Secretary of State interviewed on three American news programs

In May 16 appearances on television news programs, Secretary of State Colin Powell responded to questions on the Abu Ghraib prison abuses, U.S. military presence in Iraq after June 30, and the Middle East peace process.

Powell, conducting interviews from the banks of the Dead Sea in Jordan, appeared on Fox News Sunday, NBC's Meet the Press, and ABC's This Week with George Stephanopoulos.

Regarding the abuses at Abu Ghraib prison, Powell told Fox News that even if the Geneva Conventions do not "directly apply in terms of individuals being illegal combatants and not prisoners of war, we still have an obligation to treat them humanely, consistent with international standards. And that's been my position because that's the way we want our troops to be treated if they are captured."

Later, on Meet the Press, the secretary affirmed the Geneva Conventions are "an important standard in international law, and we have to comply." Whether the individuals in custody are directly covered by the Geneva Conventions or are illegal combatants, "we should treat them, nevertheless, in a humane manner," he said.

In response to a question from Fox News' Chris Wallace on how much damage the prisoner abuse scandal has done to America's standing internationally, Powell responded, "It has been damaging; there is no doubt about it."

"What these individuals did was wrong. It was against the rules and regulations. It was against anything they should have learned in their homes, in their community, in their upbringing," the secretary elaborated on Meet the Press.

But Powell drew a clear contrast between the reported prison abuses at Abu Ghraib and the brutal beheading of American Nicholas Berg.

"When you are outraged at what happened at the prison, you should be equally, doubly outraged at what happened to Mr. Berg. ... [W]e need that same level of outrage and condemnation coming from the Arab world, just as it's coming from us. This kind of behavior is unacceptable in the modern world," Powell told Fox News.

On Meet the Press, Powell expressed dissatisfaction with Arab reaction to the beheading: "I think there should be a higher level of outrage. ... [T]here can be no comparison between the actions at Abu Ghraib and the murder of Berg. ... There is anger in the Arab world about some of our actions, but that is no excuse for any silence on the part of any Arab leader for this kind of murder."

In all three interviews, Powell was asked to elaborate on the role of the U.S. military in Iraq after the June 30 scheduled turnover of sovereignty.

After June 30, "the only authority really is that interim government. ... [I]f they actually asked us to leave, would we? [T]he answer is yes. But we don't expect that to be the case," Powell told Fox News, adding that the United States does not want to keep troops in Iraq any longer than necessary. "We want to finish our job, turn full sovereignty over to the Iraqi people ... [and] come back home as fast as we possibly can. ... But we're not going to leave while the Iraqi people still need us."

In the same vein, on Meet the Press, Powell said, "We are planning to stay the course, and we expect that the Iraqi interim government that will come into place on the 1st of July would certainly ask us to remain and help them stay the course.

"We don't want to stay one day longer than we have to, but we know they want us to remain long enough so that they have their own security forces built up and in place, and that will take some time," he stated. "We certainly are not going to cut and run. ... We're going to stay and help the Iraqis do what we know the Iraqi people want, and that is to have a democracy based on free elections."

And later, on This Week, Powell said he was confident that the United States could "make arrangements with the new leadership that it's best for us to stay."

In response to a query from Tim Russert as to whether the United States would accept an Islamic theocracy as the permanent government of Iraq, Powell responded, "We will have to accept what the Iraqi people decide upon," but expressed confidence that Iraqis would opt for a government that "understands the role of a majority, but respects the role of minorities."

Powell also told Fox News that he believes prospects are good for a U.N. Security Council resolution backing the Iraqi interim government and creating a broader multinational force.

The interview with Stephanopoulos, the third to air, was the only one in which the secretary fielded questions on the Middle East peace process.

When pressed as to why the he had not proposed a mutual ceasefire by Israeli and Palestinian forces (as reportedly had been suggested by Palestinian Foreign Minister Abu Alaa), Powell responded that "we've seen this [mutual ceasefire] before and it hasn't worked before. What I need from the Palestinians is for them to get themselves ready to exercise solid political control over Gaza" when the Israelis withdraw.

The secretary also said the responsibility for wresting control from Yasser Arafat rests squarely with Palestinian and Arab leaders. They can do it, Powell said, "by saying to Chairman Arafat that your policies have not been successful. Your leadership has not been successful in moving this process forward."

The secretary again emphasized that the announced Israeli withdrawal from Gaza is an opportunity that must be seized: "Let's use that as a way of moving forward and not keep wishing for something that isn't there or hoping that some magic bullet will come along, like a ceasefire, and everything will be well."

Following are the State Department transcripts of Secretary Powell's interviews:

(begin transcript)

U.S. Department of State
Office of the Spokesman
May 16, 2004

2004/550

Interview

Secretary of State Colin L. Powell
On Fox News Sunday with Chris Wallace
May 16, 2004
Dead Sea, Jordan

(9:00 a.m. EDT)

MR. WALLACE: Mr. Secretary, I want to discuss your trip to the region. But, first, the prison abuse scandal continues to go on in Washington, so let's start there.

The New Yorker magazine is reporting today that Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld approved a secret operation allowing aggressive interrogation, including physical coercion and sexual humiliation. What do you know about that, sir?

SECRETARY POWELL: I don't know anything about it, Chris. I haven't had a chance to read the Sy Hersh article, just a summary of it; but I understand that the Pentagon spokesman has already dismissed the allegation. And I'll have to let my Pentagon colleagues deal with any other details of the story.

MR. WALLACE: Could an operation like that have gone on without the Secretary of State knowing about it?

SECRETARY POWELL: Chris, I'm not acknowledging that such an operation did go on, and therefore I can't comment on the Sy Hersh story because I haven't read it, don't know anything about it, and the Pentagon is saying that it is not an accurate story. So there is no point in me speculating about something that we don't know took place.

MR. WALLACE: Mr. Secretary, as former Chairman of the Joint Chiefs, do you have any problems with the interrogation techniques that we know were approved at Abu Ghraib with commander approval? I'm talking specifically about putting a hood over a prisoner for several days, stripping them naked, threatening them with muzzled guard dogs. Do you have any problems with that?

SECRETARY POWELL: The kind of activities that I saw on the pictures that are now famous, of course, are totally unacceptable. They're deplorable. And I am not completely familiar with all of the instructions that may have been given or not given to the guards, and I think I will let that remain with the Pentagon to explain the basis upon which they had certain instructions or not. I have always been a strong believer in the need to treat those who we now have custody of as an act of war and they're now our responsibility with respect and accordance with international obligations that we have under the Geneva Convention and other international laws.

And even if the Geneva Convention does not directly apply in terms of individuals being illegal combatants and not prisoners of war, we still have an obligation to treat them humanely, consistent with international standards. And that's been my position because that's the way we want our troops to be treated if they are captured.

MR. WALLACE: The International Red Cross says that it reported abuses at Abu Ghraib last fall, including prisoners stripped naked for days, sexual humiliation. Were you made aware last year of those alleged abuses?

SECRETARY POWELL: We knew that the ICRC had concerns, and in accordance with the manner in which the ICRC does its work, it presented those concerns directly to the command in Baghdad. And I know that some corrective action was taken with respect to those concerns, but I don't have the details of it.

The first time that I had a conversation with Mr. Kellenberger after that was on January 15 of this year, when he said to me in my office in the State Department that he continued to have concerns and would be issuing a report. We discussed that within the Principals Committees, within the Administration. We were concerned, and we know that in early February the ICRC presented their formal report to the command in Baghdad, both to Ambassador Bremer and to General Sanchez, and then subsequently, a few weeks later, the reports became available to us in Washington from the ICRC.

By then, however, the information with respect to Abu Ghraib and what the soldiers had been doing there was made known to the command by one of the soldiers themselves. So by the time we got the report, either in Baghdad or in Washington, an investigation had already been launched. Just about the time Dr. Kellenberger was meeting with me, the command over there under General Sanchez had already launched an investigation in response to information given to General Sanchez by one of the soldiers, and the General Taguba report was already under way and being prepared during the time that we were receiving the ICRC report in February and early March.

MR. WALLACE: Mr. Secretary, just to make sure that I have the time line right, though. Last year I'm talking about, not this February, did you ever discuss Red Cross concerns about alleged abuses at Abu Ghraib with either Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld or the President?

SECRETARY POWELL: All of the reports we were receiving from ICRC having to do with the situation in Guantanamo, the situation in Afghanistan, or the situation in Iraq was a subject of discussion within the Administration, at our Principals Committee meetings and at our NSC meetings. We were aware of them, and we knew that those concerns were being presented to our command in Baghdad, and we were expecting our command in Baghdad to make the necessary responses.

As Mr. Kellenberger has said to me -- Dr. Kellenberger has said to me, corrective action was taken on a number of the abuses that were pointed out to our command. I cannot give you a complete rollout, though, of what all of the concerns were that were raised and which ones were dealt with by the command in Baghdad. I will have to refer to the Pentagon to give you that listing of concerns raised, concerns dealt with, concerns outstanding.

MR. WALLACE: Mr. Secretary, let's turn now to your travels. Over the last few days, you've met with European foreign ministers and now with Arab leaders. How much damage has the prisoner abuse scandal done to U.S. standing? How much of a backlash is there?

SECRETARY POWELL: It has been damaging; there is no doubt about it. People are disappointed in the United States. This is not consistent with our value system. What I've been telling all of my audiences --- both the G-8 ministers, as well as my audiences here at the World Economic Forum at the Dead Sea -- is that this will be dealt with, justice will be done. The individuals responsible for this will be punished, will be brought to justice.

But keep in mind, tens upon tens of thousands of wonderful young American soldiers are doing great work for the Iraqi people. They are helping to rebuild schools and hospitals, and putting in sewage facilities, and acting the way you would expect American soldiers to act, the way we have acted during the course of our history, and so our value system is intact.

The United States is a moral nation. The world will now see how we bring people to justice for their misbehavior. And as Secretary Rumsfeld and the President have both said, we will follow this up the chain of command to see what failings may have existed within the chain of command.

MR. WALLACE: Here is one of many good reasons why I am not Secretary of State, sir, but do you ever mention to Arab leaders when they're discussing this the systematic torture of prisoners in their countries?

SECRETARY POWELL: Yes, I've made it clear that this kind of behavior is unacceptable in any society. When you are outraged at what happened at the prison, you should be equally, doubly outraged at what happened to Mr. Berg, a man who was picked up, who was not a combatant, who was doing nothing but trying to find work in Iraq. To have him murdered on camera so that his parents could see it, with his throat being slit by one of the worst terrorists on the face of the Earth, that is equal to any other act you've seen with respect to the need to condemn it, and to condemn it outright, and to condemn it publicly.

And we need that same level of outrage and condemnation coming from the Arab world, just as it's coming from us. All of this kind of behavior is unacceptable to the modern world.

MR. WALLACE: How do you explain, both from the Arab leaders and the Arab street, that you don't see the same outrage over the brutal execution of Nick Berg, and also, as I say, the systematic torture of prisoners in Arab prisons?

SECRETARY POWELL: Torture of any kind is unacceptable. Arab leaders need to look at what's happening in their own societies; they need to reform their societies, one of the issues we've been talking about. What I have found, both here and in my meetings earlier this week with the G-8 foreign ministers is that there is a convergence between the Arab nations and the industrialized world, that all of us have to move forward down a path of reform.

But torture is torture is torture. It is unacceptable. It is not the way you deal with human beings who are entrusted to your care -- by right of conquest or the fact that you have captured them -- and you are totally responsible for their welfare. We have international standards that have to be maintained, and those standards don't just apply to the United States of America; they apply to all civilized countries, or countries claiming to be civilized.

MR. WALLACE: Mr. Secretary, you caused a bit of a stir this week when you said, although you made it basically a theoretical point, that the Iraqi government after June 30 would have the power to ask the U.S. to leave. As I say, you don't believe it's going to happen. I know that some of the European countries, especially France and Russia, are pressing for more, and I want to ask you about that. Will the interim government have control over Iraqi soldiers and police, and will they have the right to refuse U.S. military orders?

SECRETARY POWELL: We expect that the Iraqi Ministry of Defense and the Minister of Defense and the generals working within the Ministry of Defense will have command and control over their troops.

But we also expect that for unity of command and to make sure there is no confusion as to what we're doing with respect to security, they will put those troops under the direction of the multinational force commander, who will be an American. You have to have unity of command on a battlefield, and we hope that we will be able to work out arrangements with the Iraqi interim government to bring this to pass. It is not a complicated issue. It is not something that we have not done elsewhere in other countries.

But the question came up: Is this a government that is going to have sovereignty? Is it going to have authority over its land? And the answer is yes, because the Coalition Provisional Authority is going away. Ambassador Bremer will be returning home. Ambassador Negroponte does not replace him; the interim government replaces Ambassador Bremer. So the only authority really is that interim government.

And the theoretical question that was put to us, the hypothetical was, if they actually asked us to leave, would we? And the answer is yes. But we don't expect that to be the case. They know and we know that it will be a period of time -- and some considerable period of time -- before we can see conditions of security that can be placed totally into the hands of Iraqi security forces.
There will be a need for American troops and coalition troops, and we're confident that the Iraqi interim government will understand this.

And so it's a hypothetical question that we answered because we didn't want there to be any confusion about the nature of sovereignty that's being turned over, but I don't think it's a problem that we're really going to have to face in a practical way.

MR. WALLACE: Mr. Secretary, will the multinational force be given a timetable to leave, as the French and Russians want? And generally, how do you think -- what do you think are the prospects that you'll get a U.N. resolution before June 30 backing the interim Iraqi government and perhaps creating a greater multinational force?

SECRETARY POWELL: The prospects of a resolution I think are good. We've had good conversations with our colleagues on the Security Council, and the issues that have been raised I think are issues that we can work out in the weeks ahead.

The French and Russians and some others have suggested that there ought to be some time dimensions to the presence of a multinational force, but there is no specific date, they say, it has to be out. What they're suggesting -- and it's a suggestion that we fully understand -- is that after the National Assembly has been created by a free vote next year, then the government that flows from that National Assembly, what we will call the transitional government, certainly should be given the opportunity to review the security arrangements it has made with the multinational force. Since it is sovereign, we would pay attention to what they say and listen to what they say.

The United States is not anxious to keep our troops there any longer than we have to. This isn't something we're trying to hang on to. We want to finish our job, turn full sovereignty over to the Iraqi people, see them elect a government that is fully representative of the people, see them raise up an army, a civil defense corps, police -- police troops, police officers that are able to control the country, and let us come back home as fast as we possibly can. We're not hanging on to this for any longer than we have to; but we're also not going to leave while the Iraqi people still need us, and while the interim government or the transitional government still sees a need for our presence.

MR. WALLACE: Mr. Secretary, thank you so much for talking with us today. Safe travels back to the U.S.

SECRETARY POWELL: Thank you, Chris.

[end transcript]

[begin transcript]

U.S. Department of State
Office of the Spokesman
May 16, 2004
2004/551

Interview
Secretary of State Colin L. Powell
On NBC's Meet the Press with Tim Russert

May 16, 2004
Dead Sea, Jordan

(10:30 a.m. EDT)

MR. RUSSERT: Secretary Powell, good morning. Let me show you the headline that greeted Americans and people around the world yesterday: "Powell Says Troops Would Leave Iraq if New Leaders Ask." What happened to staying the course?

SECRETARY POWELL: We are planning to stay the course, and we expect that the Iraqi interim government that will come into place on the 1st of July would certainly ask us to remain and help them stay the course. But basically, what we are anxious to do is return sovereignty. But it's a long way between that initial return of sovereignty and national elections. We're confident that we will stay the course. This was in response to a specific question as to what sovereignty meant.

MR. RUSSERT: But, Mr. Secretary, if you look at a poll taken by our own government, the Coalition Provisional Authority says four to five (sic) Iraqis report holding a negative view of the U.S. occupation authority and of coalition forces. In the poll, 82 percent said they disapprove of the U.S. and allied militaries in Iraq. This was before the allegations of prison abuse. If a government is in power in Iraq, is responsive to its people, why wouldn't they say to the U.S., get out?

SECRETARY POWELL: Because there is still a need for the U.S. to remain. They need our financial support. They need the reconstruction effort that is underway. And, frankly, they need the U.S. armed forces and the other coalition forces that are present to help create an environment of security and stability so they can get on with the process of rebuilding their country and preparing themselves for national elections.

We don't want to stay one day longer than we have to, but we know they want us to remain long enough so that they have their own security forces built up and in place, and that will take some time.

MR. RUSSERT: John McCain said this the other day, Mr. Secretary, "If we fail in Iraq, we will have taught our enemies the lessons of Mogadishu, only 100-fold. If you inflict enough pain, America will leave. Iraq will then descend into chaos and civil war. Warlords will reign. There will be bloodletting. We will have energized the extremists and created a breeding ground for terrorists, dooming the Arab world." Do you agree?

SECRETARY POWELL: We certainly are not going to cut and run. The President's made that clear. And, quite the contrary, as you see from what Secretary Rumsfeld and John Abizaid, General Abizaid have done, we are stabilizing our force at a higher level than we thought we would at this point. Why? Because there is still danger there. Why? Because the work is not finished? Why? Because we need to help the Iraqi interim government, as it is established, create an environment of security.

So we're not going to walk away. We're not going to cut and run. We're going to stay and help the Iraqis do what we know the Iraqi people want, and that is to have a democracy based on free elections. It takes time to get there, and we are on our way with the creation of an Iraqi interim government.

Over the past several weeks, we have set up 11 Iraqi ministries that are now freestanding, not connected to the Coalition Provisional Authority. Of course the Iraqis want the occupation to end. They want the Coalition Provisional Authority to cease its work. And that's what's going to happen when this Iraqi interim government is established. But they need our troops there for some considerable period of time in the future to provide the security environment needed so that they can have free, open and fair elections and have the time to build up their own security forces.

MR. RUSSERT: In those free, open and fair elections, if the Iraqi people choose an Islamic theocracy, similar to what we have in Iran, we would accept that?

SECRETARY POWELL: We will have to accept what the Iraqi people decide upon. But right now, I think most Iraqis understand that in order to live together in peace, as a single nation, they have to have a nation which understands the role of a majority, but respects the role of minorities within a country.

And they know they have to have, for international acceptability, a country that preserves human rights, that is founded on democracy, that respects the rights of all individuals, that respects the rights of women, that respects basic tenants with respect to hope and speech and meeting fundamental needs of the people and the fundamental standards of human rights that all of us believe in.

MR. RUSSERT: But, Mr. Secretary, if the Iraqis opt for an Islamic theocracy, which could easily become a haven for terrorists, how then do we explain to the 782 who died, or the nearly over 4,000 who were wounded and injured, that this was worth the fight?

SECRETARY POWELL: I don't think that's going to be the case. I think that those who have given their lives in the cause of freedom for the Iraqi people will see that the Iraqi people are interested in creating a democracy. If you'll look at the same kind of polling that you mentioned earlier, that's what they are interested in. That's what they're looking for.

If you talk to some of the Shia leaders, such as Mr. Sistani and others -- Ayatollah Sistani -- they are talking about openness and freedom. Surely everybody understands it is a nation that rests on the faith of Islam, but they also know that in order to be successful as a 21st century country, they have to respect the rights of all individuals and not allow a purely fundamentalist regime to arise in the country. My sensing of what the Iraqi people want is a democracy with a majority, but with respect for all the minorities, all working together to create the kind of country they'll be proud of.

MR. RUSSERT: Bob Woodward reports that on August 5, 2002, you met with the President and warned him about Iraq, that, in your words, "You break it, you've bought it." In light of the fact that we have miscalculated being greeted as liberators, miscalculated the number of troops needed, miscalculated the extent of weapons of mass destruction, do you wish the President had followed your advice?

SECRETARY POWELL: My advice to the President was that we had to be sure that we understood the difficulties of managing this country once we took it over if that's what it came to. The advice I gave to the President was that we should take it to the international community, to the United Nations, to see if there was a diplomatic solution before we resorted to the use of force; and if we had to resort to the use of force, we had made the effort with the United Nations so that we could get coalition partners to join us. The President followed that advice.

My advice to the President was to make sure that we understood all the consequences of the actions that we were about to take. He took that advice, and he responded to that advice by going to the United Nations. We went to the United Nations. We knew that it would either be solved diplomatically or through the use of force; and we knew that if it was the use of force, we would be in for a challenging time. We would be responsible for the fate of 25 million Iraqis.

The President understood that, and we are acting on that responsibility. We have 138,000 troops there providing security; we have provided $18 billion for reconstruction, and we're helping now the Iraqi people develop a democratic system. We're putting in place ministries that are functioning, and we're going to be moving forward to elections. And so, yes, the place was broken after the war, and we're well on our way to fixing it.

MR. RUSSERT: Let me show you the video of Nicholas Berg with the terrorists behind him, who are about to behead him. When you see that picture, and then what happened to Mr. Berg, are you satisfied with the level of outrage that exists in the Arab world, the level of outrage that has been formally announced by Arab leaders?

SECRETARY POWELL: I think that should be a higher level of outrage. Notwithstanding what people think we did at the prison, there can be no comparison to the actions of a few who are going to be punished and brought to justice as a result of what happened at Abu Ghraib. But what we saw with this horrible, horrible, horrible, horrible murder of Mr. Berg should be deplored throughout the world. It is an outrage. And the terrible thing about it is these individuals are yet to be brought to justice. They have no concept of justice. They have no concept of right. What a horrible thing for them to have done. But as the President said, we will do everything we can to bring all of these people to justice so they can pay for this horrendous crime.

MR. RUSSERT: Why this silence from the Arab world about Mr. Berg?

SECRETARY POWELL: Well, I don't know, Tim. I wish I could explain that. There ought to be outrage. There is anger in the Arab world about some of our actions, but that is no excuse for any silence on the part of any Arab leader for this kind of murder. This kind of murder is unacceptable in anyone's religion, in anybody's political system that is a political system based on any kind of understanding and respect for human rights. And so I would like to have seen a much higher level of outrage throughout the world, and especially the Arab world, for this kind of action.

MR. RUSSERT: Let me show you a picture of a United States soldier holding an Iraqi prisoner by a dog leash. That, too, was seen around the world. This morning Seymour Hersh reports, "The roots of the Abu Ghraib prison scandal lie not in the criminal inclinations of a few army reservists, but in a decision approved last year by Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld to expand a highly secret operation which had been focused on the hunt for al-Qaida to the interrogation of prisoners in Iraq. According to interviews with several past and present American intelligence officials, the Pentagon's operation known inside the intelligence community by several code words, including 'Copper Green,' encouraged physical coercion and sexual humiliation of Iraqi prisoners in an effort to generate more intelligence about the growing insurgency in Iraq." Your reaction?

SECRETARY POWELL: I haven't read the article, and I don't know anything about the substance of the article. I've just seen a quick summary of it. So I will have to yield to the Defense Department to respond. I think the initial response from the Defense Department is that there is no substance to the article. But I will have to yield to the Defense Department to handle any further comment, Tim.

MR. RUSSERT: But, Mr. Secretary, Newsweek reports that on January 25, 2002, the White House Counsel, Alberto Gonzales, wrote a memo to your Department which said, "In my judgment, this new paradigm of terrorism renders obsolete Geneva's strict limitation on questioning of enemy prisoners and renders quaint some of its provisions, the Geneva Accords." And it is reported that you hit the roof when you saw that memo to scale back, in effect, on the rules governing the treatment of prisoners. Is that accurate?

SECRETARY POWELL: I don't recall the specific memo, and I wouldn't comment on the specific memo without rereading it again. But I think I have always said that the Geneva Accord is an important standard in international law, and we have to comply with it, either by the letter, if it's appropriate to those individuals in our custody that they are really directly under the Geneva Convention, or if they're illegal noncombatants and not directly under the Convention, we should treat them, nevertheless, in a humane manner, in accordance with what is expected of us by international law and by the Geneva Convention.

MR. RUSSERT: Mr. Secretary, you met with the International Red Cross on January 15. In February, they released a report which said that, amongst the other allegations, male prisoners were forced to wear women's underwear. Prisoners were beaten by coalition forces, in one case, leading to death. The coalition forces fired on unarmed prisoners. And then in May, you and others in the Administration said you were "shocked" by the allegations about U.S. forces' treatment of Iraqi prisoners. Didn't you have a heads up on this whole problem?

SECRETARY POWELL: In January, when I met with the head of the International Committee for the Red Cross, Mr. Kellenberger, he said to me that a report would be coming and it would outline some serious problems with respect to the treatment of prisoners in Iraq. We were aware of that within the Administration. He also met with Dr. Rice and with Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz.

And then in early February, the actual report was presented to our authorities out in Baghdad, both to Ambassador Bremer's office and to General Sanchez's office. By then, of course, an investigation was already underway as a result of a soldier coming forward in the middle of January and outlining specific cases of abuse. And so an investigation was well underway by the time the report was made available in February to the command. I first saw the report in March, when it was made available, eventually, to us in Washington.

MR. RUSSERT: But you're a military man. Do you believe that national reservists would go to Baghdad with hoods or dog leashes and actually undertake that kind of activity without it being devised by someone higher up?

SECRETARY POWELL: I wouldn't have believed that any American soldiers would have done any such thing, either on their own volition, or even if someone higher up had told them. I am not aware of anybody higher up telling them. But that's why Secretary Rumsfeld has commissioned all of these inquiries to get to the bottom of it.

What these individuals did was wrong. It was against rules and regulations. It was against anything they should have learned in their home, in their community, in their upbringing. So we have a terrible collapse of order that took place in that prison cellblock.

Let's not use this to contaminate the wonderful work being done by tens of thousands of other young American soldiers in Iraq. We'll get to the bottom of this. Justice will be served. The command responded properly. Court marshals are already scheduled. And I know that the President wants to make sure that we follow the chain of accountability up, to see if there was anybody above these soldiers who knew what was going on, or in any way created a command climate in which such activities might, in some bizarre way, be found acceptable.

They were not acceptable in any way. And one soldier stood up and said, I know this is wrong, reported it to his chain of command, and the chain of command responded the very next day with the launching of an investigation that became the General Taguba investigation.

MR. RUSSERT: Finally, Mr. Secretary, in February of 2003, you placed your enormous personal credibility before the United Nations and laid out a case against Saddam Hussein citing --

(Interruption to interview.)

SECRETARY POWELL: He was still asking me questions.

Tim, I'm sorry. I lost you.

MR. RUSSERT: I'm right here, Mr. Secretary. I would hope they would put you back on camera. I don't know who did that.

SECRETARY POWELL: It's really --

MR. RUSSERT: I think that was one of your staff, Mr. Secretary. I don't think that's appropriate.

SECRETARY POWELL: Emily, get out of the way. Bring the camera back, please.

I think we're back on, Tim. Go ahead with your last question.

MR. RUSSERT: Thank you very much, sir. In February of 2003, you put your enormous personal reputation on the line before the United Nations and said that you had solid sources for the case against Saddam Hussein.

It now appears that an agent called "Curve Ball" had misled the CIA by suggesting that Saddam had trucks and trains that were delivering biological-chemical weapons. How concerned are you that some of the information you shared with the world is now inaccurate and discredited?

SECRETARY POWELL: I'm very concerned. When I made that presentation in February 2003, it was based on the best information that the Central Intelligence Agency made available to me. We studied it carefully. We looked at the sourcing in the case of the mobile trucks and trains; there was multiple sourcing for that. Unfortunately, that multiple sourcing over time has turned out to be not accurate, and so I'm deeply disappointed.

But I'm also comfortable that at the time that I made the presentation, it reflected the collective judgment, the sound judgment of the intelligence community; but it turned out that the sourcing was inaccurate and wrong, and, in some cases, deliberately misleading, and for that I am disappointed and I regret it.

MR. RUSSERT: Mr. Secretary, we thank you very much for joining us again, and sharing your views with us today.

SECRETARY POWELL: Thanks, Tim.

[end transcript]

[begin transcript]

U.S. Department of State
Office of the Spokesman
May 16, 2004
2004/553

Interview

Secretary of State Colin L. Powell
On ABC's This Week with George Stephanopoulos
May 16, 2004
Dead Sea, Jordan

(11:30 a.m. EDT)

MR. STEPHANOPOULOS: Mr. Secretary, thank you for joining us.

SECRETARY POWELL: Thank you, George.

MR. STEPHANOPOULOS: In your speech yesterday, you said you were shocked by what you saw, the pictures at Abu Ghraib. Yet, you were briefed by the Red Cross and other human rights groups several times over the last year. You said you briefed the President on them, as well. Why did it take so long to take action?

SECRETARY POWELL: We took action as soon as the information was made available to us by the Red Cross. The information went directly to our commanders, and when the specific incident of Abu Ghraib was known -- it was reported by a soldier to his chain of command -- and the very next day, General Sanchez began an investigation.

But nothing quite shocked us all the way the pictures did. We knew that something bad had happened, was being investigated, General Taguba was doing the investigation, but just the images shocked us, got the attention of the world, and outraged all of us.

MR. STEPHANOPOULOS: Senator Kerry says that, "the failure to get it earlier shows a kind of indifference," those are his words, at the very top in the Administration. How do you respond to that charge?

SECRETARY POWELL: Well, how could it be indifference when a commander hears about something and the very next day he says, this is serious, let's get an investigation going. And he takes a General out of, essentially, a command position, an important position, and says, you do nothing but work on this. And so the next month, that's what General Taguba did. And that's what you do in a situation like this, you get a report ...

MR. STEPHANOPOULOS: Before the photos?

SECRETARY POWELL: Before the photos, we -- the photos existed, and the investigators had access to those photos, and they looked at those photos, realized the seriousness of the matter. That's what General Taguba did, and he reported back to the command. When he reported back to the command, the command immediately started issuing letters of reprimand where they were appropriate, or letters of admonition, and began taking court martial action against the individuals who were directly responsible. And courts martial are going to be held this coming week.

So that shows a prompt response on the part of the command. That's how the chain of command is supposed to function.

MR. STEPHANOPOULOS: You know, a lot of us looked at these pictures and said there is no way that low-level prison guards could have ever gotten this idea to have this kind of sexual humiliation of Arab prisoners which was so deeply offensive in their culture. This had to come from higher up, didn't they?

SECRETARY POWELL: No, I don't think that's the case at all. I mean, some of the individuals who were involved said that they did not get any such instructions from higher up. Now --

MR. STEPHANOPOULOS: Many have said they did.

SECRETARY POWELL: Well, we have to find out the truth of this. And so that's why Secretary Rumsfeld has launched a number of additional investigations and another series of panel reviews to find out the truth. What we want to do, and what Secretary Rumsfeld, the President and all of us want to do, is follow this up the chain.

We know that these individuals did it. Were there circumstances in the command climate -- did the command climate suggest to them that this was acceptable behavior? But, you know, I don't sense that that is the case yet. And General Taguba says that does not appear to be the case.

But even so, young soldiers know that they have a responsibility to take care of people who are entrusted to them, such as prisoners; and there is no excuse for this kind of action. I don't see yet any indication that there was a command climate problem higher up. That's what General Taguba said. And let's find out, as a result of the rest of these investigations that are underway.

MR. STEPHANOPOULOS: Do you think there is a need for an independent investigation? Some have suggested bringing in outside human rights groups to go through all the prisons, both in Iraq, Afghanistan, around the world?

SECRETARY POWELL: I don't know that that's necessary. The ICRC has access to all of our facilities around the world. They've been to Guantanamo. They have been to our facilities in Iraq. They have been to our facilities in Afghanistan. And they have given us a steady stream of reporting.

As to their reports, those reports initially go right to the people on the scene, right to the people on the ground, for corrective action; and then, eventually, those reports make their way up to us. And as we receive them back in Washington, we saw what was being said by the ICRC, we had discussions about it among the principals, the President was kept informed of what the ICRC was saying, and a number of inquiries were started.

And we have answered a number of the questions that were raised by the ICRC. We didn't ignore the ICRC. In fact, in my conversation with the head of the ICRC, Mr. Kellenberger, week before last, he made the point to me: make sure, as you are going through this, that you let everybody know that you took action on many of the things that we raised to you. And so, I don't see right now a need for an outside --

MR. STEPHANOPOULOS: But the interrogation rules were only changed on Friday.

SECRETARY POWELL: Beg your pardon?

MR. STEPHANOPOULOS: The interrogation rules were only changed on Friday.

SECRETARY POWELL: Well, I don't know about the details of the interrogation rules. And I don't think that the specific ICRC complaints dealt with interrogation rules that they weren't aware of -- that they were or were not aware of. They commented about specific conditions, and to make sure that we were not doing anything that put these prisoners under unusual duress or in any way compromised their rights under the Geneva Convention. And that's what we were working on.

I can't comment on a specific set of interrogation rules. I'll have to yield to my friends at the Pentagon.

MR. STEPHANOPOULOS: I was in the audience yesterday when you gave your speech. It didn't go over very well with many Arabs in the audience. And I wonder if you think there is a need now for a more dramatic gesture, a razing of the Abu Ghraib prison, perhaps the resignation of Secretary Rumsfeld.

SECRETARY POWELL: We'll have to decide what's the best action. Now, everybody is outraged about Abu Ghraib. And what I did yesterday was say to the audience -- and I, frankly, have gotten a different set of reactions from people that I have spoken to -- what I said to the audience is that we were devastated. We were outraged by what we saw at that prison and that justice will be served and those responsible will be brought to justice.

But there is no question that this incident has given us a black eye throughout the world, in the Arab world. Americans are outraged at what they saw. And what I was saying to them, both as a soldier and as a diplomat, this is not the kind of behavior that we will tolerate; and it is not typical of the behavior of the tens upon tens of thousands of American soldiers who have served over many years, bringing peace to places and helping people set up democracies; and it is not typical of the tens upon tens of thousands of American soldiers who are in Iraq now, not doing things of the kind you saw at Abu Ghraib, but quite the contrary, helping the Iraqi people rebuild their sanitation system, rebuild schools and hospitals, helping them get on a path to democracy, helping them create a society that they will be proud of, that the world will be proud of.

So while we are devastated by what happened at this prison, let's keep our eye on the ball. And our eye on the balls says, let's keep moving forward toward return sovereignty to the Iraqi people. And let's give credit to those wonderful young men who are serving their nation so proudly in Iraq and who are serving the Iraqi people so proudly: our troops.

MR. STEPHANOPOULOS: Let me turn to Iraq. You said just the other day that the provisional government that takes office after June 30 will be free to kick out the U.S. troops, if they so choose. But you said you're confident that they won't. And I guess I'm wondering, how can you be so sure?

SECRETARY POWELL: I'm --

MR. STEPHANOPOULOS: The poll -- let me just finish -- the poll that was taken for the CPA showed that 82 percent of Iraqis disapprove of the occupation forces. If a new government is truly representative, won't it want those troops to leave?

SECRETARY POWELL: We'll see what the new government says, rather than what you say the new government will say. I'm quite confident that the interim government -- that will be an appointed government, it will not yet be a government that's been elected by the people. It will be coming in with ministries that are now independent, and its principal job will be to serve as a caretaker government for a period of seven or eight months until we can have elections for a National Assembly.

The security situation is such that I'm confident that these new leaders will want us to remain in order for them to serve in that caretaker capacity. They know that Iraqi forces -- the Iraqi army, or the Iraqi civil defense force, Iraqi police forces -- are just now being built. They are not yet ready to assume full responsibility for security.

And so I am confident that over the next six weeks, as we get ready for the transfer of sovereignty, we can make arrangements with the new leadership that will make it clear that it's best for us to stay. But I had to be absolutely clear in response to the questions that were being raised: are we really returning sovereignty? And the answer is, yes.

And so the polls that you cite, where they want the occupation to end, well, guess what. The political occupation is going to end when this new interim government takes over. But we're going to stay there with a powerful embassy that will be an embassy, not the government. It is the interim government that is replacing Ambassador Bremer and the CPA.

The responsibility for the running of the country will be back in Iraqi hands. We have money to help them with the reconstruction effort, and we will have troops there that will help them secure their country while they are stabilizing the country and getting ready for elections.

MR. STEPHANOPOULOS: I wonder if you could help clear up some confusion about how this government is actually going to be chosen. Ambassador Brahimi has the lead, but he'll be consulting with both the Governing Council -- Iraqi Governing Council that's in place now, and the United States. Will the United States have a veto over who is chosen?

SECRETARY POWELL: He is consulting widely. I think that, based on what we have heard from Ambassador Brahimi and the kinds of individuals he is looking at, I don't think there is going to be a problem in coming into consensus as who these individuals should be.

MR. STEPHANOPOULOS: But the U.S. does have a check off?

SECRETARY POWELL: He is consulting not just with the Governing Council; he is consulting with individuals throughout Iraq. He wants to make this a broad-based consultation. At the end of the day, we will have to see who he comes up with, and hopefully it will be a consensus. And then, when we present this government to the world, I hope it will be able to draw, and I'm confident it will be able to draw, the support of the United Nations through a resolution at the Security Council.

MR. STEPHANOPOULOS: You say there will have to be a consensus. That does suggest the United States has a veto over who is chosen.

SECRETARY POWELL: Well, I think we have some say in who should be receiving governmental authority. We now have governmental authority under the Coalition Provisional Authority. Before we yield that, we have to have some level of confidence of the individuals to whom we are giving the country back are prepared to act in the best interest of the Iraqi people.

But I don't sense there is going to be a great fight over this because the kinds of individuals that we would find acceptable -- based on the fact that they have standing in this society, they have a commitment to democracy and freedom -- these are the same kinds of individuals that Ambassador Brahimi is looking to.

MR. STEPHANOPOULOS: But then doesn't that mean that this coalition government, the provisional government will have the same problem that the IGC has now, that it -- the perception is that it's hand picked by the United States.

SECRETARY POWELL: Well, the fact of the matter is that it is going to be selected by Ambassador Brahimi in consultation with Iraqi figures, in consultation with us, in consultation with other coalition partners. We're starting on a process. We have not yet reached the point in political development in Iraq where we can have a full, free, open election where we can get the benefit of legitimacy from an election.

So we have to get started. And the way to get started is with this interim government of selected individuals who have standing in this society. What will make this government work is if we select individuals, collectively, select individuals who have acceptability with the Iraqi people. The Iraqi people will look at them and say: We trust these individuals. We know them. We believe that they will serve our interests for this caretaker period of six or seven months until we can organize ourselves for election; then we have the election at the end of the year in January 2005, a National Assembly is selected; and then that National Assembly picks a transitional government that replaces this caretaker government.

So you've got to get started somewhere, and this is a good place to get started.

MR. STEPHANOPOULOS: But many who are watching now say, let's accelerate the whole process. Senator McCain and Senator Lieberman, in this morning's Washington Post, joined a chorus of people who say the best thing to do right now, because no provisional government is going to have legitimacy, is to move quickly to elections, have elections this fall, rather than next winter.

SECRETARY POWELL: Well, say you had elections. What's the difference between this fall and next winter? We're talking about a difference of --

MR. STEPHANOPOULOS: You skipped a step.

SECRETARY POWELL: We're talking about a difference of a couple of months. But right now, we believe it is important, as people have been saying to us, it's important to get Iraqi faces in charge. And the political transition is already taking place. Eleven ministries, 11 governmental ministries have already been turned over completely to cabinet ministers.

And so, who's in charge of the foreign ministry of Iraq right now? It's Foreign Minister Zebari, not Ambassador Bremer. So the political transition is taking place. And we are, you know, torn between this desire to have full elections and the desire to get something going now. We believe that Ambassador Brahimi has come up with the right model. He came to Iraq earlier in the year. He studied it carefully. He did not believe that we could have elections of the type we'd like to see in the near-term, so let's get on with an interim government, and let that interim government work with the United Nations in setting up an election that can be held at the end of the year, or early next year.

In the meantime, let's not just keep going with an occupation authority; let's transfer sovereignty to these individuals who will be, hopefully, seen, and I'm confident will be seen, as responsible individuals who are committed to democracy and freedom, will be supportive of our continued presence there to provide the security envelope and the security umbrella that will be needed, as we organize the country for elections.

MR. STEPHANOPOULOS: You met yesterday for the first time with Abu Alaa, the Palestinian Prime Minister. After the meeting, I was speaking with the Palestinian Foreign Minister, and he said of the whole meeting, he said, "It was beautiful music, but no lyrics." And what he said he meant by that is you came with nothing new to the table. And he said what Secretary Powell should have done is come proposing a mutual ceasefire by a date certain, offering monitors to monitor that ceasefire and to help train the Iraqi force -- I mean, the Palestinian forces. Why didn't you do that?

SECRETARY POWELL: Why would I do that just because he said that's what I should do? That may have been his expectation. It was not mine nor was it our plan. It's easy to say, let's just have a mutual ceasefire. We've seen these ceasefires before that last a few weeks, and then because there is no security apparatus in place on the Palestinian side to enforce it, any terrorist can come along and blow it all up and we're right back to where we started.

So we've seen this before, and it hasn't worked effectively before. What I need from the Palestinians is for them to get themselves ready, to exercise solid political control over Gaza when it's turned back to them, and to put in place security forces that can do that. What they need to do is to wrest control from Chairman Arafat --

MR. STEPHANOPOULOS: (inaudible).

SECRETARY POWELL: -- of control of the security forces. Otherwise, then, how can they say, let's have -- let's get a mutual ceasefire right away?

MR. STEPHANOPOULOS: Who can do that?

SECRETARY POWELL: Well, who can do it? The Palestinian leaders can do it, and the leaders of the Arab world can do it by saying to Chairman Arafat that your policies have not been successful. Your leadership has not been successful in moving this process forward.

What did I bring to this meeting? What I brought to this meeting was a proposal that we have been working on with Prime Minister Sharon, and that the Israeli people, as we saw in demonstrations yesterday, as we've seen in polling in Israel, the Israeli people now want to move forward and remove the 21 settlements from Gaza and begin removing settlements from the West Bank.

Now this is the actual elimination of settlements, what people have been asking for for all these years. And what I need the Palestinians to do is get ready for that transfer, get ready to take responsibility for Gaza, and some -- and security responsibilities in Gaza, and get ready to reengage in the roadmap so that we can get toward those final status issues that are so important and which must be mutually agreed upon between the parties.

So it's easy to wish for: let's have a ceasefire, and let's monitor the ceasefire, and then everything will be well, we can go onto the roadmap. What we are presenting instead is an opportunity to get going on the actual removal of settlements. And this is an opportunity that I think should not be lost.

MR. STEPHANOPOULOS: One final --

SECRETARY POWELL: We're waiting for Prime Minister Sharon to figure out how to move forward with his vision, but so far he has not abandoned his vision of moving out of Gaza and moving out of some of the settlements in the West Bank as a way of getting the process started again.

MR. STEPHANOPOULOS: One final question on that. If Prime Minister Sharon does pull out of Gaza, would he be justified in deporting Yasser Arafat to Gaza?

SECRETARY POWELL: I don't know that that's an issue on the table right now. And what I think we have to do is take it one step at a time. It is a major breakthrough to have an Israeli Prime Minister, particularly one who was so instrumental in the creation of the settlements throughout Gaza and the West Bank, to now say it is time to evacuate these settlements in Gaza, think about evacuating, first, for openers, four settlements in the West Bank.

Let's pocket that. Let's use that. Let's use that as a way of getting into the roadmap. Let's use that as a way of moving forward and not keep wishing for something that isn't there or hoping that some other magic bullet will come along, like a ceasefire, and everything will be well.

MR. STEPHANOPOULOS: Secretary Powell, thank you very much.

SECRETARY POWELL: Thank you, George.

(end transcript)

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