Press Briefing En Route to Washington

SECRETARY POWELL: It’s been an interesting two days, three days, I guess…to go to Berlin and had a pretty satisfactory outcome with respect to the Donors Conference and raising more than we had originally expected for Afghan reconstruction, and to see President Karzai again, but also to see that many nations assembled (inaudible) to recommit themselves to reconstruction of Afghanistan. And then to go from Berlin into the NATO meetings where once again we saw considerable discussion of Afghanistan. I hope you noted particularly again NATO put it on fast track as the #1 priority for NATO.

And we had good conversations about making sure that we are not only made commitments to the work in Afghanistan, but fulfill those commitments. And we did get some additional support from some of the countries to enhance the capability of ISAF and expedite the dispatch of additional PRTs, although I don’t have the details. I have some details, but I’d rather have the individual nations announce it as we go forward. But a solid commitment on the part of NATO to its responsibilities in Afghanistan. As you saw, we also had some discussion on Iraq. You heard my press conference, so I’ll just wait to see if you have any more additional questions of the kind that Barry raised.

Another thing that was interesting in the course of the day is we talked a lot about Cyprus. Not within the Council itself—it might have been a bit awkward. So, individually with Javier Solana and in my bilateral conversations, pointed out that we have a historic opportunity now with this arrangement that Secretary General Kofi Annan has been able to make. And we have to work hard between now and the time of the referendum in April, later in April, to see if we cannot get the Cypriots, both the Turkish Cypriots and the Greek Cypriots, to realize this is an opportunity that won’t come again. There is no “Plan B,” this is it. And whatever reservations either side might have about it, its unlikely a better arrangement is going to be forthcoming. In fact, this will shut things down for a long time if this is not accepted. So, we will be all working hard, and I will be working hard, over the next several weeks to encourage all Cypriots to understand this agreement, for leaders in the region to help explain this agreement to their people. And I hope we can get a satisfactory referendum process underway and completed by the 24^th, , I think, the 24^th or 25^th of April, whichever day it is. I forget. Twenty-fourth, yes.

The moving moments of the day, you were present for, when they raised the flags and we watched the flags go up and the national anthems played. As an old soldier I kept looking to see if the last note of the national anthem coincided with the flag hitting the top of the flagpole...I can’t really…I’m sorry. It just…One guy missed and I won’t tell you who it was. And to watch the different military contingents, the two soldiers from each of those countries, in their uniforms and the flag bearers along the walk. And to think how far this Alliance has come and then to go in a meeting that had 26 and 27, when Sergei Lavrov joined us.

It really reflected a bit on the press conference I gave yesterday that you…I don’t know if Richard has briefed you on it or if you’ve got copies of the transcript of the seven reporters. They kept asking about Russia. They kept going, “Russia.” And these were not old folks like me and Barry. These were young kids. There was one older gentleman on the right side of the table, but almost everybody else looked like they were quite young. Some perhaps even as young as Nick. I wouldn’t swear to it, but perhaps. And even so, they were teenagers when the Cold War ended—that young—they still have this Russia thing in their mind. They were worried that the deployment of the four airplanes…you know I used to deploy them by the hundreds of thousands….but these four F-16s would generate some kind of Russian Federation response. I said, “ they seemed to be taking it in stride, I wouldn’t worry about this.” And they…I would say, “Next Question,” right back to Russia. And then finally I said, “you don’t understand, you’re not alone anymore. You’re not alone anymore. This wasn’t a Baltic deployment, this was a NATO deployment of aircraft. And you are now part of an Alliance and you have Article five.” And Richard can tell you, one of the reporters kind of…a young woman shook and almost got emotional about it, realizing that they were part of an alliance and not alone anymore. And this is the kind of thing you expect from the last generation, or the generation before that, but also this generation.

I think it was a very moving day, not only because of the ceremony, but because we were able to sit at 26 in the NAC and 27 at the NRC. And for these seven countries this was really big time high cotton stuff. And just to watch them brought a lot of joy to me, as well.

You’ve been briefed by Richard on other meetings I’ve held, so I’ll go right to questions.

QUESTION: Picking up on the Russia thing, Sergei Ivanov is coming next week for talks. He said some strong stuff about a week ago about, you know…I’m not trying to weight this one way or another…but, he’s apprehensive that the Administration has plans for new nuclear weapons. However you look at it, Russia doesn’t have these allies anymore. There’s this whole Alliance and then there’s Russia. So, are they really...are you concerned that they may begin to feel besieged? Do you think it’s a bit of play acting? Do you think it’s play to the Russian audience? How seriously do you take the Russian whimpers every now and then?

SECRETARY POWELL: For them it’s serious. This is a new world that they’re still adjusting to. I don’t know how many times the President has said, “You’re not our enemies anymore.” I said it again in the NRC this afternoon. And you have to stop seeing it in these terms. We’re going to modernize our forces, we’re going to adjust to the new threats that are out there. We’re not worried about the old threat of the Soviet Union. And, my God, if I can say that it is time for you guys to start believing it. But it is still something that exists in Russian public thinking. I saw it when I was in Moscow a couple [months] ago. I think I told you that in the meeting I had that Sergei…excuse me, Igor Ivanov…organized for me, some of these folks from the think tanks who have been around a long time continue to see things through this prism long after we have kind of moved on. So, some of the Russian leaders still will have to reflect that because their people are reflecting it, the Duma is reflecting it. You saw what happened, the Russians were notified before the fact of the F-16s that were going to be deployed, the four of them. And they would have preferred they not be deployed, but there was no massive reaction out of either Sergei this week….either Sergei this week, but the Russian Duma immediately went in and started to say, “Look at this.” And they started to pass resolutions. So I had to give some democracy lessons over the last 24 hours about, “Don’t go nuts every time some legislative body starts passing resolutions. I’ll show you a resolution to throw you all out of the G-8. Just take things in stride. And, take things in stride.” Sergei Ivanov knows. He has been, as Senior Presidential Advisor, with President Bush and President Putin many times in meetings, and he knows that what we are interested in are the threats of today and not the threats of the past.

And while people might cite things like we are examining our nuclear weapons posture, which is something we do all the time. We are also moving more troops out of Europe—so, we are not putting more troops in to surround Russia. We’re moving troops out of Europe even more than we’ve moved over the last 10 or 12 years. So, if they look at what we’re doing they know, as an analytic manner, that this is not something they really should be worrying about. But, I think they still have an obligation to make sure they are defending the Russian Federation. They are passionate about that and they have to reflect the public opinion and the intellectual opinion that exists within Russia.

QUESTION: The declaration after the luncheon meeting mentioned that in the package for Istanbul there will be a part about how NATO can help with the PSI, proliferation security initiative. What can NATO do since most of its members actually are helping already as a part of our initiative?

Speaking of PSI, can you update us on anything on North Korea that the Chinese Foreign Minister might have told you the other day?

SECRETARY POWELL: I don’t know the specifics of what might be presented at Istanbul. I’m not sure we’re that far along. Maybe Richard or Beth can talk about it afterwards. Most of them are participating in PSI and we have more and more countries that are interested in PSI. Whether it is something that the Alliance would logically fit into, I have to give them some thought. I know it was in the declaration, but it wasn’t discussed among the Ministers in the course of the day.

Foreign Minister Li and I talked…well, we talked, of course. The day before yesterday we had a bilateral and then we spoke earlier in the week after he came back from Pyongyang. And he continues to be optimistic that the six-party process will move forward. And we’re trying to structure the working group. There is no date set yet. And the North Koreans are still thinking about it, let’s put it that way. So, he didn’t come out of Pyongyang with a date, but with an optimistic view that we can move forward with the process.

We are all, five of the six party group, committed to CVID and this is not going to change. The North Koreans pushed back. You saw that they put a statement out criticizing each one: ‘C,’ ‘V,’ ‘I,’ and ‘D.’ Fine, criticize it, but all of your neighbors and the United States believe that this is the way forward. And you’re patient and we’re patient, but this is the way forward. And they’re will be no blinking on our part. And I’m pleased that we have been able to pull all of North Koreas neighbors into that same position. And I spoke with Sergei Lavrov about it today and they are right with us. The Chinese are still right there. And, of course, the South Korean and the Japanese are right there, as well, and will continue to be there. And the North Koreans just have to keep doubting the position they are in and decide what they want to do.

QUESTION: Also in your interview with the East Europeans you mentioned the UN resolution and said…you raised the doubt that it was going to do enough to give the UN political control and that is what Spain has asked for. So, are you resigned to losing Spain from the coalition or do you expect them to change their mind?

SECRETARY POWELL: I would doubt that the next resolution would go that far, because: one, the UN has not asked for that—the Security Council hasn’t asked for that yet and Kofi Annan hasn’t expressed that kind of interest. I’m not sure what will be in the new UN resolution, but I didn’t want anybody to think we were doing this, certainly targeted against the French…excuse me, the Spanish issue. We do not yet have a Spanish government in office. We’ll see what Prime Minister-elect Zapatero thinks once he becomes Prime Minister. But, I take him at his word—he is planning to pull Spanish troops out in the absence of a UN resolution…or a UN resolution and a UN resolution that gives political control to the UN. But, as I said to him last week, and to Mr. Moratinos, who I expect to be appointed the new Spanish Foreign Minister, “let’s keep talking about this as we approach the 1^st of July.” All of the other nations in the coalition have essentially reaffirmed their position and seem to be solidly with us. And Spain is a sovereign nation and can make its own decision.

QUESTION: The Israeli Prime Minister Sharon today had some very harsh comments about Chairman Arafat, suggesting that Israel could try to seek to kill Arafat. Do you have any reaction to that?

SECRETARY POWELL: I saw the harsh statements. I don’t know that he said anything that is inconsistent with what he has said in the past. I don’t believe that his policy with respect to Mr. Arafat’s situation has really changed. We have no reason to believe that he is now going to do that which he has not done in the past with respect to Mr. Arafat. We have not changed our view of that matter either.

QUESTION: I’d like to go back to your UN speech from last year. One of the most dramatic elements of that speech was about the mobile biological labs. And in recent weeks it has emerged that one of those intelligence sources you cited was flagged as unreliable by U.S. intelligence and another source had never been interviewed by U.S. officials and that we didn’t even know his name. It turns out that he was a relative of the INC. So, in light of that, was this really the best intelligence the U.S. could have put forward at the time?

SECRETARY POWELL: It was presented to me in the preparation of that as the best information and intelligence that we had. And I looked at the four elements that they gave me for that one and they stood behind them. Now it appears not to be the case, that it was that solid. But at the time that I was preparing that presentation it was presented to me as being solid. Now, the commission that is going to be starting its work soon, I hope will look into these matters to see whether or not the intelligence agency had a basis for the confidence that they placed in the intelligence at that time. They certainly indicated to me as I was working on that, that it was solid. I’m not the intelligence community, but I probed and I made sure, and as I said in my presentation, these are multi-sourced. And that was the most dramatic of them and I made sure it was multi-sourced. Now, if the sources fell apart then we need to find out how we’ve gotten ourselves in that position. I’ve had discussions with the CIA about it.

QUESTION: This has been another gruesome week in Iraq, especially in Fallujah. What is your best assessment of the security in Iraq now? Is it getting worse, is it getting better, has the Sunni Triangle ever really been pacified?

SECRETARY POWELL: If you look at the overall number of incidents there’s been a spike in the last few days. But overall, the number of incidents has gone down over the last several months. But, it has certainly been a very bad time in the Sunni Triangle, and especially in Fallujah, where most of the casualties this week have occurred. So, I think Fallujah is a special problem and I’m confident our commanders are spending a lot of time now looking at. And you know there was a change in units coming in and out and I’m sure they’re reviewing their operating patterns and reviewing their intelligence holdings and what can they do about it. Other parts of the country are quiet, but there have been difficulties in Basra. But, these are not necessarily against the coalition but other related problems, about people not getting hired or people not being paid. But, the security situation is still a problem for us and it detracts, makes it harder, to get on with the reconstruction effort. Nevertheless, that effort is continuing and I get daily reports on what is being accomplished. And a lot is being accomplished. But the security situation has to be brought under control for us to be able to be in full swing with the reconstruction and rebuilding effort.

QUESTION: Can you just talk about why you are going to Haiti on Monday? Is there a sense of urgency? Are you worried about lack of troops or the lack of the involvement of CARICOM with the Aristide situation?

SECRETARY POWELL: I just haven’t been. It’s been a little over a month now, five weeks I guess, and we wanted to give them enough time to stabilize the situation and get the new President functioning, but especially the new Prime Minister functioning. And now that we’ve had the CARICOM meeting it was time for me to go down and visit with my country team and also meet the new Prime Minister—I’ve never met him, and just take a quick assessment. And for a variety of logistics reasons this turned out to be a good day to do it. I don’t know, are you guys going or another crowd going?

(cross-talk)

Shift change. Shift change.

MR. BOUCHER: Thanks everybody.

QUESTION: Can I ask you a quick question? I just had a question concerning the June 30^th transfer of sovereignty. It’s less than three months out now. Some members of the Council have said we need to expand the Council, they say we need to get other people involved in the democratic process. Is time running out? Congresswoman Pelosi had some concerns today. She said that it needed to be extended.

SECRETARY POWELL: No, we’re sticking with 30 June. We’ll have a better assessment of that date and the process of finding an interim government, creating an interim government (inaudible) that date after, I think, Ambassador Brahimi has had some time on the ground. I expect Lakdar to be there tomorrow or the day after. And he’ll get right to work. And I think we’ll have a better sense of what the right solution is for the interim government within a couple of weeks. So, I think there is time to do it but, you know, the calendar is moving.

We’re hard at work on our transition efforts. We have all kinds of teams at the Department who are working on the details of taking over from the CPA.

Okay.

QUESTION: Beth, did you want to say anything about the PSI?

ASSISTANT SECRETARY JONES: On the PSI question, that is one of the NATO outreach efforts. We haven’t made the connection between NATO and PSI, but it is one of a long list of NATO’s offering to support the OSCE, offering to support PSI, support the NATO-Russia Council—to be there if there is anything that can be done.