Interview on ABC's This Week with George Stephanopoulos

MR. STEPHANOPOULOS: Mr. Secretary, thank you for joining us. You spent the last week touring the areas hardest hit by the tsunami. What did you learn about the scale of the devastation and the effectiveness of our response?

SECRETARY POWELL: George, you really can't get a sense of the scale of the devastation until you've actually been on the ground and seen it. And it was just unbelievable to see what had been a village with trees, with schools, with houses, suddenly just scraped clean as if a bulldozer went through and took it down to ground level. And it's not just the devastation of houses. To know that thousands of people were in those houses and now they're all gone, it's unimaginable, and the worst place of all was at Banda Aceh, and as you know, those numbers have gone over 100,000. And so the Indonesians really have a challenge.

I think our response has been quite good. The countries in the region all expressed great satisfaction and appreciation for what we have done. In addition to the $350 million that was committed, of which we have spent a little over $50 and will continue to spend against that line of credit, really, our military in the area doing a great job, as they always do. U.S. Agency for International officials are on the ground, international aid, are on the ground.

And so I think our response has been very good. The response of the international community has been very good. People are not starving. There is food in the region. It's a matter of getting retail distribution out to isolated villages. The UN agencies are on guard against infectious diseases.

And so the world, I think, is responding rather well, but there should be no illusion as to how long it's going to take to rebuild these communities.

MR. STEPHANOPOULOS: And what recommendations are you going to make to the President, based on this mission?

SECRETARY POWELL: That we stay engaged, that this is a long-term prospect, that we use our money not just for immediate humanitarian relief, but for economic assistance, for infrastructure development. In some cases, it might be necessary to help people cope with this disaster. Just imagine, you're in your town or your village, and suddenly, 3,000 of your citizens are gone, so many of them children, so many of them women. And the trauma that these communities are going to go through will require some specialized attention and I think we should help them out.

MR. STEPHANOPOULOS: UN officials have warned that the death toll is going to go up. How high do you expect it to go?

SECRETARY POWELL: George, I don't know how to even guess at a number like that. It's clearly over 150,000 now by best estimates. I've seen some numbers up to 170,000. But I have no idea how high the numbers can go. And we may perhaps never have an accurate accounting for all those who were lost. We just don't know.

MR. STEPHANOPOULOS: Let me turn now to Iraq. The elections are now three Sundays away. And I know that all of you in the Administration have a great hope that the elections are going to be the moment, at least where the stranglehold of the insurgents begins to be broken. But it is not a view universally shared, and I want to show you something that one of your former colleagues, General Brent Scowcroft, who was National Security Advisor for the first President Bush -- he was speaking at a New America Foundation forum this week, and here's what he said. He said, "The Iraqi elections, rather than turning out to be a promising turning point, have the great potential for deepening the conflict." He said he expects increased divisions between Shiite and Sunni Muslims after the January 30th elections, and predicted "an incipient civil war" would grip Iraq. Is he right to be worried about an incipient civil war?

SECRETARY POWELL: I think we all are worried about what's going to happen after the elections. But the elections are a necessary next step. We have to move in a direction where the Iraqi people have the opportunity to choose how they will be governed. What is the alternative to no election? Just continue going along with an appointed government? No. We need this election, and we don't believe that this election will suddenly end the insurgency. The insurgency will continue. It will continue until it has been defeated, defeated by the Iraqis, defeated by the coalition forces working with the Iraqis, but we also believe defeated by Iraqis themselves, who will start to say, what is this getting for us? What are we gaining by such an insurgency? Let's push back against these elements within our society that are ruining our lives, that are killing innocent people. We now have a government that we have elected; it is our government. The Americans did not put it in place, so let's begin working with that government.

MR. STEPHANOPOULOS: I guess --

SECRETARY POWELL: So even though the dangers that General Scowcroft pointed out are there, those dangers don't go away by postponing or putting off elections.

MR. STEPHANOPOULOS: I guess the fear is that the elections actually make it worse, if you have an election where the Sunnis feel shut out by the process. That will only spread, you know, encourage the insurgents even more.

SECRETARY POWELL: But who is shutting out the Sunnis is the insurgents themselves. And so let's not make a prediction on the basis of something that has not yet happened. We will see whether or not on the 30th of January the Sunnis are satisfied that they got an adequate opportunity to participate in the election, and they participated in sufficient numbers to give them confidence that they will be adequately represented in the Transitional National Assembly, and they have a role, they have a stake in this national government that will be formed.

MR. STEPHANOPOULOS: Another expert who worked with you in the Reagan Administration, is Geoffrey Kemp -- he was a member of the National Security Council -- said, and this week, he said, "What the President has to do is prepare the American people for a definition of winning that is clearly far less grandiose than the anticipated outcome when Saddam's statue was toppled." How do you define success in Iraq?

SECRETARY POWELL: Success is putting in place a government that is freely elected, that represents all the people of Iraq recognizing that the Shia will be the majority in any such government, and creating an Iraqi security force that is able to protect the country and protect the people of Iraq from insurgents and from outside forces. And if we accomplish those two things, then we've accomplished our mission.

MR. STEPHANOPOULOS: Former National Security Advisor Zbigniew Brzezinski says we can't be successful, when you look at the Iraqi security forces, we can't be successful relying on them alone, and that we have to be willing to put in 500,000 troops and spend $200 billion over the next ten years. Is he being realistic there?

SECRETARY POWELL: Well, George, you keep tossing these naysayers at me one after another after another. I don't know where Dr. Brzezinski came up with 500,000. I don't know if he's made any kind of analysis of that. What the President has said, and what we've made clear, is that it will be necessary for coalition forces to stay in Iraq for some period of time, as the Iraqi forces are built up. I expect those forces to be built up significantly under the leadership of General Petraeus over the next year, and they'll become increasingly capable. And I think they'll become increasingly capable if they also sense that they are working and they know they are working for their own government, and not an appointed government, but an elected government. And as those forces are built up and gain credibility, then I hope we will be able to start drawing down our forces. But anybody can pull a number out of the air and say this is what they think is going to be required.

MR. STEPHANOPOULOS: There was another report in Newsweek this morning that said the Pentagon is considering what they call the "Salvador option," and under this, U.S. Special Forces would train Iraqi militias like the Kurdish Peshmirga, Shiite militias, to go in on the offense against the Iraqi insurgents themselves. Does that make sense to you?

SECRETARY POWELL: I'm not familiar with the report or what the Pentagon may be planning, and so I'd rather not comment on it.

MR. STEPHANOPOULOS: Okay. Well, let me turn, then, to another election that is happening today, the Palestinian elections. You said last week that one of your disappointments in your tenure as Secretary of State is that you all didn't have the opportunity to do more to advance the Middle East peace process, and there's a lot of hope that these elections will be the first step in that process. What more can the U.S. do the day after these elections?

SECRETARY POWELL: The United States is standing ready to do a lot more. We can help the new Palestinian president, the new leaders of the Palestinian Authority, reform their government, to make it more efficient, less corrupt. We can help, working with the Egyptians, Jordanians and many others, in the rebuilding of the Palestinian security forces so that they can take control of Gaza that will be turned over to them in the next eight or nine months, I hope --

MR. STEPHANOPOULOS: Does that mean more financial aid?

SECRETARY POWELL: -- and get ready to -- it also means more financial aid. As you know, we recently gave some $20 million to the Palestinian Authority to assist them. It means more financial aid. We're working with the European Union and other nations to provide additional support to the Palestinian Authority and the Palestinian people to help them with their economic development, and to help them reform their government so that they're ready to take over with these new institutions under new leadership.

We were, frankly, stymied for most of the first four years of this Administration by a Palestinian Authority that was not speaking out against terrorism, that was not doing what it should have been doing against terrorist activity, and we lost confidence in Yasser Arafat. And the President made it clear in his June 2002 speech that we needed to see a change in the leadership of the Palestinian Authority with a new Prime Minister. That happened, but the new Prime Minister wasn't able to do much because Mr. Arafat was still around. Mr. Arafat is no longer there. He is no longer an obstacle to the two sides working with each other, the Israeli side and the Palestinian side, and since his death, I have noted with satisfaction greater efforts to cooperate between the Israelis and the Palestinians, and I hope that greater effort will continue and grow after the elections are over.

MR. STEPHANOPOULOS: It looks like the new Palestinian leader is likely to be Mahmoud Abbas, and he said this week that he would work immediately for an unconditional ceasefire after the elections, but what the Palestinians expect in return and what they hope for in return is that the Israelis will release more Palestinian prisoners, and emphatically stop the building of more settlements. Will the United States push for that?

SECRETARY POWELL: The United States will push for all of the elements in the roadmap and the kind of items you just mentioned are integral to the roadmap: the end of violence, the end of terror. We hope that as a confidence-building measure the Israelis will release more Palestinian prisoners. They released some a couple of weeks ago, and the U.S. position has always been that there should be the cessation of settlement activities.

All of that is provided for in the roadmap, and with good will, and with good leadership coming into the Palestinian Authority, it is now time to get going on the roadmap. And President Bush has made it clear that the United States would play an active role in the execution of the roadmap.

MR. STEPHANOPOULOS: Should a special envoy be part of that active role? Should a special envoy be sent by the President now?

SECRETARY POWELL: We have always considered the possibility of using a special envoy when there was something for a special envoy to do. And I think that if we see the kind of progress that is possible in the next weeks or months, then a special envoy certainly should be considered.

But over the last four years, when we sent over Director Tenet or Senator Mitchell or a number of other emissaries who went over to try to get things started, you really didn't have anything to be a special envoy about.

And so, if we get into the roadmap and it requires that kind of dedicated, consistent, constant attention, then I think there may be a role for a special envoy, but that's something to be decided in the future by the President, based on his assessment.

MR. STEPHANOPOULOS: Finally, sir, this is probably your last opportunity to come on our program as Secretary of State. And as I was preparing, I looked over your biography yesterday, and over the last 35 years, I think you've served in just about every department of government: in the Energy Department, the Pentagon; the Office of Management and Budget; the White House; of course, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff; and now Secretary of State. Is there any other job in government you still want?

SECRETARY POWELL: You just said, George, that I've had just about every job in government. But this probably is the last time I'll appear on your show. Thank you for all the courtesies extended over the years. And I can't think of a better place to close out this part of my career than by being here in Nairobi to participate in the historic agreement that is going to be signed between the government in Khartoum and the SPLM, bringing to an end a civil war that has gone on for 20 years. This has been a major priority of President Bush's Administration, and I'm pleased to be able to be here and to witness this document, and to bring greetings from the President and the American people. And I hope that the success we will celebrate here today with this signing can be extended to the terrible situation that still exists in Darfur.

But thanks for all the courtesies over the last several years, George.

MR. STEPHANOPOULOS: Thank you for your service, sir. Thank you for being so generous with your time. Good luck.

SECRETARY POWELL: Thank you.