Interview on CNN's Late Edition with Wolf Blitzer

MR. BLITZER: Mr. Secretary, thanks very much for joining us. Let's talk about the tsunami disaster first, $350 million pledged so far. How much more do you think will be needed?

SECRETARY POWELL: I really don't know, Wolf. There's been a tremendous outpouring from the international community, so the total amount available is probably over $6 billion by now, to include a lot of private contributions.

We will be making an assessment over time to see what is needed, and $350 million isn't enough. I'm sure the President will try to get more into the account. But we've only committed roughly $50-$60 million of that 350 so far.

What we have to do is to make sure that we're providing assistance based on what is needed, and providing money based on what is needed, not just flooding all of these places and accounts with supplies that may not be needed or financial assistance that may not be required yet.

So we ought to do this in a rather deliberate way, and not just focus on the size of the money that's been contributed.

MR. BLITZER: Do you have any assessment how long it's going to take to get the lives of these people in these areas sort of back on track? Are we talking months, many, many years? What is your assessment, based on what you saw firsthand?

SECRETARY POWELL: Each country was different, frankly. If you look at Phuket, the resort area of Thailand, I expect that will come up rather quickly, in a matter of months. When you go to a place like Banda Aceh, however, in Indonesia, in the northern part of Indonesia and Sumatra, I think that's going to be years. Literally, a good section of that city was just straight to the ground as if bulldozers went over it, and scraped everything down, gone, nothing left but foundations. So it will take years for Banda Aceh to be rebuilt.

MR. BLITZER: The Financial Times in London had an editorial. Among other things, it said this on Friday: It said, "Enough, enough, enough. The competition between rich world governments to outdo each other in pledging aid to tsunami-stricken Asia is turning grotesque." It went on to say, "Rather than lavishing special favors on the tsunami zone, global leaders should seize the moment to broaden the debate to what can be done to alleviate human suffering around the world." Is that a fair criticism?

SECRETARY POWELL: I think it's a wise observation, in that while we focus on the tsunami victims now, and a few months ago it was the victims of the crisis in Darfur, let's not overlook the fact that there are people in need throughout the world, whether it's in the Congo, the Darfur region of the Sudan, or in Liberia or in Haiti, or now in the area hit by the tsunami. There is the need for the entire world to focus on providing assistance to developing nations and the nations that have been hit by catastrophes.

The United States has always had that approach, and in the four years of President Bush's Administration, we have significantly increased disaster assistance, we significantly increased development assistance. Last year, we gave away $2.4 billion for disaster assistance throughout the world, and that was 40 percent of the entire world's contributions. So the United States is certainly sensitive to that point.

MR. BLITZER: Are you concerned, Mr. Secretary, that so much money will be going to the tsunami disaster zone that not enough will go to Sudan, to other parts of Africa in the battle against AIDS and other critical humanitarian issues?

SECRETARY POWELL: We have to be on guard against that, and in terms of the United States' position, we're protecting our other accounts. But, you know, when you have an immediate crisis like this, you have to draw down from those accounts in the knowledge that you'll replenish them through supplemental funding.

So this will be very important for the Congress to be ready to provide the President the supplemental funding needed for the tsunami victims so that it doesn't come at the expense of other crisis around the world.

But let me make one other point. Even though we have committed $350 million, not all of that money immediately gets spent. That is also the case with the billions of dollars that have been committed by the international community. And some charitable organizations have already said, please, stop sending us any more money, because they don't want to have so much money that they can't use it effectively, or it takes away from donations to other crisis areas of the world.

MR. BLITZER: Mr. Secretary, you're in Nairobi, Kenya, now. You've been focusing in on the issue of genocide in Sudan, though Saturday, when you were asked whether genocide was still being committed in the Darfur province of Sudan, you declined to say that it was still being committed. Could you clarify whether or not genocide right now is continuing in Darfur?

SECRETARY POWELL: Yeah. I was being very, frankly, precise with the answer, because when I made the genocide declaration back in September, what I said was genocide had occurred and was continuing. And that was based on analysis and teams that I sent over that reported back to me in September.

Since September, as a result of our declaration of a genocide situation as we saw it, the United Nations has been conducting its investigation and has had a commission working on it. The UN commission will issue its report in about a week's time. And so I felt it was appropriate right now to stick with the facts as I had them in September, and wait for the UN report next week.

But there's no doubt in my mind that the kinds of incidents, the kinds of tragedies we saw last year, which led to my September declaration, those things are continuing. We still see people being pushed out of their homes, we still see a conflict underway. The conflict has slowed down a bit for the moment, but it is not over by any means.

So what I was trying to do was to be consistent with what I said in September and as I knew the situation in September, and to wait for the UN report that's coming out in a week or so.

MR. BLITZER: Mr. Secretary, as speak right now, Palestinians are voting on the West Bank and in Gaza for a new President of the Palestinian Authority. Based on the preliminary reports you're getting, are things moving along smoothly?

SECRETARY POWELL: The preliminary reports I've gotten suggest that things are going well, but I must say, I'm not in real time on this. I know there was some concern about people getting through checkpoints and getting access to voting places, but I hope all of that will be resolved and that the Palestinian people are able to vote in great numbers. We're expecting a significant turnout, 70, 75 percent. And that would be an important statement, the Palestinian people coming forward to decide how they wish to be led in the future with a new President.

So this is a moment of opportunity for both sides, and I hope we have a good, solid, fair election, and I'm looking forward to hearing from our election teams on the ground.

MR. BLITZER: Mr. Secretary, there was some concern expressed by Israelis, in particular, earlier in the week, to these comments by Mahmoud Abbas, the man widely expected to win these Palestinian elections. He's quoted as saying, we mourn the souls of our martyrs who were killed today by the tank shells of the Zionist enemy in Beit Lahiya. The reference to the Zionist enemy does not necessary bode well. These Israelis are concerned with his commitment to reviving the peace process. Are you familiar with those comments?

SECRETARY POWELL: I'm familiar with them, and they are of concern to me as well. But I think in the heat of a campaign, certain things get said. What's going to be important is not what was said in the campaign, but what happens after the campaign is over, and what is said after the campaign and what actions are taken after the campaign.

And a number of Israeli officials have made that same observation, that we don't like the rhetoric, of some concern, but it's more important to see what kind of rhetoric comes after the campaign, and what kind of actions are taken after the campaign.

MR. BLITZER: The former National Security Advisor Brent Scowcroft this week raised some eyebrows here in Washington, referring to the January 30th scheduled elections in Iraq. He said this on Friday, he was quoted in the Washington Post as having said, "The Iraqi elections, rather than turning out to be a promising turning point, have the great potential for deepening the conflict. Indeed, we may be seeing an incipient civil war [in Iraq] at the present time." I wonder if you'd want to comment on what the former National Security Advisor had to say.

SECRETARY POWELL: Well, the alternative, then, is not to have an election, and not to give the Iraqi people a choice, or to delay the election for some indefinite period. Our position, and the position of the Iraqi Interim Government, and the overwhelming desire of the Iraqi people is to have this election. The UN stands behind this election now, as do the neighbors of Iraq.

And so we're going to go forward and have the election, and we hope that the election will provide insight into the thinking of the Iraqi people, and give the Iraqi people the opportunity to decide how they're going to be governed, in the selection of a Transitional National Assembly.

Now, we have always said that this is not going to be the end of the insurgency. The insurgency is going to continue. The insurgency is going to have to be defeated, defeated by Iraqi forces, coalition forces. But we also hope it will be defeated by the reality that the Iraqi people now have a government that they elected and they can call their own. And maybe this will give them the will to start pushing back on these terrorists and murders and elements of the old regime that are not part of the future but a part of the past.

And so even though there are dangers ahead, the way to meet those dangers is not to walk away from an election, but walk into this election, and do everything we can to provide the security conditions needed to have a successful election.

MR. BLITZER: One final question, Mr. Secretary, before I let you go. Newsweek, in the new issue that's just coming out now, says the Pentagon is considering what they call the "Salvador option," an option to put U.S. Special Forces in Iraq to lead assassination hit teams or kidnapping teams to deal with Iraq insurgents, to work together with Kurds in particular, and Shiites in particular, against Sunni insurgents. A, have you heard about this, and B, what do you think about it?

SECRETARY POWELL: I haven't seen the report and I'm not familiar with the plan that the report makes reference to, so I'd have to refer you to the Pentagon for answers on it. I'm just not familiar with it here in Nairobi, Wolf.

MR. BLITZER: I understand. Have a safe trip back to the United States. We'll look forward to seeing you back here. Good luck to you.

SECRETARY POWELL: Thanks very much, Wolf, and thanks for your courtesies over the last four years. I'm heading off now to a great signing ceremony, a comprehensive peace agreement between the SPLM in the south of Sudan and the government in the north. And this war, hopefully, is now coming to an end, and we can begin the peace and also turn our attention once again to solving the crisis in Darfur.

Thanks, Wolf.