Powell Interviewed on Iraq, Haiti and Public Diplomacy

(October 30 Interview with "Talk Radio") (1820)





Secretary of State Colin Powell says the United States wants to work


within an international framework to eliminate the threat posed by


Iraqi's non-compliance with U.N. resolutions.





Speaking October 30 on "Talk Radio," a nationally syndicated radio


program, Powell said, "I'm hopeful that we'll find a solution that


will allow the United Nations to act with a strong consensus." He


indicated that the diplomatic discussions surrounding a new U.N.


resolution on Iraq are expected to continue into early November.





Powell cautioned, however, that "the danger is so great," that if the


United Nations does not confront Iraq's refusal to end its prohibited


weapons programs, President Bush is prepared to act with "likeminded"


nations.





Asked about U.S. government efforts to ensure an accurate picture of


American society reaches countries like Saudi Arabia, Powell


underscored the continuing importance of people-to-people engagement.





Turning to Haiti, Powell told "Talk Radio" that United States wants to


ensure needed aid reaches people in Haiti. He said the United States


has provided Haiti with approximately $400 million in aid over the


past six years.





However, he also noted that the United States and international


financial lending institutions are deeply concerned with the Haitian


government's slow pace of democratic reform over the past eight years.





"We have to hold the Haitian government to appropriate standards of


democracy and representative government, and we have held up some of


the aid trying to achieve that purpose," Powell said.





Following is the transcript of Powell's October interview with


American "Talk Radio."





(begin transcript)





U.S. DEPARTMENT OF STATE


Office of the Spokesman





October 30, 2002





INTERVIEW





Secretary of State Colin L. Powell


By Ellen Ratner of Talk Radio News





October 30, 2002


Washington, D.C.





(1:10 p.m. EST)





QUESTION: Thank you so much for doing the interview with us. You know,


there is a lot of talk right now about the United Nations and Iraq.


I'm sure you knew I was going to ask you this. But are we risking more


right now, perhaps, going without United Nations approval? Would we


risk so many people being angry with us, doing it not unilaterally,


but multinationally, without the United Nations?





SECRETARY POWELL: Well, the President believes, and I certainly


believe, that we would be better served to deal with this problem with


the United Nations, multilaterally, and that's why the President took


the problem to the United Nations; and really, it's a United Nations


problem to begin with. These are United Nations resolutions that Iraq


has violated for these many years, and so the United Nations should


act.





And I am, I'm hopeful that we'll find a solution that will allow the


United Nations to act with a strong consensus, and that's what we're


working on, and we should see in the next several days, or I'd say in


no more than a week, whether or not that is going to be possible.





But the President also believes that this problem has to be dealt


with, and if the United Nations won't deal with it, then the United


States, with other likeminded nations, may have to deal with it. We


would prefer not to go that route, but the danger is so great, with


respect to Saddam Hussein having weapons of mass destruction, and


perhaps even terrorists getting hold of such weapons, that it is time


for the international community to act, and if it doesn't act, the


President is prepared to act with likeminded nations.





QUESTION: Recently, we took a bunch of talk show hosts to Saudi


Arabia. We've done trips to Israel, we've done trips to many places,


but (inaudible) we went to Saudi Arabia, and one of the questions that


we asked and got is, why do people, some of them, not like the United


States?





And they, you know, would say, oh, your culture, this, that, and the


other.





And we would say to them, well, where are you getting our culture


from?





Well, they watch our television, and they watch things like Friends


and some of the other, you know, Lifestyles of -- well, I guess that's


an old show -- Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous, but Sex and the


City, and that kind of thing.





What can we do -- and I know you have a whole part that's dealing with


this -- but what can we do to send a message about our culture that's


perhaps different than what they see on television?





SECRETARY POWELL: Well, we work hard at this. We work hard at this


through our public diplomacy efforts, through putting out literature


about the United States, through people-to-people programs, bringing


people to the United States, exposing them to our culture, getting


them into our schools, getting them into our universities, especially,


and at the same time, sending Americans to these lands so that they


see that we are not all as they see us depicted on television.





But television, at the same time, even though it occasionally puts out


some unpleasant images of life in America, it also puts out some very


positive images of life in America, and even though there might be


places where we are having some difficulties now, I'm still getting


tens upon -- tens of thousands of people who want to come to America


from Muslim countries and from countries all around the world, because


they want to start a new life in America, just as my parents did, and


at some point in your past your --





QUESTION:  My father.





SECRETARY POWELL: -- your father did. That is still very much alive.


They're beating on the doors to come in, and they're trying to get


into the country. They want visas. They want to come to our schools.


They want to go do Disneyland, they want to go to Disneyworld, and


they want to go to these places they've seen on television.





And so America still has a residual of good feeling with respect to


these people, even though right now, things are a bit difficult as a


result of the situation in the Middle East, and as a result of


concerns over Iraq.





QUESTION: Speaking of people coming to the United States, are you


upset that 15 of those 19 hijackers were given visas, apparently based


on illegal applications? There's been some talk with some of the


counselors had been rewarded with some bonuses, and what -- one, are


you upset about it; and two, what do you think should be done about


it?





SECRETARY POWELL: Well, the individuals who came in with visas, they


may have had some errors on their applications, but even if their


applications had been filled out perfectly, typewritten and proofed


four times, there was nothing in their records, there was nothing in


the intelligence files that we had, there was nothing in our law


enforcement files that would have suggested we shouldn't have issued


them visas.





We are a country that encourages people to travel here. There was


nothing to suggest that they had anything like terrorism on their


minds, and any errors in the application that might have been caught


or should have been caught and should have been corrected, had they


been corrected, would have given us no more information that would


have suggested they were terrorists.





Nevertheless, we are reviewing all of our consular activities around


the world, all of our visa applications processes, to make sure that


we are guarding America, that we are doing everything we can to


examine those individuals who are coming to our country.





We have integrated our intelligence and law enforcement databases in a


more efficient way so that when we get a name that comes into the


Department, we can check it against the FBI and intelligence agencies


and everybody else to see if there's any reason to deny a visa to this


individual, and even if we find no reason in our database, our


consular officers are now instructed to determine, on a very tough


standard, whether or not a person should be interviewed.





But the interview isn't going to produce somebody saying, "Yes, I'm a


terrorist, I'm heading your way," but an interview to see whether


there is anything that is inconsistent between the application and the


individual who actually shows up for the interview.





QUESTION: We're getting ready to, or they're getting ready to


celebrate the 200th independence of Haiti. Haitian people are, in our


hemisphere, suffering more, economically, than any other country.





There is money in the IMF and World Bank that's supposed to be for


Haiti. It's not being released. What can the State Department do to


help that process and to make sure that there is enough aid for Haiti?





SECRETARY POWELL: The United States has given hundreds of millions of


dollars to Haiti over the last five or six years, and we are anxious


to get many of the funds that you described released to go to the


Haitian people.





At the same time, we have to hold the Haitian government to


appropriate standards of democracy and representative government, and


we have held up some of the aid trying to achieve that purpose.





It's a desperately poor country. It is about to celebrate 200 years of


non-colonial rule, but in those 200 years, they have not succeeded in


putting together the kind of democracy that would create a better life


for the people of Haiti.





So we're working with the government of Haiti, and we're trying to do


everything we can to put in place the right sort of political


circumstances that would ensure that the flow of additional money


coming from the outside would be used properly, and be used in a way


that would start to develop the economy.





QUESTION: I mean, there are other countries now, such as Egypt, et


cetera, that are not exactly our ideal of democracy, yet we give them


a lot of aid.





SECRETARY POWELL: We give Haiti a lot of aid. I don't have a number


immediately at hand, but it's somewhere in the neighborhood of $400


million over the last five or six years. The United States is the most


generous nation on the face of the Earth, and we have been generous to


Haiti.





We sent our military troops in to restore democracy to Haiti, and I,


in a personal way, participated with President Carter and then former


Senator Sam Nunn, back in 1994, to talk the generals out of power, and


allow President Aristide to come back, which he did.





But I regret to say that, in the eight years since 1994, I have not


seen the kind of progress that I would have expected to have seen, and


we have got to keep pressing Haitian authorities, and one way of


encouraging them to do the right thing is making sure that aid goes to


help people, but it goes in a responsible, systematic way so that it


is properly used.





QUESTION:  Thank you very much.





SECRETARY POWELL:  You're welcome.





(end transcript)