U.S. strategy for rebuilding Iraq similar to that in postwar Europe, Japan

Secretary of State Colin Powell said the Iraqi Governing Council will tell the United States and other coalition members when it is ready to run the country, and coalition forces need to remain in Iraq until that time.

Speaking in a September 10 interview with Hafiz Al-Mirazi of the Al Jazeera satellite network, Powell said it would be irresponsible to leave before the coalition has helped the Iraqi people put in place a functioning government, constitution and free elections. If it did so, said Powell, "we would be leaving total chaos."

Powell acknowledged a questioning of U.S. motives on the part of Al Jazeera's Arabic speaking audience, but said U.S. motives are clear. "[W]e have liberated the people of Iraq; we are giving their country back to them; we will do it as quickly as possible," he said.

"I hope that over time, as all of your viewers and all of your listeners see how this unfolds, they will realize that America is the same America that liberated Europe, that liberated Japan, and it is our goal not to seize anyone's land or to seize anyone's resources, especially oil, but to create partners," Powell said.

The secretary of state called upon the international community, including Arab countries, to help with the reconstruction "to the maximum extent possible," because, he said, "we are all now coming together to help an Arab nation and therefore this is the time for generosity."

Powell said the United States has put forward its draft United Nations resolution to broaden the mandate of a multinational force in Iraq, not "because we are desperate for help."

He said other countries desired more of a voice in decisions being made, as well as sharing responsibility and accountability. "I think we can find language for a resolution that will deal with that concern and give everybody an opportunity to play a responsible role," Powell said.

Turning to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, the secretary again called upon Palestinian Prime Minister-designee Ahmed Qureia to confront violent extremist groups such as Hamas.

"You cannot have organizations such as this within a state that is seeking to live in peace with its neighbor. And so, sooner or later, these organizations will have to be dealt with by whoever the prime minister is of the Palestinian people," he said.

Powell said the Bush administration is continuing to engage Israel on a freeze of Jewish settlements in the occupied West Bank and Gaza, as well as the security fence it is building. The road map for peace "is still there," Powell said. "It is waiting to be used."

The secretary added, however, that it was very difficult to get the Israeli government to meet its obligations under the road map "when Hamas says ‘we don't care what's going on,'" and still believes "it is an acceptable political tool to go blow up a bus that is loaded with women and children."

Following is the transcript of Secretary Powell's interview with Al Jazeera:

(begin transcript)

U.S. DEPARTMENT OF STATE
Office of the Spokesman
September 11, 2003

Interview
Secretary of State Colin L. Powell
By Hafiz Al-Mirazi of Al Jazeera
September 10, 2003
Washington, D.C.

MR. AL-MIRAZI: Let me start first, our first interview here in this very room -- it was two years ago, one week after 9/11. At that time, the U.S. enjoyed the sympathy of the whole world. Now, it seems that the U.S., at least for some people, seems to be isolated and the foreign policy of the U.S. is questioned not only abroad, but even domestically, as we heard from Democratic leader Gephardt or Republican figure like Gingrich.

What is your answer to that?

SECRETARY POWELL: Our foreign policy is consistent over time. We look for friends. We look for partners. We have a strategy that focuses on helping people in need. We have demonstrated that over the last two years with the work we have done to get more money for developing nations that are need, for solving the problems of HIV/AIDS and other diseases around the world.

We have done a lot with respect to many of our allies, with good relations with China and with Africa, and with even Europe, even though we get complaints about some of the problems we have with Europe. But by and large, you know, many European nations, most European nations, have joined us in our coalition activities in the war against terrorism, as well as the specific war in Iraq. So I think we have demonstrated that we are a nation of principle.

Now, we also know that because of the conflict in Iraq and because of the Middle East peace process and the difficulties we have had keeping that process on track, people question the United States' motives. But our motives are clear: we have liberated the people of Iraq; we are giving their country back to them; we will do it as quickly as possible.

The President of the United States went to the American people earlier this week and asked for $87 billion for Iraq and Afghanistan, two places that, just two years ago, were being led by dictatorial regimes that made a mockery of the faith of Islam. Now, we are slowly but surely putting those countries back into the hands of elected, responsible leaders, leaders chosen by the people.

I hope that over time, as all of your viewers and all of your listeners see how this unfolds, they will realize that America is the same America that liberated Europe, that liberated Japan, and it is our goal not to seize anyone's land or to seize anyone's resources, especially oil, but to create partners. I hope that your viewers will now see that in Baghdad there is no dictator who oppresses his own people, who fills mass graves, who had weapons of mass destruction, who invaded his neighbors, who threatened his neighbors. That's gone.

You are skeptical, I know. Your viewers are skeptical about what we are doing. But I can assure you that our purpose is noble, and that is to give the Iraqis a better life.

Are there disagreements within the American political system? There are always disagreements within the American political system, especially as you approach an election year.

MR. AL-MIRAZI: So you consider it's politically motivated when we hear someone like Gephardt saying it's a failure?

SECRETARY POWELL: Well, I respect Mr. Gephardt, but he is running for president against President Bush, so there's always some politics associated with it. But it's not all politics. There are legitimate questions that members of our Congress and other influential people in the United States are asking the government about what we are doing. This is part of our democratic process. We are an open nation with an open political system, and people are free to ask questions in order to educate the American people as to what we are doing.

The American people, by a fairly wide majority, a wide margin, are supportive of the President and the President's policies. They are proud of the fact that we have liberated Iraq and now we are going to help the Iraqi people. That is why I think the Congress will appropriate this money, which will allow our military to continue to do their fine job, but provide billions and billions of dollars to help the Iraqi people -- $20 billion of assistance. It is not going into the pockets of anyone to build a palace. It is going to build sewer systems, highways, improve the electrical system, improve the health care system.

MR. AL-MIRAZI: But the bulk of it is military spending.

SECRETARY POWELL: Well, we have a military force there that has to be supported, and it has to be supported in a way that will allow it to finish its mission. Its mission is not to oppress. Its mission is to secure the country, get rid of these Fedayeen and Baath Party remnants that are still there, and keep terrorists from finding a home.

Your viewers should welcome this kind of activity. Your viewers should be very distressed that there are old Baath Party members and Fedayeen, who want to do what? They want to bring back Saddam Hussein. They want to bring back a dictator. They want to bring back somebody who put thousands and thousands and thousands of Muslims into mass graves. Is that what your viewers want? No.

MR. AL-MIRAZI: But our viewers, Secretary Powell, are asking the same question that even people are asking here of the administration, in the U.S. or in Europe, is the exit strategy. When is that "legal" occupation going to end? And we are not getting firm answers.

SECRETARY POWELL: The answer is very firm. As fast as we can make it happen. The United States has no desire to remain. Why would we want to remain? It's costing us a great deal of money, it's tying down a large number of our troops, and we pay a political price as well as an economic price. So there is no desire on our part.

There is an assumption that the United States wants to stay very, very long. No, we don't. We want to leave as quickly as possible. But we can't leave the country until the country is ready to assume responsibility for the country. That is why we have moved rapidly to put in place a Governing Council. We asked the Governing Council to appoint a cabinet. They have appointed a cabinet of ministers. We will now start to give responsibility to those ministers.

I'm very pleased that the Minister of Foreign Affairs, my new colleague, who I called and spoke to the other day and welcomed him, Mr. Zabari, he went to Cairo, he was accepted by the Arab League to represent Iraq for one year on an interim basis. This shows how we are trying to get more and more Iraqis into the game.

And we are now hard at work to create an Iraqi national army, an Iraqi police force, Iraqi officials in every way possible -- not for the purpose of occupying and controlling them, but for the purpose of turning the country over to them.

But it would be irresponsible of us to leave before we have helped the Iraqis put in place the institutions of government -- ministries, a constitution and free elections.

MR. AL-MIRAZI: Then why not finish the job? Why are you turning to the UN right now -- you would like the UN to get involved but on your own terms?

SECRETARY POWELL: We have always wanted the UN to be involved. The President has said for months that the UN should play a vital role. We don't want to have a monopoly on the reconstruction effort. We would like the whole world to join in this effort. And one way to do that is to invite the UN to play a vital role.

And so the resolution we have put forward was not done because we are desperate for help, but it was a way of broadening the mandate of a multinational force and of the political reconstruction effort to get more countries to be involved. We see that there is a very vital role for the UN to play, and this resolution invites them to do more.

At the same time, we have to realize that it is still the Coalition Provisional Authority that has to be the government until such time as we are prepared to turn it over to the Iraqis themselves. And the UN can help. Many, many other institutions can help. The Arab League can help. The Organization of the Islamic Conference can help. There is a role for everyone to play -- the European Union. I will be traveling a lot in the near future to help bring all of the international community together.

The one thing that everybody in the international community agrees with -- France, Germany, Russia, China, the United States, all the other members of the Security Council, all the members of the Arab League -- is that we want to transfer sovereignty for Iraq from the Coalition Provisional Authority to the Iraqis as fast as we can, but we must do it in a responsible way.

Now, you say, "Well, when?" Well, you know what? We have asked the Iraqi Governing Council to tell us when they think they would be ready to take it over.

MR. AL-MIRAZI: Secretary Powell, you're going to Geneva, of course, and you're going to discuss these issues. And the French-German proposal, as well as the Russian, they would like more power to the representative of the UN, and not to leave Ambassador Bremer to be the final veto-holder, even on the decisions of the interim council of the Iraqi leaders.

SECRETARY POWELL: Well, when we had the war and we assumed responsibility for the country, we knew that under international law we had to become the government. That is what happens at the end of a conflict when the old government has been removed. So the regime was changed and we assumed the responsibility for the country.

It is a responsibility we want to pass off as quickly as we can. But suggestions that somehow it can be done tomorrow, and all we have to do is get up tomorrow morning and find an Iraqi who is passing by and give him the government and say, "You're now in charge and Ambassador Bremer and the American Army are leaving," that's not an acceptable solution. Nobody would want that because we would be leaving total chaos.

To say -- also, another alternative that I have heard is, "Well, just turn it all over to the UN, and Ambassador Bremer, the Coalition Provision Authority and no one else has a role to play." That is, you know, interesting to some, but it isn't practical. Ambassador Bremer represents the Coalition Provisional Authority, is the government. And we also are providing all the funding that is necessary. And we also have the military forces that are necessary now to stabilize the country.

And so the UN has a role to play, but to think that the UN could suddenly take this all over, to the exclusion of the Coalition Provisional Authority, is not realistic. It would not work. It's not practical. Nor have I heard anybody in the UN say that that's what they want to do.

What I'm hearing coming out of people is we want to have more of a say, more of a voice in decisions that are being made, and in sharing responsibility and accountability. I think we can find language for a resolution that will deal with that concern and give everybody an opportunity to play a responsible role.

And there's no disagreement in my government on this. I said it yesterday in testimony. Deputy Secretary Wolfowitz said so. Mr. Rumsfeld has said so. The President has said so.

MR. AL-MIRAZI: You have met the Prime Minister of Kuwait and you are planning, of course, to contact other Arab leaders. Is there a specific amount or contribution that you expect especially from the Gulf States in helping Iraq?

SECRETARY POWELL: I hope they will be as generous as they can. We don't have a specific amount in mind yet, but the need is great. The United States is going to ask its Congress for a great deal of money, and it would seem to me that Arab nations and those with the ability to contribute should contribute to the maximum extent possible, because we are all now coming together to help an Arab nation and therefore this is the time for generosity.

In my consultations I am sure, sooner or later, we will get to specific amounts that might be possible. And as you know, we are going to have a conference in Madrid, in Spain, toward the end of October to deal with all of us.

MR. AL-MIRAZI: Before I leave Iraq, Iraq has been linked somehow in the speeches of Washington and the rhetoric with 9/11, that somehow we did go to Iraq because of 9/11. How do you see that, especially that we no longer hear the words "weapons of mass destruction"? We didn't hear it from President Bush in his speech and statement to the American people and we don't hear that lately in Washington.

SECRETARY POWELL: Weapons of mass destruction are certainly still on the table, still an issue, and Mr. David Kay is hard at work with his team of specialists and we expect to have an interim report from him in the not too distant future. I think you will see that our concern with respect to weapons of mass destruction were well founded.

I don't think we have said in any way that we can see a direct connection between Baghdad and 9/11. What we are saying now, however, is that in the post-conflict period, as we try to stabilize the country and allow the Iraqi people to take over, there are a lot of people who are trying to, once again, put Iraq from the column of liberation back into the column of dictatorship, the column of terror.

So not only do we see former members of the regime causing trouble, but we are now starting to see terrorists come into Iraq who could represent, and we are quite confident represent al-Qaida elements, Ansar al-Islam and other terrorist organizations. They are not coming to help with the reconstruction. They are not coming to fix the sewer systems. They are not coming to fix the electrical system. They are coming to destroy. They are coming to practice terror of a kind that should be against all standards of decency throughout the world, and especially throughout the Arab and Muslim worlds.

MR. AL-MIRAZI: Can I move to the Middle East, to the Arab-Israeli conflict or the Palestinian-Israeli one? You have said, warned against getting close to a cliff, and the whole peace process would -- I mean, in danger of collapsing. What is the U.S. trying or doing to help it, especially that the new Prime Minister is waiting for guarantees that Washington would help him, and not to let him down, as Abu Mazen did feel after he resigned?

SECRETARY POWELL: I don't think we let Mr. Abu Mazen down. I think we worked very hard to try to make his administration successful. And after Aqaba, the President of the United States went to Aqaba, went to Sharm el-Sheikh, and put the full weight of his office behind the efforts of Mr. Abu Mazen. So that wasn't undercutting him.

And we saw some initial progress. Gaza and Bethlehem were turned over. There was some promise with respect to removing outposts. We put down clear lines of responsibility with respect to settlement activity. And what we asked from the Palestinian side, number one, above all, is that we had to stop terror. Now, Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad and other organizations declared a ceasefire. We said to the Palestinian leadership a ceasefire alone isn't enough because as long as the capability exists within Hamas and these other organizations to go back to terror, then that threat, that danger, will always be there, so you need to deal with this, you need to go after them.

Mr. Abbas and members of his cabinet said they didn't feel strong enough to do this, and they thought they had time. But they didn't have time. Terror broke out again and Hamas went back to its old behavior. So did the other organizations. That's what makes it impossible. You cannot have organizations such as this within a state that is seeking to live in peace with its neighbor. And so, sooner or later, these organizations will have to be dealt with by whoever the Prime Minister is of the Palestinian people.

Now, what I hope is different this time around is that the new Prime Minister will have access under his control to all of the security forces so that we have all of the security forces -- military, police, paramilitary -- all under one leader with the determination to stop terror, the kind of terror that we saw the other day that then leads to reciprocal actions -- reprisals, rather -- on the part of Israel -- the kind of terror that kills many innocent people, but, at the same time, kills the dreams of the Palestinian people.

I have worked hard for two and a half years, through many iterations -- the Mitchell plan, the Tenet plan, and now the roadmap. The roadmap is still there, but we're not moving on it right now. But it is still there. It is still there. It is waiting to be used. We are prepared to support the new Prime Minister, but the new Prime Minister has to communicate to us, to the world, what he is prepared to do with respect to the security and terror issues. Will he have the necessary political power, authority and independence? Will he have all of the security forces gathered under his control? Will they be committed to do something about terror?

MR. AL-MIRAZI: How about Israel, Mr. Secretary?

SECRETARY POWELL: Israel --

MR. AL-MIRAZI: Time is running out, but how about Israel's (inaudible)? Abu Mazen said Washington could not prevent the provocation coming out of Israel. We heard you and some people were even hurt when they heard you talking about that you don't like Israelis to target or to kill or to injure children in order to get a Hamas leader or someone because you were afraid that children would be a Hamas killer in the future.

SECRETARY POWELL: That's still my concern.

MR. AL-MIRAZI: And is that the only thing that you're against, just because they would be Hamas killers?

SECRETARY POWELL: No, no, no. We have --

MR. AL-MIRAZI: Is there any moral thing in killing children?

SECRETARY POWELL: But, of course, you know the answer to that question. We believe that there has to be a settlement freeze, that the unauthorized outposts must go, that there are problems with the fence that is being put up, and we are prepared to -- we are engaging Israel on all of these issues.

Israel undertook obligations under the roadmap and we are going to press Israel to meet its obligations. But you need to understand this clearly and your viewers need to understand this clearly: It is very difficult for us to get these obligations met or dealt with in the presence of continuing acts of terror on the part of Hamas and other organizations. It is impossible for the Israeli Government to meet their obligations to us on such things as assassinations and other steps that we want them to take when Hamas says we don't care what's going on, we still believe it is an acceptable political tool to go blow up a bus that is loaded with women and children.

That kind of activity has to stop. The Palestinian people have to make a decision, and the new Palestinian leadership has to make a decision, whether they will bring all force of arms under the control of the Palestinian government. Prime Minister Abbas said that's what he wanted to do, because you cannot have a responsible government that tolerates organizations within the community that have the wherewithal to conduct terrorist acts.

And the Palestinian people, I hope with this new Prime Minister, will give him their support, give him the authority necessary to end this kind of terrorist activity. If that is brought under control, if that is ended, then all sorts of options are opened and we are empowered, in turn, to place greater demands on the Israeli side to meet its obligations.

MR. AL-MIRAZI: Mr. Secretary, thank you very much.

SECRETARY POWELL: You're welcome.

(end transcript)

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