Secretary Of State Colin L. Powell Briefing for the Press Aboard Aircraft

U.S. DEPARTMENT OF STATE
Office of the Spokesman

For Immediate Release
February 27, 2001


En Route Brussels
(Brussels, Belgium)
February 26, 2001

SECRETARY POWELL: We've completed the Middle East portion of the trip,
and I'm very pleased with it. I continued to have good conversations
today with colleagues in Kuwait and Saudi Arabia, and what I believe
was a very, very fine meeting with President Asad in Damascus. We
spoke for an hour. It was frank, direct, open, candid. He sounded
very much engaged, and we concentrated principally on the Middle East
peace process. I reviewed for him the situation as I saw it, and you
all have heard me speak about this.

We also talked a bit about the Syrian track. In our conversation we
both, I think I can fairly say, came to the conclusion that there is no
reason for the two tracks to not be tracks, where nothing happens until
something else happens. It's possible if we get further down the road
and get negotiations going again, they might go in parallel. It does
not mean that they both go at the same rate and both reach the same
destination at the same time. But if we can get the situation
stabilized, why not start both sets going again? Of course, this is
for the parties to decide, not for me; but it was a suggestion I made,
and I was pleased that the President seemed to respond favorably to it.

But understand what I said now. Not that there are parallel railroad
tracks reaching the same station at the same time, but it need not be
that nothing happens until one or the other is done. That is the point
I was making.

We talked quite extensively about Iraq. As you know, Syria has had a
position for some time that said we should modify the sanctions regime;
they've been on the record for some time now. We talked about that,
and I told him that we were exploring ideas along those lines, and I've
been talking to everybody in the region about that and will be spending
more time talking to some of my colleagues in Brussels about it, and
then would report to the President. In my discussion with President
Bashar (Asad), I made the point, as I did yesterday with King Abdullah
and with the Saudis today, that as part of such a strategy if we go
forward, you really have to do something about the front-line states
and Hussein's ability to ship things out that might not be under UN
control.

Candidly , we then discussed the Iraqi-Syrian pipeline. Of course, as
you know, the Syrians want to stay within the context of the UN
Security Council resolutions to play their role and they have been on
record with that. The President said to me in response to my query
that it is their plan to bring that pipeline, and what is going through
that pipeline and the revenues generated in that pipeline, to be under
the same kind of control as other elements of the sanctions regime. I
found that to be a very important statement on his part, and we have
passed that information to President Bush; he has been informed of
that, and he also was pleased.

So I'm very satisfied with the trip from that standpoint in that I'm
getting a consistent message as I go through the region. We haven't
decided a thing; there are still a lot of things we have to look at.
We have to talk to people who will see this as "Aha; if you move in
this direction, aren't you giving up something, aren't you letting him
loose?" The message I've consistently heard is that overdoing it with
the sanctions gives him a tool that he is using against us and really
is not weakening him. It's not that he gets any more money; it's that
he now can use more of that money to benefit more of his people under
UN control. So I still view that if we move in this direction, as not
weakening but in effect restructuring them in a more sensible way that
keeps us pointed at the target I've been talking about for the past
several days and several weeks: weapons of mass destruction, not the
Iraqi people.

That was a message that I found resonated in the region and it's the
message I will be carrying back to Washington to discuss with the
President, Dr. Rice, the Vice President, the Secretary of Defense, and
others. I'm sure I'll have conversations with people on the Hill about
it. So this is part of the instruction I had from President Bush: go
out and consult, come back and tell me what you found out.

Q: You have described to us how you would modify the sanctions so that
they would not hurt the Iraqi people as much, but we haven't understood
how you would modify the sanctions to tighten the controls over imports
of stuff that could be used to make weapons of mass destruction. How
will you tighten those?

SECRETARY POWELL: As part of this, as we move forward, we get
agreement and we make a judgment and frankly, if we also get the
support of the Arab League when they meet in two weeks' time --there is
a lot more work to be done, and I have people working on this.

As to how would we modify the list, what additional controls should we
put on the money in the escrow account, how should it be monitored in a
more effective way, what more work should we do with the front-line
states, I think it gives us a stronger position to go to nations that
might still be tempted to send in prohibited weapons or prohibited
materials when we can give them a unified position that says look, we
have all decided this is not the thing to do and there will be
consequences of such behavior.

Right now the consequences have less currency because things are in a
state of, I must say, disarray. I think you all would agree with that.
I've been reading editorial after editorial. I arrived on the 21st of
January to discover cables coming at me from our Ambassadors saying we
have to do something. This is that something if we move in that
direction. What it does, I think, is gives a much stronger position
with which to deal with the financial controls, deal with the leakage,
and deal with the question you raised about people who have chosen to
put in bad things. But there's a lot more work to be done at a very
detailed level.

I also want to report all this to Secretary General Annan so that he
can take it to the Perm 5 and others. Maybe I'll have to go back to New
York and meet with them at some point. But as I say, please see this
for what it is: one quick trip for consultations - how long have we
been on the road; three days, or three weeks? I can't remember - we've
only been at this seriously for three days and this is where we are.
There will be a lot of people who want to hear more. They will want to
hear why this isn't weakening. The charges will come that it is
weakening. I understand that.

Q: Would you go into dual-use a little bit? We were told there may be
some easing of dual-use; we don't have many examples: water pump,
refrigeration. Are you willing to frankly begin asking very candidly
"are you willing to risk a possible military application for the sake
of easing the pressure on the people?"

SECRETARY POWELL: That's a judgment call by the Committee that is
currently led by Norway that we'll have to make on every one of these
items. If something is clearly high-risk dual-use - and I'm fudging
with you now a little bit because I don't know. A water pump? I don't
know what the committee would say. My own inclination was, a water
pump, that's pretty hard to say. It's so useful for military purposes,
but I'm not going to let a water pump not go to a well to fill up water
to help a village that might be having cholera or other kinds of
epidemics. Eggs: I've heard eggs used as an example; yes, because you
can do certain things with eggs that can create a biological weapon.
And we also have to face the clear reality that a lot of these items,
no matter what kind of regime you have - you know, they've been known
to smuggle in Mesapotamia, and they've been doing so for a couple of
thousand years.

But what is interesting is that with the regime that has been in place
for the past ten years, I think a pretty good job has been done of
keeping him from breaking out and suddenly showing up one day and
saying "look what I got." He hasn't been able to do that. So even
though there are these complications, and they'll have to work their
way through the dual-use question, I have reason to believe that when
you're able to keep a box as tightly closed as the box we have for the
last ten years, without receiving on our shoulders all the baggage that
goes with it that frankly has been causing the whole thing to start to
unravel.

Q: Can I ask you about the Syrian pipeline? Did President Asad agree
to stop selling or allowing oil to go through the pipeline immediately?
Was this a deal that - or did he say he was going to wait until after
the new sanctions policy?

SECRETARY POWELL: In this first meeting, I got the commitment I
described. We didn't get into details as to what the pipeline's being
used for now - is it being used for testing or more, and exactly how to
operationalize this.

As you know, the controls come up for decision every six months, so
we'll have to talk to the Syrians to see how they want to handle it.
Do they want to move right away? Do they want to wait for the June
review period? But I can tell you this: I have high confidence that
that will work out because we went back to this point with the
President three times - I did not want to leave - and three times
there was solemn agreement on what I just said to you. So I think the
Syrians are serious about this, but of course the ultimate test of
seriousness is when we see something happen. But I don't think I would
have gotten that kind of assurance from that level three times unless
they were serious. But we will test their seriousness.

Q: A senior official told us all the information the US has makes
them believe it's true that they are importing enough to sell more than
they can produce themselves. Did you hear anything to make you believe
they weren't doing that, even though you didn't press him on it?

SECRETARY POWELL: I heard nothing because we did not get into that
detail as to what might be in the pipeline. I elected that we should
take one thing at a time, and I took up one thing, got a pretty good
response; and if that response is acted on, then your question becomes
moot.

Not to dodge you, but I'm giving you a perfect answer because if I
don't get the first step I just described, then whatever is in there
just keeps going.

....

Q: Can I just follow up on this question of dual-use. Isn't
ultimately the decision that the US is facing whether or not to
effectively raise the threshold for what constitutes dual use if you're
hoping to free up some of these contracts?

SECRETARY POWELL: The United States has been very, very strict in the
application process. I think you all know the number of holds we have
are a factor of four or five times higher than the second largest
number of holds and in some cases ten times higher than what other
countries are holding, using the same standards.

So there has to be a way to get through that. I don't want to get
into the details because I'm not expert enough to do it and I don't
want to mislead you; and I also want to return to the point that we're
putting in place a concept to see whether it is going to be approved.
The President has made no decision on any of this. I have not had a
chance to brief him. For some reason he's very busy this evening
working on some speech he has to give tomorrow night, and so he did
give this information, he's very pleased with it. On Wednesday, I hope
I'll be able to find time to speak to the President.

....

Q: In return for the modifications in sanctions which you're
proposing, is there anything the Iraqis have to do in exchange?

SECRETARY POWELL: : I haven't proposed quite anything yet, but we're
studying it.

Q: You're considering - is there anything the Iraqis have to do in
exchange? I mean, for example, is 1284 still valid, do they have to
let the inspectors in before any new regime comes into effect.

SECRETARY POWELL: : I'm not going to raise anything with them, they're
at the UN today speaking to Mr. Annan, so perhaps this is all for
naught, perhaps they will say something to Mr. Annan that will solve
the problem. I think that most unlikely.

So we're still within the context of 1284, and I think I laid out to
you in one of our conversations a model that says here we are, we're
not after the Iraqi people, this is a concept, this is how we're going
to go forward, everybody agrees to it. The way to get out of this box
is to do what you're supposed to do, and the only way for us to know
whether you are or not is to let the inspectors back in. But I don't
think the international coalition and all the others who I hope
willcome together on this, should be in the position of begging the
Iraqis to get out of the box that I hope we'll be able to put them in.

....

Q: Can I just ask you, how will it work with these smarter sanctions
when the, for instance, air restrictions are lifted, and visa
restrictions, how do you make sure that things aren't getting across
the border that shouldn't be? You know, you can have various border
crossings, and there's a lot of ground to cover.

SECRETARY POWELL: : That's an essential part of this whole concept, if
we can get everybody on the sheet of music, everybody will have
responsibilities. Some will pay a financial price to come into line,
and we may have to help them with that price. We have found some very
interesting ideas, or we've come up with some interesting ideas in the
last few days. They want to comply. In some cases, it's economically
difficult for them to do so, and we've come up with some ideas that
will help them, but as I think I've also mentioned in our previous
conversations that you have to control the front-line access. But you
know, even with all the slop and the system and with all the smuggling,
I suspect that has only produced 10 or 15 percent over the amount that
he gets from the UN anyway, through the UN. And, it's not as if he is
cash poor, I mean, it's just a way...

Q: (Inaudible) stop making more weapons and fissile material and
things that would do exactly what you are trying to keep from
happening.

SECRETARY POWELL: It is a problem, but it's not a new problem. It's
a problem that will I think always exists. Fissile material does not
come in tons, it comes in small packages. And we just have to
understand the nature of the world and not expect that you can stop
every single thing that someone has the money to go out and look for.
The best answer to your question is to get all of us working together
again so that those nations that have control of fissile material and
who produce fissile material make sure they keep the best control of
that so that it never goes on the marketplace. And that now takes me
to a another part of our new strategy and that is talking about
nonproliferation all the time. And I think you heard me when I talked
about, to show you how the stuff all links together, is when I talk
about missile defense, I always talk about offensive weapons and
nonproliferation. If you don't want to worry about missile defense and
you don't want us to worry about missile defense, let's all work
together to make sure that these nations we're worried about never get
access to the kinds of material they need to create these weapons. So
nonproliferation becomes a part of it. So if we start out on this
track we've been talking about, on sanctions in Iraq, and get this
coalition back together, get us all talking together, the same sheet of
music, and get center stage where the problem is - the problem is not
with the United States having nuclear weapons or the Soviet Union
having nuclear weapons, the problem is radical, irresponsible regimes
getting nuclear weapons, and we could do something about that by never
giving them access to the materials needed to develop those warheads,
and the materials and technology needed to send those warheads on a
missile.