U.S. DEPARTMENT OF STATE
Office of the Spokesman
For Immediate Release
February 5, 2001INTERVIEW OF
SECRETARY OF STATE COLIN L. POWELL
BY SAM DONALDSON AND COKIE ROBERTS
OF ABC'S "THIS WEEK"February 4, 2001
Washington, D.C.MR. DONALDSON: All right. While we are talking about President Bush's
commitments, let's move now to Iraq and Saddam Hussein. Unfinished
business, you have said. And President Bush said, "No one had
envisioned Saddam - at least at that point in history - no one
envisioned him still standing. It is time to finish the task."And he also said, "And if I found in any way, shape or form that he was
developing weapons of mass destruction, I'd take him out", meaning take
out the weapons of mass destruction.First, do you think he has been developing weapons of mass destruction?
Do you have any evidence?SECRETARY POWELL: Well, we have to assume that he has never lost his
goal or gone away from his goal of developing such weapons. And that
is unfortunate because, as long as he pursues that goal, the United
Nations has to remain engaged. He made a commitment at the end of the
Gulf War that he would not develop these weapons and he would
demonstrate to the international community that he was not doing so.
He has failed to meet those obligations.And as a result, the people of the region are threatened; the children
of the region are threatened by Saddam Hussein and his potential
possession of these kinds of weapons. And so I think the UN has to
remain steadfast and demand that he do what he said he was going to do.We should find a way to do this that does not hurt the Iraqi people.
The Iraqi people are not suffering as a result of what the UN is doing;
they are suffering as a result of what Saddam Hussein is doing. He has
got more money available to him now through the Oil-for-Food program
than he ever had before the Gulf War. If he would use that money
properly, if he would use it to educate children, if he would use it
take care of the health needs of the Iraqi children, there would be no
problem. But instead, he continues to find ways to direct this money
into inappropriate purchases.MR. DONALDSON: What you seem to be suggesting to me that, at the
moment, you don't have enough evidence to believe that you should
follow through on President Bush's words to take out those weapons.SECRETARY POWELL: We reserve the right to use whatever means may be
necessary if we had a specific set of targets, or something occurred to
us, or we found something that we think would be appropriate to go
after.MR. DONALDSON: All right. The Iraqi National Congress, which is a
group outside of Iraq, which wants to overthrow Saddam Hussein, has now
gotten a license to use $4 million of US Government funds in its work.
And it wants two other licenses: one it has applied for and one it
hasn't.Should the other two licenses to step up its efforts inside of Iraq be
granted?SECRETARY POWELL: Well, we will have to see. I will have to take a
look at those licenses. The license that they just received from the
Treasury Department was in response to a request that has been made
during the previous administration, and it is a very, very solid
request, and nothing wrong with what they are getting ready to do.But we will examine everything they are planning to do in light of our
overall policy with respect to Iraq. But I'm not here today to say
what we might or might not do in a particular request, especially one
that has not yet been made.MR. DONALDSON: I don't want to beat around the bush. It's widely held
that you and Secretary Rumsfeld are on opposite sides to some extent of
this question. That he wants to be much more aggressive in trying to
oust Saddam Hussein, and you want to go a little slower.What's the fact?
SECRETARY POWELL: The facts are that we are in the process of
discussing what our policy with respect to Iraq should be, and there is
no disagreement at this point that I am aware of between Secretary
Rumsfeld and myself.