuclear weapons. And most of the world wanted to look the other way. And because the President focused on it, because we made it a matter of importance on our agenda with Russia, who was building nuclear plants in Iran, and because we kept nagging the IAEA and because we were able to provide information to the IAEA, as did others, that we have finally discovered in a way that is indisputable that Iran was moving in that direction. They were hiding things. Three of my European --
MR. ROSE: Moving in the direction of acquiring --
SECRETARY POWELL: Acquiring a nuclear weapon.
MR. ROSE: By having dual facilities?
SECRETARY POWELL: Acquiring a nuclear weapon. This is a nuclear weapons program. This country has enough oil to take care of all of its energy needs and a good part of the world's energy needs for a long time to come. And so it is our judgment, considered judgment, that the purpose of their nuclear program, whatever civilian purpose it might have had, it had a principal purpose of moving them toward the development of a nuclear weapon. And they went out of their way to hide facilities, they went out of their way to deceive the international community as to what was happening.
My three colleagues from European -- the foreign ministers of France, Germany and the United Kingdom -- got engaged in this on behalf of the European Union, went and got commitments from the Iranians that they would be forthcoming and they would stop all this activity. The Iranians have still not met those obligations.
MR. ROSE: Do you believe the Iranians have stopped their effort to get a nuclear weapon?
SECRETARY POWELL: No.
MR. ROSE: And do you believe that all that's happened here has, in any way, restrained them from their timetable and their success path?
SECRETARY POWELL: I believe that they have not abandoned their desire --
MR. ROSE: Plans.
SECRETARY POWELL: Otherwise, they would have acted in a different way in recent months with respect to what they have told us and with respect to meeting their commitments to the EU foreign ministers.
I do believe, however, that because of the President, because of President Bush and pointing -- his pointing out the problems inherent here and the dangers inherent here, and the policies that we have followed with respect to Iran in recent years, we have forced the international community to look at this. We have gotten action in the IAEA that we would not have gotten otherwise if we had not pointed these matters out. We have --
MR. ROSE: And the Soviets --
SECRETARY POWELL: The Russians.
MR. ROSE: The Russians, I'm sorry.
SECRETARY POWELL: We call them Russians now, Charlie.
MR. ROSE: Yes, I know.
SECRETARY POWELL: The Russians have --
MR. ROSE: I'm still learning.
SECRETARY POWELL: It takes a while. (Laughter.)
MR. ROSE: Yes, it does. (Laughter.)
SECRETARY POWELL: The Russians -- we have been in constant communication, in contact with them. The Russians, I think, are acting in a responsible way now with respect to power plants and have closed that cycle --
MR. ROSE: And doing everything that you would want them to do, in terms of not transferring their nuclear know-how --
SECRETARY POWELL: Oh, there's -- we believe that the Russians are fully seized with the problem of transferring to the Iranians anything that might encourage or enhance the Iranians' ability to develop nuclear weapons. But it is still an open question as to where the Iranians are going. I think they continue to harbor a desire to have a nuclear weapon, but I think that because of what the President has done and what we have done with our friends, we have made it much more difficult for them. They've put barriers in their way and they are under a level of scrutiny from the IAEA that they were never under before.
So whatever timeline they may have in mind is a much longer timeline now, and I hope they come to the responsible conclusion and the only satisfactory conclusion that the game is not worth a candle and we are better off abandoning this program and trying to find a better relationship with the rest of the world, other than finding ourselves at the tail end of all this criticism coming from the world about our nuclear weapons programs.
MR. ROSE: And if they don't?
SECRETARY POWELL: If they don't? Well, I think they will pay a price in the international community. I think they will -- Charlie, there is a price to be paid and they will pay a price.
MR. ROSE: What's the price? I mean, that's --
SECRETARY POWELL: There's economic --
MR. ROSE: -- an idle threat, saying they'll pay a price.
SECRETARY POWELL: No, it is not an idle threat.
MR. ROSE: Will pay a price?
SECRETARY POWELL: It is not an idle threat. Iran and North Korea are not successful economies. They are not doing as well as they could do if they were more accepted members of the international community. We are in a 21st century world now where you have to generate jobs for people, where you have to have an economy that starts to function.
Iran is a country where upwards of 60 percent of the population are under 25. These young people are looking for jobs and a better future to raise families. And as I like to say on occasion, you can't eat a nuclear weapon. You can't eat fissile material. It is not doing anything for you. Surprising to me and another success of American diplomacy, working with our British friends, is how the Libyans came to this conclusion.
MR. ROSE: Stop right there.
SECRETARY POWELL: It's amazing how they came to this conclusion.
MR. ROSE: We've got to change tapes.
(Pause.)
MR. ROSE: Let me go back to Iraq.
SECRETARY POWELL: Okay.
MR. ROSE: There is this notion that the great dissenter to the Iraq policy in this government was the Secretary of State; he was opposed to what the Vice President wanted to do, he was opposed to what the Secretary of Defense wanted to do, and that he was going in to the President, saying "Go slow, be careful. If you break it, you'll own it," all of that.
Are you the great dissenter to our Iraq policy?
SECRETARY POWELL: Let's not talk about what my dissent might have been. Let's talk about what I recommended to the President. And what I recommended to the President was that we needed to be careful about this issue and we needed to try to solve it diplomatically. We needed to try to solve it politically. We needed to try to solve it within the international community. The offended party here is not just the United States or the Iraqi people. It's the international community that had placed 12 years worth of resolutions and all kinds of sanctions against Iraq.
"So, Mr. President, since this is a major issue, I recommend that you take it to the United Nations first and try to see if we can not find a diplomatic solution."
MR. ROSE: And he listened to you?
SECRETARY POWELL: He listened to me and he also listened to his other advisors. There was no dissent. You can name all you would care to name: the Vice President, Mr. Rumsfeld, Dr. Rice. We presented this to the President as the way to approach this problem, and when the President asked for the advice of all of us, there was no dissent. This was the thing to do: Take it to the UN.
Now, how many thought the UN could solve it or might not solve it? There are differences of opinion. There were some who thought that we probably wouldn't find a solution here, but this is the right thing to do. And on September 12th, 2002, the President went before the General Assembly, laid out the problem, and said, you need to do something, you need to pass a resolution." He asked the UN to act and the UN did act seven weeks later in Resolution 1441, something I worked very hard on and fought some very difficult battles to get, but it was passed unanimously.
MR. ROSE: Probably your proudest moment in the diplomacy during your tenure here?
SECRETARY POWELL: Oh, I have a lot of proud moments.
MR. ROSE: Okay.
SECRETARY POWELL: You could share a few if you had more time, Charlie.
MR. ROSE: No, but I've got to go. (Laughter.)
SECRETARY POWELL: In any event, we got that resolution and it said: You have been a material breach, Iraq; you continue in material breach; and if you don't give us an honest declaration and if you don't own up to all the elements of this material breach, you're in a new material breach and there will be consequences.
And it became clear to us and a number of other likeminded nations, over the next several months, that they remained in breach and they weren't going to fix it. Now, other nations disagreed with that and therefore we didn't try to get a second resolution when we realized we wouldn't get a vote on a second -- or a successful vote on a second resolution, so we used the first resolution and all the previous resolutions, put together a willing coalition, and undertook military action.
When we started down that diplomatic road, in my conversations with the President, I said, "Mr. President, we really ought to see if we can solve this diplomatically and this would be the better way to handle this if it could be done." But we also knew -- I knew and he knew -- that there was a limit as to how far we could go down that road before we would hit a fork, before --
MR. ROSE: And before you would lose international consensus?
SECRETARY POWELL: And when we could lose whatever international consensus --
MR. ROSE: Might be.
SECRETARY POWELL: -- that there might be. And when we hit that fork in the road, I knew -- we all knew -- that it might be necessary to take military action. Charlie, I knew that and I went down that road knowing that we would either solve this militarily or we would take military action, because we wanted this situation resolved once and for all. We did not want to find ourselves, a year later, with the same debates about sanctions, the same problems with the Iraqis shooting at our airplanes in the no-fly zones.
MR. ROSE: Right.
SECRETARY POWELL: And so I made sure the President understood my job to do that, the consequences of all the courses of actions that were before him. And he listened to me, we talked them through, we talked them through with his other advisors. He took the case to the international community. We took the time, he had the patience, he brought a coalition together when it was clear that we were not going to be satisfied with the track of diplomacy and we took military action.
MR. ROSE: And at that moment, you were ready to go with military action?
SECRETARY POWELL: I was ready.
MR. ROSE: Okay, this question. The speech you made at the United Nations, since you brought up the United Nations, clearly was -- and you have acknowledged the information that you got, that you spoke to --
SECRETARY POWELL: Was wrong, some of it.
MR. ROSE: And wherever -- some of it and wherever that source is, whoever is responsible for that, they will take place. Yesterday, the acting head of the CIA said, you know, don't blame the CIA, there was not enough public debate this, there was not enough debate about this." Came from the acting director of the CIA.
You, in making your speech, went over to the CIA, had lots of sessions over there, late night sessions. You have found that there were lots of errors of fact that they were asking you to use as evidence. What did that say to you, the fact that you had to go an extra mile and still didn't succeed in not saying things that were not true?
SECRETARY POWELL: Much of what I said was true --
MR. ROSE: I understand.
SECRETARY POWELL: The fact that Saddam Hussein had the intention to have these weapons, he had the capability to develop such weapons and there was no doubt in my mind or should have been in anyone's mind that he would go back and develop and build up his capability if he was ever free of sanctions, if he ever got loose from the international community in handcuffs.
Where the analysis broke down and where I was not accurate, at least it can't be established that we were accurate, had to do with stockpiles and whether or not they had weapons of mass destruction in stockpiles. The stockpiles haven't been found, and as we now go back through the intelligence, the Senate Select Committee or Lloyd Butler in the United Kingdom, we have found deficiencies in the intelligence, either in the sourcing or the way the sources were brought together and analyzed.
I am disappointed. I am annoyed that that happened. But it was the same base of intelligence that the entire international community was working off of. The British had similar views about it, all of our other colleagues --
MR. ROSE: Yeah, but you're only --
SECRETARY POWELL: Wait a minute, wait a minute. All of the others had similar views about it. It was the same basic intelligence that the previous administration had from the intelligence community and President Clinton used as the basis to bomb Iraq --
MR. ROSE: All of that.
SECRETARY POWELL: -- in 1998. When my turn came to present it as the Secretary of State, representing the United States, I went out to the CIA and, as you said, I spent three or four days, including nights --
MR. ROSE: I know.
SECRETARY POWELL: Long, long sessions making sure that, to the best of their ability and my ability to understand what they were giving me, I was giving to the world, at that presentation at the UN, the solidest information we had. And that's what they presented to me.
They are as disappointed as I am in the intelligence community that their analysis was not, in all cases, correct and that some of their sourcing was misleading and wrong. So we've got to figure out why and how that all happened and fix it. But the information I provided was the best that was available to us and I had no reason not to rely on that information. So much of --
MR. ROSE: Except, Mr. Secretary, that you were looking at things that your own analysts were saying to you, "This -- we can't run with this. This doesn't fly."
SECRETARY POWELL: There --
MR. ROSE: As the President evidently, according to Bob Wolfowitz, said to representatives of the CIA.
SECRETARY POWELL: There are many things that my analysts in my own intelligence shop said, "We've got to check this out." And most of the things we checked out, we reconciled with the CIA. There were differences of opinion within the analytic community about certain items; for example, the famous aluminum tubes.
MR. ROSE: Right.
SECRETARY POWELL: Some analysts, to include my analysts, said, "We're not sure they're ready for centrifuges. They can just be conventional rocket bodies." But the CIA, which has to make the final judgment on such matters, and the Director of Central Intelligence -- Central Intelligence -- has that responsibility. And their judgment was that these tubes really were for centrifuge purposes.
And we studied that. I listened to the arguments. I made sure that I understood what everybody was saying. And they considered judgment delivered by the Director of Central Intelligence is that we believe they are for centrifuges and that's what I said at the UN.
But in my presentation at the UN, I also said there were different points of view and this remains to be determined. So, what I tried to do, Charlie, is not to over-hype anything, but I did use what the best intelligence available was. And what I said was consistent with the National Intelligence Estimate that the CIA had presented to the Congress in the fall of 2002 and it really reflected the body of intelligence that we have had for a fairly long period of time that had been available to members of Congress, been available to this President and his predecessor, and which we were all acting on.
Now that we get into Iraq and we can put people on the ground and we're no longer, you know, trying to infer things, we can see, we can't find any stockpiles, and the conclusion that is emerging is they weren't there.
Well, why aren't they there? Were they destroyed just before? Did they never exist? Did we get it wrong that the stockpiles are not there? And we've got to find out how we got it wrong, if it is wrong. The Iraqi Survey Group continues its work.
But at the time the President made his statements, the time Prime Minister Blair took his case to the British people and Mr. Berlusconi to the people of Italy and Mr. Aznar to the people of Spain, and so many other leaders, Prime Minister Howard of Australia, the intelligence community was pretty solid that there were stockpiles. Even when there was a disagreement about an aluminum tube, those disagreeing about the tube were not disagreeing that they thought there were stockpiles --
MR. ROSE: That they existed, which --
SECRETARY POWELL: Yeah, there was the stockpile thing. And so we have to be careful as we look into this.
MR. ROSE: I have one last question, and I want to -- you feel strongly about Africa, Sub-Saharan Africa especially, South Africa, your relationship with Nelson Mandela. He just testified to an AIDS conference about the danger of tuberculosis, which he had in prison. It was detected early enough. How big a threat is HIV/AIDS to destabilizing Africa, other parts of Asia? And is the United States doing enough?
As you know, they would like for the United States to give money to the UN effort. At the same time, the President is doing more in his own initiative than many people suspected the Administration would ever do.
SECRETARY POWELL: It is a terrible threat. It's more than a threat. It's a reality. It's not something that's on the horizon. It's here. And HIV/AIDS is a destroyer of societies, a destroyer of families, a destroyer of middle-aged people of child-bearing age and from which you get your future leaders and teachers and doctors and everything else. It is a weapon of mass destruction killing 8,000 people a day and it is spreading to other parts of the world. So the international community has to come together.
I am concerned about Africa, but more than that, President Bush came in with a deep commitment to helping Sub-Saharan Africa, all of Africa, but beyond that, going after HIV/AIDS. And within the first weeks of this Administration, he appointed me and Secretary of Health and Human Services Tommy Thompson to work on this issue. We helped with Kofi Annan to set up a Global Health Fund. We are the major contributor to it, but the President saw that there was a need to go beyond that.
So, on top of that, he put in place an Emergency Fund, an additional $15 billion all together, and this is over and above what the National Institutes of Health and so many other research activities that we have are doing to find vaccines and cures. The United States is not only the largest contributor in the world, but we give twice as much as the rest of the world combined. So we are doing a great deal to go after this problem.
The President's Emergency Program, we have just identified the first 15 countries; money is now going out. We are creating bilateral arrangements with these countries. These are countries that are deeply at risk. We are also interested in tuberculosis and malaria, just as Mr. Mandela said, and the Global Health Fund is for HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis, other infectious diseases and malaria because they're linked to one another.
MR. ROSE: The combination --
SECRETARY POWELL: It's a combination of all of them.
MR. ROSE: -- is extremely powerful.
SECRETARY POWELL: And no one is as committed to going after this problem and challenge as is President Bush and the United States, and we have put our money where our mouth is.
Is it enough? No, we've got to do a lot more. All the nations of the world have got to do a lot more. And arguments which take us off course about, well, is it abstinence or is it condoms? It's both. It's both. You want to keep young people from the risk of infection while they are young by abstinence. We buy more condoms than any other government on the face of the earth or organization on the face of the earth. Under this Administration, we have doubled, if not tripled, the purchase of condoms for use in undeveloped nations.
But condoms is one part of the program, abstinence is another part of the program, treatment is another part of the program, driving down the cost of anti-retroviral drugs and the use of generics is another part of the program.
MR. ROSE: Education is another part of the program.
SECRETARY POWELL: And education of young people as to why they should protect themselves, to protect yourself through abstinence or you protect yourself through being faithful to one partner, you protect yourself through the use of condoms if you are engaged in unsafe activities.
There's another part that we don't hear enough about that, and that is making sure that people see that the HIV virus and the disease that it causes is a disease; it doesn't make somebody a pariah. So removing stigma from those who are suffering, getting rid of taboos.
There are too many countries in the world, especially in Africa, where they don't want to see this problem. It somehow goes against their culture. We have got to break down those barriers. Some nations, like Ugandan and President Museveni, have realized we have got to talk about this openly and speak clearly about what causes --
MR. ROSE: And the success there suggests you can make a difference.
SECRETARY POWELL: Suggests that you can make a difference. Botswana is coming along, had one of the worst problems. They now realize they've got to deal with it. South Africa, finally, I think, is turning to the serious problem they have as one of the most seriously affected countries in Africa and they were slow to get on top of the problem and now they're coming around.
Places like India, China, Russia recognize that they have to deal with this problem early on. One of the countries we gave funding to, will give funding to, as part of our Emergency Plan is Vietnam. Why Vietnam? It's a large country. The infection rate is fairly small now, but we can see the potential for that infection rate to grow rapidly. So this is the time to help the Vietnamese deal with this problem.
And so we want to get in as early as we can with education, with training, with abstinence, with the use of condoms, with the use of anti-retroviral drugs, with all of the other things, with sanitation, with food programs, with development programs so that people don't succumb to other infectious diseases because they've been weakened by HIV, or they don't succumb to HIV because they've been weakened by other infectious diseases.
We've got polio back on the world stage again. We're going after that as well. This President has demonstrated a commitment to these transnational health programs and to working in Africa that is really quite extraordinary. And frankly, to be blunt, the President and this Administration does not get enough credit for what we have done with respect to HIV/AIDS, the Millennium Challenge Account for undeveloped nations that are committed to democracy, of trade agreements which have more to do with bringing funds into a country than aid does. And we should be very proud of what we've been able to do as Americans over the last several years.
MR. ROSE: And the democracy initiative, and you could go on and on?
SECRETARY POWELL: I can go on and on.
MR. ROSE: Thank you, Mr. Secretary.
SECRETARY POWELL: Thank you, Charlie.
MR. ROSE: It's a pleasure to be here with you in this great building.
(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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