BUDGET REQUEST FOR INTERNATIONAL AFFAIRS

Hearing of the
House International Relations Committee

February 11, 2004

OPENING STATEMENT OF

HENRY HYDE
A Representative from Illinois, and
Chairman, House International Relations Committee

REP. HYDE: The committee will come to order. Mr. Secretary, welcome to the Committee on International Relations. We're eager to hear your testimony. But before that, I would like to offer a few thoughts and ask my distinguished ranking member, Mr. Lantos, to offer remarks of his own. And any member wishing to make a statement may submit it for the record to allow as much time as possible for questions.

The administration is facing an onslaught of criticism regarding the pre-war intelligence concerning weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. Some eagerly proclaim in unflattering haste a more sweeping pronouncement, that the entire conflict was a mistake, an opinion curiously put forward by many, including some members in this House, whose prior support was accompanied by few, if any, qualifications.

But the political season is upon us. And, as in war, truth is often the first casualty. The role of intelligence in the decision to go to war, the costs and benefits of that conflict, and many other facets are the subject matter of legitimate contention. But those originally opposed and those belatedly discovering their doubts equate failure to find these weapons -- that is, to find a loaded gun aimed directly at our head -- with failure of the enterprise as a whole.

At its core, their criticism is that the president took action to defend this country instead of just sitting there. A principal mistake arises for both critics and defenders in viewing the conflict in Iraq as a thing in itself. However, instead of its depiction as a lone adventure of questionable wisdom, a more reasoned view is that our actions in Iraq must be judged in a larger context.

Our actions there are, in fact, part of an incredible success story, one that is still unfolding and one that is due almost entirely to the foresight and determination to act. That is a refreshing characteristic of this administration.

Over the years, I've found myself in ever greater agreement with former Senator Sam Nunn, who has incessantly warned us of the threat of the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction being placed into the waiting hands of our enemies.

The Bush administration has transformed our entire approach to this staggering challenge by crafting and implementing an unprecedented multifaceted global and -- this is key -- action- oriented effort of which Iraq is an integral part.

I need not rehearse the arguments regarding weapons of mass destruction in Iraq other than to point out that every intelligence agency, along with the United Nations, Saddam's own generals, and even the majority of today's critics believed that those weapons existed.

In our vulnerable world, to wait until compelling evidence of a threat is leisurely compiled is to wait for our destruction, to err on the side of annihilation. It's a mistake or evidence of an alarming naivete to talk of intelligence failures as shocking surprises, as though these estimates and extrapolated predictions could ever be more than imperfect.

A far more serious intelligence failure than the one currently in the spotlight became evident in 1991 when, in the aftermath of the Gulf War, we uncovered Iraq's massive weapons-of-mass-destruction programs, including the bone-chilling discovery that Saddam was only an estimated six months away from an operational nuclear device.

Was not that failure of prediction and the inaction it encouraged of greater consequence than the recent conclusion that he still possessed vast arsenals of WMDs, a deception he himself cultivated?

We had valuable but incomplete intelligence preceding September 11th and largely ignored it. Is that the model to which critics of our actions in Iraq would have us adhere? When is it wise to risk the safety of the American people? Because that is the outcome that a demand for certainty will guarantee.

Now making the rounds is the view that the U.S. has lost credibility around the world due to its failure to find evidence of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. I suggest the exact opposite is true. We have, in fact, gained enormous, immensely valuable, even decisive credibility from our actions.

For the next time the U.S., or at least this president, warns some foreign despot to cease actions we believe are threatening to our security, my hunch is he'll listen, and listen carefully.

The fact that we went into Iraq virtually alone, excepting our courageous partner, Great Britain, not only without the sanction of the international community but in blunt defiance of its strenuous efforts to stop us, is far from the ruinous negative it is often portrayed as. In fact, it's all to the good, for it is unambiguous proof that absolutely nothing will deter us, that the entire world arrayed against us cannot stop us.

The message of those on the receiving end could not be clearer. And unless they are suicidal, they will understand that their options have been radically narrowed.

This isn't theory. Already the administration has won another victory in Moammar Qhadafi's decision to surrender his weapons-of- mass-destruction programs as a direct consequence -- a direct consequence -- of our actions in Iraq.

He himself has said that the example of Iraq was the determining factor in his decision. And it is a powerful precedent, for it is the first time that a state has surrendered these weapons without a regime change.

If he makes good on his promise and if we can in confidence readmit him fully to the international community, the effect on others cannot but be salutary. For we can then offer offenders a stark choice of the sword or the olive branch, of destruction or the rewards of cooperation, with all ambiguity torn away, and thereby refocus their cold calculations of self-interest away from ambition and toward survival.

Our intervention in Iraq made this seminal message both possible and credible for the first time. Can anyone cognizant of the threats we face doubt its value?

The benefits of this new mode of interaction are evident in the current standoff with Iran. The recent and unexpected exposure of Iran's massive nuclear weapons program has startled that regime into a hastily-constructed policy of stalling and superficial cooperation.

Only a fool would believe that the Iranians will voluntarily abandon their nuclear ambitions. But their coerced cooperation has been helpfully motivated by their fear of U.S. action against them. And in truth, they should be afraid.

Imagine the view from Teheran. Iran battled Iraq for a decade with the loss of hundreds of thousands of men, the end result being a return to their respective starting positions. Yet twice the U.S. has easily demolished the military capabilities of their menacing neighbor.

Iran would be a much different challenge, but no Iranian leader can truthfully say, once the regime was targeted, that his sleep would remain undisturbed. And should sleep come, dreams of the Taliban's fate would invade his fitful slumber.

Here, as well, Iran's adherence to the deal it cut with Britain, France and Germany for a suspension of its programs has been made more likely by the U.S. stance of pressure on Teheran that even the Europeans privately acknowledge to be useful. That situation is far from resolved. But does anyone actually believe that the possibility of halting Iran's march would exist without Saddam's sobering example?

None of this has been lost on the North Korean regime. Our demonstrated willingness to use force to remove a threat, paired with the possibility of reward for cooperation, provides the decision- makers in Pyongyang with useful instruction in the rules of this new world. Once again, this bracketing of the regime's options was made possible by our actions in Iraq.

To this administration must go the credit for many other long- delayed but indispensable actions to reverse our slide toward the chasm. The Proliferation Security Initiative, the cooperative arrangement among countries concerned about WMDs and determined to do something concrete about them, is a muscular enhancement of our ability to halt trafficking in the components of these weapons.

Despite the program's infancy, there have already been notable successes. It was the interception of a vessel loaded with nuclear components for Libya that helped convince Qadhafi that the days of his undisturbed accumulation of the instruments of destruction were over.

I will cite two more praiseworthy innovations in this area by the Bush Administration. The first is a surprisingly successful effort to persuade the leaders of Pakistan to interrupt the proliferation of nuclear materials and assistance that has metastasized unchecked from within that country for many years. The revelations in Pakistan, combined with those emerging from Libya, are beginning to expose the international black market in nuclear technology and know-how, which, prior to this inside information, had been only sketchily understood. We are now in the process of unraveling that network and eliminating the horrors its commerce would otherwise help bring into being.

Here again, action long dreamed of is finally being taken. We are no longer bystanders wringing our hands and hoping that our intelligence will be good enough to somehow uncover it all, no longer waiting for some international court to issue a reluctant warrant or grudging permission to allow us to take measures to protect ourselves.

Taken together, these many elements constitute an extraordinary effort by this administration to put in place a far-seeing, comprehensive, and action-oriented policy focused on preempting our annihilation. Of course, we inherited some very valuable initiatives, such as the Nunn-Lugar program that continues a long-term effort to secure the vast arsenal left in the wreckage of the Soviet empire. But it is simply beyond credibility and simple decency to dispute that this administration has aggressively pursued a vastly increased effort against weapons of mass destruction and their proliferation, that it has drawn bright and unmistakable lines of warning, has recruited committed allies, and has conducted a direct assault on a seemingly impregnable fortress.

The work is not done. We must make up for decades of stillborn plans, of whining excuses, of wishful thinking, of irresponsible passivity. This president has begun to lay the foundation for a comprehensive, multilayered, root-and-branch approach to the mortal danger of the proliferating instruments of our destruction. A global system of overlapping levels of international, multilateral, and unilateral measures is being erected, each using different tools and methods, but all sharing a common purpose. Each and all are needed. For even a single gap might well prove fatal, the hole through which our future is bled away.

We are only at the beginning, but it is an extraordinary beginning. Everyone in this room, everyone in this country, owes this administration their thanks for the fact that this ultimate of threats is not only being battled, but battled successfully.

That is the true context in which our actions in Iraq should be judged. We were not born to suffer a fate molded by our enemies. We cannot be made victims without our consent. If unmet, the terrors of this century will overwhelm us. But although we may at times be uncertain of our path, we have never failed ourselves.

Are we safer now? Measured in this ultimate context, in the successes our actions in Iraq and elsewhere have made possible, in this contest on which our survival rests, the answer cannot be other than "yes." And I am grateful that this president has carried out his duty.

And I now turn to my esteemed college and friend Tom Lantos for any remarks he may choose to make.

OPENING STATEMENT OF

TOM LANTOS
A Representative from California, and
Vice Chair, House International Relations Committee

REP. LANTOS: Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Chairman I would like to begin by expressing my continued appreciation for the strong and effective manner in which you have run this committee since assuming the chairmanship. As a result of your stewardship, and willingness to work across party lines, last year we passed two critical bills, creating the New Millennium Challenge Account, and authorizing a landmark global HIV-AIDs initiative, that will help save the lives of hundreds of thousands of men, women, and children in the developing world.

This time I want to issue a very special welcome to our distinguished Secretary of State. He's always welcome here, but following your operation we are delighted to see you in such wonderful and robust condition, and we are all anxious to proceed with similar procedures. Mr. Secretary, it is once again a great pleasure to have you before this committee. Neither the global HIV-AIDS bill, nor the Millennium Challenge Account would have happened without you and your hard work. We are deeply grateful for your leadership of the Department of State.

Mr. Secretary, it is gratifying that the United States has just taken an historic step of officially stationing an American diplomat in Libya, a preliminary move towards establishing a full-fledged embassy and normalizing our relations with that country. As I found during my visit to Tripoli two weeks ago, the government there is eager to demonstrate its commitment to its December 19 announcement that it is dismantling its programs to produce weapons of mass destruction, and taking all other steps to rejoin the international community. I would particularly like to thank you, Mr. Secretary, for the support provided by the Department of State for my trip two weeks ago.

I am pleased to report that we are seeing in Libya something that was previously unthinkable, a country with weapons of mass destruction has made the affirmative decision, peacefully, to give up its weapons of mass destruction program. In an hour-and-a-half meeting Colonel Qadhafi made it clear to me that his nation is committed to a 180 degree turn, and that Libya intends, verifiably, I underscore verifiably to eliminate weapons of mass destruction, and all related programs.

The facts, Mr. Secretary, speak for themselves. The Libyans have loaded sensitive nuclear designs, and other nuclear related equipment on U.S. military aircraft bound for the United States. They have welcomed the technical assistance of American and British experts. Based on my meetings in Tripoli, it is clear that Colonel Qadhafi made this historic decision that he and his advisors realized that Libya could no longer afford to be a pariah nation.

Libya's pursuit of weapons of mass destruction was enormously expensive, and has drained its oil wealth, all the while U.S. and international sanctions were a stranglehold on the Libyan economy. Libya's growing economic problems can only be solved by a redirection of its resources and its reintegration into the global economy. But given Libya's past outrageous record over three decades, including the tragic Pan Am 103 bombing, we must tread very carefully. We must be skeptical of Libya's actions at every turn, and we must be relentless in verifying their destruction of weapons of mass destruction programs. American actions to normalize relations must be matched every step of the way by verifiable Libyan action.

In light of Libya's actions since December 19, we should immediately release the ban on travel by Americans to Libya, and we should establish a full-fledged American diplomatic presence in Tripoli.

But removal of Libya from the terrorist list and the complete elimination of U.S. sanctions should only occur after Libya has totally dismantled its weapons of mass destruction program, and agreed to long-term monitoring procedures, and after it has fully satisfied our officials that its links to terrorism have been severed once and for all. As I told Colonel Qadhafi, it is not only insufficient for them to terminate their past terrorist ties, they need to cooperate with us in fighting global terrorism, particularly in Africa.

A public apology for the Pan Am 103 bombing and the significant improvement in the human rights situation would also help pave the way for normal relations between our two countries. As you know, Mr. Secretary, there are several Bulgarian nurses who have been imprisoned for many years and whose release is long overdue.

Mr. Secretary, American policy under Republican and Democratic administrations was a critical factor in Libya's dramatic about-face. The economic, political and diplomatic sanctions imposed against Tripoli were the result of bipartisan agreements involving our last three presidents. And it involved cooperation with the British government and some of our other allies. This clearly indicates that firm and consistent international cooperation against rogue nations does produce significant positive results.

Information that has come out of Libyan WMD programs in the past few weeks is providing our country and the international community with critical insights in our fight against the proliferation of illicit weapons programs. And looking at the larger picture, Libya has established a model that other countries -- North Korea, Iran and Syria -- ought to follow. It is profoundly disappointing that following your visit, and my much less important visit, to Damascus some months ago, Syria's president has yet to respond affirmatively to our suggestions, and I hope that President Assad will look very carefully at the dramatic policy shift of Colonel Qadhafi.

While much remains to be done, I am convinced we are on the verge of a new chapter in U.S.-Libyan relations. When the American flag flies over our embassy in Tripoli once more, and the Libyan flag over an embassy here in Washington, it will be a powerful symbol that historic changes can be wrought by peaceful means -- America's preferred alternative.

Mr. Chairman, I again thank you for calling today's important hearing, and I look forward to hearing the secretary's observations.

REP. HYDE: Thank you, Mr. Lantos. And we salute you for your initiative in your recent historic trip to Libya. I'm encouraged by reports that Libya is taking significant steps to end its support for international terrorism and divest itself of weapons of mass destruction. And I'm also hopeful that cautious re-engagement with Libya, conditioned upon continued and verifiable cooperation, will provide incentives for responsible behavior, not only in Libya but other rogue nations as well.

I'm pleased to announce this committee will convene a public hearing the week of February 23rd to hear from Assistant Secretaries of State Burns and DeSutter (sp) on the future of U.S.-Libyan relations. In this hearing, we will carefully examine the possibility of a restoration of travel links and the encouragement of educational, health and other exchanges with Libya. And we also will examine the extent to which re-engagement should be linked to Libya's fulfillment of pledges to cease support for terrorism, to dismantle weapons of mass destruction programs, and support further investigations into the bombing of Pan Am Flight 103. We are encouraged by Libya's actions of late, but I concur with my esteemed ranking member, we must trust but verify.

And now, at long last, we come to the main attraction. Secretary of State Colin Powell has a long and distinguished career of public service and is too well-known, and justifiably well-known, to require my recounting today, but we want to thank you, Mr. Secretary, for your public service, for your work with members of this committee, and for your appearance here today. Please proceed with your statement, and then we will ask some questions.

STATEMENT OF

COLIN L. POWELL
Secretary of State

SEC. OF STATE COLIN POWELL: Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. It's a great pleasure again to appear before the committee. I thank you for your warm welcome. And Mr. Lantos, I thank you for your welcome and for the two opening statements.

Mr. Chairman, I do have a prepared statement for the record, which I would like to submit, and then summarize a statement and a few opening comments.

REP. HYDE: Without objection, so ordered.

SEC. POWELL: Mr. Chairman, before I begin responding to your comments and Mr. Lantos' opening comments and then getting into the body of my statement, let me say to all of the members of the committee how much I appreciate the support you have provided to me personally, but more importantly to the members of the Department of State over the last three years that I have been privileged to lead these wonderful men and women. We've done a lot with the Congress over the last three years. We have started hiring again in significant numbers, and you ought to see the great young people who are stepping forward to become members of the State Department, foreign service, civil service, or foreign service management specialists and technicians. We're giving the Foreign Service exam to more people in a single year than we've ever done before. And the results are showing up, as I watch now youngsters we recruited two years ago, a year ago, go out to their missions and bring such energy, and life, and the American value system out to our missions around the world. We wouldn't have been able to do it if you hadn't supported our Diplomatic Readiness Initiative, and I hope you will continue to do so as we move forward into the future.

Technology -- we have got 44,250 Internet-capable, broadband computers on every desk throughout the State Department. We only had a couple hundred a few years ago. My staff at a staff meeting yesterday morning handed me a plaque showing us that finally, two months ago we got rid of the last Wang computer in the State Department. (Applause.) It took doing, but we couldn't have done it without the support of the members of Congress, and especially without the strong support of this committee. We've got our building plan under control. We're putting up embassies at less cost, and meeting all of the standards that the Congress had put upon us.

And so we're trying to lead and manage the department in a very effective way so that we will always be seen as good stewards of the peoples monies. And I hope, Mr. Chairman, that you will consider that to be the case and will support the president's budget request, which I will get to in a few moments.

But before getting into that part of my statement, let me respond directly to two statements that were made -- one by you, Mr. Chairman, and one by Mr. Lantos. Mr. Chairman, you said at the end of your introductory remarks concerning Iraq, "Are we safer now?" And the answer is "Yes." Mr. Lantos, you ended by saying, "peaceful means, America's preference." Both of these are absolutely true statements. America seeks peace, not war. America always tries to solve things through political and diplomatic means before we take on the burden of war because we know lives will be lost. But a time comes when that may be the only way to solve the problem that is before us, and America must never be unwilling to go to war if that is what is required to protect our nation, to protect our allies, and protect our interests around the world.

With respect to Iraq, yes, we are safer. A dictator is gone. A tyrant is gone. Not only are we safer, the people of Iraq are safer, the region is safer. We can debate weapons of mass destruction all we want to about what was there in the past, but we know they will not be there in the future. Did the president do the right thing? He absolutely did. Did he get the best advice that was available to him, both political policy and intelligence advice? Yes, he did.

As the president went through this process, and as we all went through the process with the president, I think I brought a unique perspective to the debate because I was chairman of the joint chiefs of staff, as you all know, in the first Gulf War.

And I'll never forget on the eve of that war, getting ready for the ground portion of that war, I wondered whether or not the young men and women who would be crossing the line of departure heading north would be struck by chemical weapons. We knew they had them. We knew they had used them before. We knew they had every intention to use them, if they could use them, to affect the outcome of this "mother of all battles," as Saddam Hussein called it.

Our youngsters went across that line of departure fully equipped in chemical gear, because they thought they would be struck. Fortunately, they were not struck with chemical weapons -- but not because the Iraqis didn't have them -- they did have them, and we found them. It wasn't a figment of anyone's imagination. Those weapons were there on the battlefield in the winter of 1991. And it was as a result of discovering those weapons that we had proof, evidence, of what Saddam Hussein was still carrying in his inventories.

I watched this situation for the remainder of my time as chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. I watched it in my retirement. And I watched it beginning day one after I was confirmed as secretary of State. And as we went through to determine what kind of a threat the region and the nation was facing as a result of Saddam Hussein's continued ignorance of Security Council resolutions, we had to look at it in terms of a threat that is gotten to by an examination of the intent of an opponent and the capability that opponent has. You put those two together and it equals a threat. Intent: There was never any doubt in anyone's mind, and no intelligence agency -- past, present or future -- will ever demonstrate that Saddam Hussein gave up the intent to have such weapons. And since we know he has used them in the past willingly, against his own people and against Iran -- and I have been to Hallabjah where those weapons were used, and I saw the graves of 5,000 people who were gassed in 1988 by Saddam Hussein, there is no question that he didn't have the intent, and he has never lost that intent to have such weapons, and he has demonstrated that if it came to it he would use such weapons, if he had no other choice or if he wasn't stopped in the use of such weapons. The intent never went away, and there was no question about that from any of the president's political advisors, or any intelligence agency that was involved in this matter.

The question is then: Did he have the capability? Capability comes in many forms. Do you have the intellectual ability? Do you have the people who can make these kinds of weapons? The answer is yes, he did. He had the people. The second level is, Did he have the infrastructure, the wherewithal? Yes, he did. There is no question in the intelligence community -- Dr. Kay confirms it, other intelligence agencies in other nations confirm it. The U.N. confirmed it over a period of years of investigation, from 1991 to 1998, before the inspectors left. President Clinton's experts and his analyses that he went through led him to believe that this capability was there. The infrastructure, the knowledge, the know-how, people who could do it. Did he have factories that could be of dual-use nature that could produce this kind of material? Yes, he did. Did he have just-in-time capability, and was he developing it? Yes, he was.

The one question that there is a dispute about is: What was the stockpile level that might be there or not be there? I can assure you that as we went through this analysis, and we looked at all these levels of capability, when it came to stockpiles, the preponderance of all information available to us, available to our many intelligence agencies, available to British intelligence and intelligence agencies of other nations, made it clear that the correct answer was yes, he had such weapons. He had such stockpiles. There was no doubt in my mind.

A year and a few days ago, when I was representing my country before the United Nations to make the case, I spent days out with the best of our analysts -- with Director Tenet, with Deputy Director McLaughlin, out at the CIA, going over the case, making sure that everything I was going to say to the entire world that could be challenges immediately -- everything I said was supported by multi- source intelligence that would back it up. That information was there. There wasn't a word that was in that presentation that didn't represent the consensus view of the intelligence community. There might have been objections on a point or another by one or other or more intelligence agencies. But overall the director of central intelligence, who has a responsibility to break ties and make an informed judgment when there is a disagreement, every word in that presentation was supported by him, by his analysts. And I took it with great confidence into the United Nations.

It was also the same information that was in the National Intelligence Estimate that was provided in the months before -- I think it was November of the year before, 2002, to members of Congress, and was the basis for the resolution that was correctly, rightfully passed by the Congress, supporting the president and his action.

Now, we subsequently have learned that though stockpiles have not yet been found, the work continues. The Iraq Survey Group will continue its work under Mr. Duelfer. Dr. Kay has made a number of statements, and he has presented his impressions and his findings to the world through committee appearances, meeting with the president, and his public appearances. And he says he doesn't think the stockpiles are there. He's also said that there was no question about intent, no question about capability, no question about infrastructure, and no question in his mind that Saddam Hussein was in material breach of his obligations as contained in 12 years of U.N. resolutions. And there was no question in Dr. Kay's mind, just as there was no question in my mind or any of the other president's advisors' -- or certainly in the president's advisors that this was something that had to be dealt with, was dealt with. And, as Dr. Kay said, it was the right thing to do, because this country, under that leader, was a greater threat than anyone might have imagined. So the question of stockpiles yet to be determined as the work of the ISG continues. But the question of whether the president had the right basis of information upon which to take the decisions that he took -- there is no question about this: He had the right basis.

If any of those elements in the equation had changed -- if Saddam Hussein had demonstrated, "I have no intention -- I've changed my colors" -- most unlikely -- but he was given that opportunity in the U.N. Resolution 1441: Give us an honest declaration. Tell us the truth, and the U.N. would have responded would have responded in a different way. We might have responded in a different way. But he did not do that. And it is absolutely clear to me that the president made the right decision, and it is clear also to those nations who joined us in the coalition that succeeded in putting this regime into the history books. We also saw that as a result of our action we have a dictator that will no longer be filling mass graves, a dictator who will no longer be using the money that has been given to him through the natural resources of his country, oil, to build weapons of mass destruction or to suppress one part of the population or another. And now we are faced with a situation where we are working hard with the new leadership of Iraq to put in place a government that will be representative of the people. We are looking forward to transferring sovereignty at the end of June, if all goes well -- and we are pressing to that end. We have a difficult security problem, as you can see manifested again today with a terrible explosion -- explosion done by terrorists and other elements of the regime who don't recognize that their day is over, their day is gone. Their day will ultimately be totally gone as the security forces of Iraq gain in strength and ability and are able to defend their people from this kind of attack. These attacks are directed more against Iraq and Iraq's bright future than they are against U.S. forces. And they will be defeated, and we will succeed. And I believe that as we move forward we will have more and more nations join us. We are working with the United Nations now to give it a vital role to play. We are working with our European colleagues who had differences of view about this a year ago, who are now meeting with us and talking about what NATO might be able to do and other countries might be able to do as we move forward.

So we should be proud of what we have done as a nation to free the people of Iraq, and give them hope for a better future. And we should not allow debates over one part of this complex equation that I mentioned distract us from the reality that we did the right thing, and we should be proud.

As was noted by you, Mr. Chairman, it's had an effect in other parts of the region and other parts of the world. Libya has decided to give up its weapons of mass destruction. And it has been noted those materials are now flowing out of the country under our control. Libya did it because of a variety of reasons. I won't put myself in Mr. Qadhafi's mind, but he looked around, he saw that the United States and the international community of like-minded nations would take action. And he also took a look and said, Well, what am I getting for all of this? All I've gotten is I've wasted a lot of money. I've got a lot of junk in the desert I can't use, and I have made myself a pariah on the world stage. And he took the right decision. And we hope that others will examine that same kind of situation, run their calculus, and come to the same conclusion. And we hope that Iran, North Korea, Syria and anyone else who is so inclined will take a hard look at this. We are working with the international community on all of these matters, working closely with the IAEA, working with the United Nations on another resolution dealing with proliferation activities, working with Pakistan. I've been talking to President Musharraf almost every week now for a long period of time about the A.Q. Khan situation. The president has been deeply involved. And we now have seen the breakthrough where A.Q. Khan has now come forward and described what he has done. And President Musharraf, when I spoke to him over the weekend, has assured me that he would not stop the investigation until the whole thing is pulled up -- as was said, root and branch, and we know everything about what A.Q. Khan was doing all around the world, and we roll this network up in its entirety, and help President Musharraf get through this very, very difficult period.

We will continue to support initiatives like Nunn-Lugar, and I'll say a few words about this later when I talk about the president's speech that he'll be giving within the next hour or so.

If I just might linger for a moment on Mr. Lantos's comments, thank you for your support of the Millennium Challenge Account, now also manifested in the Millennium Challenge Corporation -- I am the chairman -- proud to be the chairman. And we had the first meeting of the Millennium Challenge Corporation last week, now that we have the legislation, and we have already provided to the Congress the 63 countries that are initially eligible under the law to be candidates for Millennium Challenge Account funding. We are moving with this program. It's an exciting program, and I'll say more about it in a moment.

Thank you also, ladies and gentlemen, for what you've done with the HIV/AIDS program. Now that it is funded, you will see us move out quickly. Randy Tobias, the head of the office, will be announcing awards in the very near future, now that we have made notification to Congress, and over $300 million of awards will be going out rather quickly. We want to move quickly.

On Libya, Mr. Chairman, we have had a terrific success. Mr. Lantos, I thank you and congratulate you on the historic moment that took place when you landed in Tripoli -- the first member of Congress to do so in decades -- and I thank you for the message you conveyed to Colonel Qadhafi, and for the op-ed you wrote when you got back, and for the communications and information you have given to us.

We said to Libya, If you do the right thing, you will see the right response from us. Assistant Secretary Burns met with Libyan officials last week, and we have laid out to them -- as you have seen in the press -- some of the things that we are prepared to do with respect to the lifting of travel documents, with respect to other matters of this nature. We want to help them with their most urgent needs. Hospitalization and medical care -- one of their most immediate needs -- we can help them with that, and we can do that quickly. But we are laying out for them in a very sensible, phased way what we are prepared to do as we verify the materials that have come out, and make sure that we have gotten it all and it's all come up root and branch.

We are also not unmindful, Mr. Lantos, of the nature of this regime, even after they have taken care of all these matters. It's still not quite our full cup of tea, if I can put it that way. And we will be on guard, and we will make sure that they meet the standards that are expected of a nation that wants to join the international community. We will press this with Iran, with North Korea, with Syria, as examples of how you can just put yourself in a much better place in this world, if you get rid of these foolish weapons that will do nothing for you, except to bring the condemnation of the world, to bring you financial ruin, and not put one plate of food in front of any citizen in your country. These weapons for these kinds of countries are nothing more than fool's gold.

North Korea -- we will start another round of discussions on the 25th of February in the six-nation format, and we're hoping for progress -- more progress than we've seen previously. And I'm encouraged by the response of all of the other members of the six- party format.

Mr. Chairman, I've taken a little bit longer than I thought I would with my extemporaneous remarks, so I will go rather rapidly through this shortened set of prepared remarks, just to say that the president's international affairs budget for 2005 totals $31.5 billion, broken down as: foreign ops, 21.3 (billion dollars); state ops, 8.4 (billion dollars); P.L. 480 food aid, $1.2 billion, international broadcasting, $569 million; and the Institute for Peace, $22 million.

The top priority reflected in this budget submission is winning the war on terrorism. Winning on the battlefield with superb military forces is just one step in this effort. To eradicate terrorism altogether, the United States must help create stable governments in nations that once supported terrorism - nations like Iraq and Afghanistan - and we must go after terrorist support mechanisms as well as the terrorists themselves. We must help alleviate conditions in the world that enable terrorists to bring in new recruits to find fertile ground for their efforts. To these ends in 2005, our foreign affairs agencies will continue to focus on the reconstruction efforts in Iraq and Afghanistan. We will continue to support our coalition partners to further counter terrorism, law enforcement, and intelligence cooperation, and we will continue to expand democracy and help generate prosperity, and that is especially in the Middle East.

Forty-eight percent of the president's budget for foreign affairs supports the war on terrorism; $1.2 billion supports Afghan reconstruction, security and democracy-building activities; $5.7 billion provides assistance to countries around the world that have joined us in the war on terrorism; $3.5 billion indirectly supports the war on terrorism by strengthening our ability to respond to emergencies and to conflict situations; and, finally, $190 million is aimed at expanding democracy in the Greater Middle East, which is crucial if we are to attack successfully the motivation of terrorism.

Two of the greatest challenges facing us, of course, are Iraq and Afghanistan, and I think I've touched on Iraq. I'd just like to add a word or two, just to say that the Coalition Provisional Authority and the Iraqi Governing Council are working hard to bring the 15 November agreement into place, and I am pleased that the U.N. is now over there working with us. A lot is being done with respect to build up the Iraqi Army, the Iraqi Self Defense Forces, and the Iraqi police forces.

Thousands of brave Americans, both in uniform and in Mufti are in Iraq now, working tirelessly, along with their military colleagues, members of USAID, State Department, and departments all across our government are working together to implement infrastructure, democracy building, education, health and economic development programs. You don't hear enough about these programs. You hear about a bomb going off, and that's news. You can't ignore it; you can't push it aside, but there are so many good things that are happening -- town councils are forming, PTAs are forming, civic society is coming up, civil society is working, and all of these kinds of efforts really will pay off as the people of Iraq realize that they will be in charge of their country, and they will decide how they are going to be governed in the future.

Afghanistan is another high priority. The United States is committed to helping build a stable and democratic Afghanistan that is free from terror and no longer harbors threats to our security. After we and our coalition partners defeated the Taliban, we faced the daunting task of helping them to -- the Afghan people -- to rebuild their country. We have demonstrated our commitment to this effort by providing over $3.7 billion in economic and security assistance to Afghanistan since 2001.

Through our assistance and the assistance of the international community, the government of Afghanistan is successfully navigating the transition that began in October of 2001, and we saw that when the Afghan people adopted a constitution last month, and they have now turned their attention to preparing for national elections in June. Since 2001, the United States has rehabilitated 205 schools, 140 health clinics, and we have done so many other things with respect to rebuilding the infrastructure in Afghanistan. The Kabul-to-Kandahar Highway has now been completed -- one of the president's highest priorities.

And so we have a lot more to do in Afghanistan but I think we should see that we should be, once again, as in Iraq, very proud of what we have been able to accomplish. We are making good progress, and I'd like to thank our coalition partners for all that they have done to bring us to this point of success.

Mr. Chairman, we have a lot of other items in the program to include $700 million for Pakistan to help in regional efforts there; $461 million for Jordan to increase economic opportunities for Jordanian communities and to strengthen Jordan's ability to secure its borders; $577 million for Colombia to support Uribe's unified campaign against drugs and terrorism. We are hoping all of those countries who wish to help themselves, who are now moving out smartly -- the Millennium Challenge Account is going to do so much as a historic change in the way in which we provide development assistance. And the greatest killer in the world today is HIV AIDS, and no nation is as forward-leaning and doing as much as the United States to fight this terrible scourge in the face of humankind.

In a few moments, President Bush will be speaking at the National Defense University, and he will outline the administration's approach to another danger that continues to grow -- when women of our own and other intelligence services have done superb and often dangerous work to unveil, to take the curtain down, around some of these proliferating activities we have seen and especially the proliferating activities of Mr. A.Q. Khan in Pakistan.

Now we and our friends can do more -- work around the clock to get all of the details of this network out to shut it down and to do more. President Bush will be proposing new measures in his speech to strengthen the world's efforts to prevent the spread of weapons of mass destruction, expanding the proliferation security initiatives to address more shipments and transfers to take direct action against proliferation networks. We are going to call on all nations to strengthen international controls that govern proliferation; expand our efforts to keep Cold War weapons and other dangerous materials out of the hands of terrorists; close loopholes that exist in the nuclear non-proliferation treaty; and finally disallow countries under investigation from participating fully in the leadership of the IAEA.

As the president will point out in his speech, the nexus of terrorists and weapons of mass destruction is a new and unique threat. It comes not with ships and fighters and tanks and divisions but clandestinely in the dark of night. But the consequences are devastating, and no president can afford to ignore such a threat, and this president will not ignore such a threat.

Mr. Chairman, I am going to close my presentation now. There are so many other things that we could talk about. We are involved in so many things in so many different parts of the world. I am so proud of the diplomats that are serving so many parts of the world. Ambassador John Blaney, our ambassador in Liberia, came into the president's office, into the Oval Office, yesterday to describe what he is doing to bring Liberia back into the column of nations that believe in democracy. When you think of where we were just a few months ago, Mr. Payne and others who were so interested in this issue, it was very, very moving to see Chairman Bryan, the new leader of the transitional government of Liberia, to meet with the president. When I think of how close we are to a solution in the Sudan brought about by political and diplomatic efforts, a little bit more work to be done. When I see what we are doing with free trade agreements around the world as we expand the opportunity for trade to nations who never would have dreamed of it a few years ago.

When I see all of these things happening, Mr. Chairman, I get a good feeling, because it says that America is being a leader in the world, whether it has to do with opening trade, whether it has to do with ending proliferation, whether it has to do with fighting terrorists, whether it has to do with just sharing our values with the rest of the world, America is performing its leadership role of destiny, and I am pleased that the men and women of the State Department are playing their role, and I am very pleased to appear before this committee, which has been so instrumental in providing us with the support and the wherewithal needed to play that role. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

SEN. HYDE: Thank you, Mr. Secretary. As much praise as I have for the administration on fighting the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, I must take this opportunity to express my concerns about our policies with regard to defense, trade, and export controls. In continuing to give weapons of mass destruction and long-range missiles our urgent priority, we must also not overlook the fact that all of the casualties, to date, inflicted on us and our friends and allies by foreign terrorists, have come from their use of conventional munitions and dual-use technologies. These areas demand our continued vigilance, and you and I have worked together on several export control issues, including the QRS11 issue and license-free defense exports for the UK and Australia. Despite some procedural fumbling, we did reach a successful resolution on the QRS11. This morning I provided to you a letter outlining our views in some detail on the ITAR waiver.

Mr. Secretary, as you know, we have differences of opinion on the merits of the administration's proposal. We feel expanded cooperation with the UK and Australia should occur without subjecting our interests to increased risk. We hope you'll take into consideration our concerns and modify your proposals.

Given our interaction on those issues, I think you'll appreciate that Mr. Lantos and I both have strongly-held views about the need to uphold the principles contained in the Arms Export Control Act, and we would be very concerned with more proposals to relax export controls over U.S. weapons and dual-use technology in the midst of a war on terror.

The committee understands that the administration is very close to announcing a new presidential policy directive on export controls for U.S. weapons and technology, and this new policy has apparently been developed in response to a review which the administration announced was underway in November of 2002.

I think you'll find the same level of concerned in the Armed Services Committee from Chairman Hunter, as well as in Homeland Security under Chairman Cox. But nothing has been said to any of us about the new policy that will be coming out soon.

In that regard, I would appreciate very much, before this new policy is announced, that you or Dr. Rice will brief the leadership of these committees in advance of any announcement, and I would be happy to hold such a meeting if we can bring that about.

And now, at long last, Mr. Lantos.

REP. LANTOS: Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. I want to thank, Mr. Secretary, you for your outstanding statement.

I'd like to ask a series of interrelated questions about Libya. So if you'll bear with me for a minute, they will all relate to Libya. But they're all very important different facets of our relationship.

First, Mr. Secretary, how would you assess the progress Libya has made in fulfilling its pledge to rid itself of weapons of mass destruction and the means to deliver them? Is there any evidence of backsliding by the Libyan regime? Once Libya has met its WMD commitments, what mechanism will be put in place to ensure that Libya doesn't restart these programs?

Secondly, has the administration developed a road map for normalization with Libya? Do you plan to lift all the sanctions once Libya has fulfilled its commitments on WMD and terrorism? Or do you foresee an extended period of testing Libyan intentions even after Libya meets its weapons-of-mass-destruction commitments?

Will the establishment of full diplomatic relations be tied to issues other than WMD and terrorism, such as human rights or an apology for the Pan Am 103 atrocity? What is the current state of Libya's involvement with terrorism, if any? What more must it do to achieve removal from the list of state sponsors of terrorism?

What steps, Mr. Secretary, is the administration taking to prepare to integrate Libyan scientists and technicians into the international scientific community through retraining, collaborative research and academic exchanges?

I understand the Department of State funds non-governmental organizations with expertise in engaging former weapons scientists overseas with United States scientists. I would encourage you to utilize the expertise of such organizations.

Such activities would help ensure that scientists and technicians who would otherwise be left unemployed as Libya divests itself of WMD are engaged only in peaceful activities. And there are few tasks more urgent if we are to assure that the authors of Libya's WMD programs do not use their highly coveted knowledge to create new problems in Libya or elsewhere in the region.

Likewise, Mr. Secretary, I'm particularly eager to hear about your plans for preparing to bring Libyan students to the United States and to send American professors to Libya once Libya has been removed from the list of state sponsors of terrorism.

I know from my contacts in Libya that the Libyans place the highest possible priority both on retraining their scientists and on student exchanges, and I urge you to begin laying the groundwork for such programs as soon as possible. And I assure you this committee will be fully supportive of your efforts.

Thank you, Mr. Secretary.

SEC. POWELL: Thank you very much, Mr. Lantos. Almost everything you mentioned on your list is a work in progress and somewhere on our road map going forward.

On Pan Am 103, an arrangement has been struck between the families and Libya which resolved that matter with respect to compensation to the families. As we go down our road map, more compensation becomes available to the families under the terms of the agreement that the families have with Libya.

I would always consider it appropriate for Libya to do more -- they could -- with respect to Pan Am 103 than is contained within this settlement between the families, acknowledging fully their responsibility at the highest levels of the government. We're not making that, however, a barrier to our ability to go forward.

On the very first question you raised though -- "How are they doing with respect to what they said they would do?" -- the answer is very, very well; almost astonishing to an old cold warrior, who used to have to pull it out of the Soviet Union one warhead at a time.

In the case of the Libyans, I had to sort of retrain myself and some of the old-timers on the staff that this is not like the Soviet Union where we're pulling it out. They're pushing it at us. And they have been forthcoming.

We went in there with the IAEA. People thought we'd have a blow- up with the IAEA. We didn't. IAEA personnel and inspectors are working alongside American and UK inspectors in a good spirit of cooperation -- no problems, no fights, materials coming out well. So they are exceeding my expectations as to what they would do.

And they have shown no indication so far that they're going to try to frankly hide something. We will be vigilant and we will follow everything we know, every lead we have, and make sure we bring it up, as has been said, root and branch.

Once we have reached that point, then we'll have to make judgments as to whether monitoring remains the thing to do or is an appropriate thing to do. What is it we're monitoring? If there are no more chemical stocks we're aware of and if the facilities that could have been used for illicit purposes are gone, then what is the appropriate monitoring regime, if one is necessary? And we've got experts looking at that.

The road map has been developed. You're familiar with it. Ambassador Burns has started to explore it with the Libyans last week, as I mentioned. And as they perform satisfactorily, which they have done so far, then we'll start to take steps, letting people visit. That then ultimately leads to student visits.

We do have programs to retrain scientists. We'll be looking at that. We have always had an interest section in Tripoli in the Belgian embassy. We now have sent American diplomats to be in that interest section. And in due course, we'll have our own facility in place, which we hope will grow into an embassy and have normal relations as this whole thing unfolds.

But we think the wisest course right now is to proceed in a deliberate way with some haste, but not so much haste that we're not making sure -- that we're failing to make sure that we have verified everything that they said they were going to do and they have done these things to our satisfaction.

So I think, Mr. Lantos, that you would be pleased at the plans we're putting together. And I hope it unfolds the way we have seen it unfold in the last several weeks.

REP. LANTOS: Thank you, Mr. Secretary.

REP. HYDE: Mr. Secretary, all congressional retirements aren't equal, and some deserve a pause for reflection. And since the last time the gentleman from Nebraska, Mr. Bereuter, was in this room in a public session, he has announced his retirement, and indeed, his early departure from the House.

No one on this committee is more respected than Doug Bereuter for his involvement in our work and for his sober judgment. His contribution has been sustained and substantive. The Asia Foundation is indeed lucky to have him as its next president, and we all wish him sincerely a long and successful tenure there. He will certainly be missed by those of us who were privileged to work with him in the past. And we wish the very best to you, Doug.

REP. LANTOS: Mr. Chairman? (Applause.) All of my colleagues on the Democratic side fully identify ourselves with your comments of praise and recognition for our friend's, Doug Bereuter's enormous contributions to the work of this committee, and indeed the Congress. And Doug will be sorely missed by all of us.

REP. HYDE: Thank you, Tom. Mr. Bereuter is recognized for a question period.

REP. DOUG BEREUTER (R-NE): Thank you, Mr. Chairman. And thank you, Mr. Chairman and Mr. Lantos, for your kind remarks. As a matter of fact, I think I had recommendations from both sides of the aisle that I leave the Congress and take the Asia Foundation position. (Laughter.) And I think it's a national treasure. And I look forward to working with this committee as soon as the ethics rules allow. (Laughs.)

And Mr. Secretary, it's good to see you here, and thank you for your exceptional leadership. I still have responsibilities in Europe, and so I'm not going to ask a question on Asia today, although the temptation is there.

As you know, Mr. Secretary, Senator Biden and Senator Lugar advanced a resolution which suggested strongly that NATO take a larger role in Iraq, and that, in fact, those assets and the programs of the United Nations that could be used would be asked to be used by the United States and coalition partners. And that passed by overwhelming vote, unanimously, and took that exactly language and added it without dissent to another bill, neither of which have become law, but I think they are a clear indication to the administration that this is the direction that Congress thinks the administration and the coalition should take.

And I note with great interest and appreciation that some of our allies that were in dissent in February of last year vocally, and before that in the Security Council, seem to have moderated their views, and perhaps are moving in that direction, and the effort that NATO supports, the so-called Polish units supported by several other countries, I understand may well be something that NATO directly takes a larger role in the future.

Mr. Secretary, would you advance your thoughts and what you know about this subject, and what the prospects are for us to have a larger NATO, and a larger appropriate role in transformation/reconstruction by the United Nations?

SEC. POWELL: Thank you very much, Mr. Bereuter. If I may start my reply by also congratulating you for your service here, and I look forward to working with you at the Asia Foundation. We'll have even more to do together than we've had in this particular relationship. And I wrote a letter to you yesterday, and I hope it gets delivered to you in the very near future. Congratulations to you, sir.

REP. BEREUTER: We go through a variety of cleansing processes on out mail here, as you know.

SEC. POWELL: I know. There's nothing in the envelope, sir. When you see Secretary of State, please don't be worried.

I believe NATO can play an important role in Iraq, and I have been conveying to my colleagues in NATO that they should give this serious consideration. I started that last spring, really, just as the war was coming to its initial phase of active combat operations, and Saddam Hussein had been dispatched into hiding. And to my great surprise, no nation would speak against it to say, we're not for it. Now, not everybody was ready to commit troops to it, but no nation was prepared to stop it. Because the pitch we made is, we had a big fight over whether there should be a war, but we've had a war, and a bad guy is really gone. And now we have to come together as alliances, NATO alliance, US-EU, within the United Nations, to support the reconstruction of Iraq, and part of that includes security.

And so, since then, since last spring and up through the Wehrkunde meeting this last weekend, there has been a slow -- there's an acceptance, sometimes slow, sometimes fast, depending on different countries, but there has been increasing acceptance that NATO does have a role to play. And, even the Germans, as you may have noticed in weekend reporting, said, we don't think we'd send troops, but we wouldn't object to NATO playing a role.

What role should NATO play? Most of NATO's countries are there now. Somewhere between 17 and 19 of the 26 have troops there now. So, it's not as if there is a huge reservoir of troops that suddenly becomes available when it shifts to a NATO mission. But, we do get NATO headquarters, you do get NATO involvement, and the alliance is involved, and that's important, even if it doesn't generate any more troops on the ground, although it could.

I think the easiest way to start this would be for NATO to assume responsibility for the zone that you described, where the Pols, and the Spaniards, and the U.K., and others are working. And that would plug right into our troops, and if it should all take place at the time that sovereignty is transferred, then you would have NATO working with a sovereign government, which I also think is a nice visual for the whole thing, as well as a proper policy outcome. So we're encouraging our NATO allies to look at this.

The Secretary General of NATO, the new Secretary General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer was here last week and we talked about this in considerable detail. He is supportive of it. He cautions, however, that Afghanistan has to come first for NATO. They're now in Afghanistan, they've got to make sure they've got that right, and they do that well. He is already thinking about what NATO can do in Iraq, and we'll be pursuing this in the spring. And we might be ready to make the appropriate decisions at the Istanbul NATO summit at the end of June if perhaps not before. At least if we can do it before, fine, but ratify it when all the heads of state are together in Istanbul.

The U.N. would certainly be interested in what these arrangements are. Right now the U.N., I don't expect to see them playing a significant role in the security arrangements, even though under the current U.N. resolution 1511 it is a multi-national force that is there, not just a U.S. coalition force. So we're working through all of these, but working in the direction that you suggested, Mr. Bereuter, and that is for NATO to play a role.

REP. BEREUTER: Thank you, Mr. Secretary, thank you Mr. Chairman.

REP. HYDE: Mr. Berman?

REP. BERMAN: Thank you, Mr. Secretary. Thank you for being here. As you were speaking earlier it occurred to me, particularly in the context of both Libya and Pakistan, maybe one day in the context of Iran, the tension between different of our interests, and I'd be curious if you'd be willing to sort of just speak your thoughts on how one balances those tensions. As a general rule, underlying U.S. foreign policy is a fundamental belief that both sort of universal -- universal human conditions are better, and our national security is better when people get to participate in their own governance through the democratic process, in one variation or another, when there is respect for individual rights, when the concepts, and acceptance of pluralism is inculcated, and institutionalized in different regimes.

And the president spoke really quite forcefully on this, in the context of the Middle East recently, the vision for what Iraq would hopefully become certainly reflects those values. At the same time September 11th, terrorism, weapons of mass destruction, and their relationship should be, I think, fairly obvious to everyone, and the important for our security interests and that of our allies and friends around the world, and dealing with that also requires us to give great attention to those issues.

In the case of Pakistan, and in the case of Libya, we talk about what we hope might happen. We have such important interests in Pakistan, in terms of help with the areas under Pakistan's sovereignty where Al-Qaeda may still be harbored, in terms of promoting negotiations with the Indians on Kashmir, and stopping support for the terrorists there, in terms of getting rid of Pakistan's really stunning role as proliferator of weapons of mass destruction and technology. At the same time, Musharraf is not a democrat, in the sense of the corruption of some of the institutional processes there in the military and intelligence services is pretty well known, and how one works through a sensible bilateral relationship in the context of that.

The same could apply to Libya, as you talked about that teacup, and I'm curious how you would work through those. And with Iran, which is still -- I mean, when I look at Iran, there's doubts about whether they're even committed to their agreement that they made with the European leaders. Their continued support for terrorism is obvious, and then of course we have this stunning situation where what's happening to those people who stand for reform and change in Iran, in terms of the upcoming election, and what's happening to them, and the unwillingness apparently of the elected leadership of Iran to confront the guardians, and the council that is knocking people off the race, out of the election contests draws the point there. At what point -- and how do we relate to Iran in all these different facets?

I'm curious how you work through balancing these?

SEC. POWELL: It's what I spend most of my time doing, Mr. Berman. I have to play the cards that I'm dealt, and I play those cards in accordance with the president's direction. And his direction starts out with we believe in our value system, and we believe that our value system is more than just for Americans, it's universal -- freedom, democracy, individual rights of men and women. And we take these values to every country that we have relations with, whether they are in sync with us and believe as we do or whether they don't. I can give the same sermon about these values -- and it almost comes down to a sermon -- I can give it just as easily in Pakistan as I can in India, and if I ever get to Tripoli, I'll give them the same sermon. And the reason I can do this is because I believe they're universal values, but more -- even more important than that, they lead to a system that works in the 21st century. Democracy, and open economic systems, and letting people pursue their own dreams and ambitions, this is what works, and more and more nations are discovering it. And more and more nations are shifting over to the democratic column. Look at Eastern Europe. Look at our own hemisphere. More and more nations are realizing, "What do we have to move away from?" "We've got to move away from forms of government that do not allow people to be represented fully. But it doesn't happen overnight. Diplomacy isn't -- isn't like combat action, I've discovered. It isn't something that's resolved overnight. It takes time. It takes persuasion. And you have to be considerate of the pace at which a particular country can move.

When I go back to Pakistan -- let me take Pakistan as an example -- on the evening of the 13th of September of 2001, or the morning of the 14th, two days after 9/11, I placed a phone call to President Musharraf, after my deputy, Mr. Armitage, had sent a list of demands and suggestions and recommendations as to what Pakistan should do. And at that point, there was no parliament functioning. General Musharraf was General Musharraf, President Musharraf. He was supporting -- the regime was supporting the Taliban, and we told them, "Time to start changing." And he did.

And here it is now, a couple of years later, he's still the president, but there is a parliament that's functioning. There is a prime minister. He still has ultimate power. We talked to him about changing his education system. He's doing that. We talked to him about open trade, and he's moving in that direction. We talked to him about A.Q. Khan, and we talked to him about the problems that we saw in that man and his institutions, and now he's moved on that.

And so, I think we have seen the kind of progress we like to see going in the right direction, keeping in mind that during a large part of the last couple of years with Pakistan, we were also worried about a major war breaking out that could have gone nuclear between India and Pakistan. We worked all of that. There was no war. There was no nuclear exchange. Those two countries are now talking to one another. They're exchanging high commissioners, and trade is starting to go across the border. They've met with each other, and now the A.Q. Khan situation has been dealt with -- more to do with it, but it's certainly been dealt with in the first instance. And so we're making progress in a place like Pakistan. But I can't hold it yet to the standard that you and I would expect to see in our country or in one of our Western European friends, the country of one of our Western -- one of our Western European allies.

So, what we do is we never step back from our value system. We never fail to preach them. The Congress has given me a number of tools to work on -- human rights tools, trafficking in persons tools -- other requirements that you give me to make sure that I am applying this value system in our foreign policy activities.

We have good relations with China, the best relations we've had with China in 30 years, I would submit -- economic relations, cooperation on regional issues -- but at the same time, we preach to them, and we let them know there are consequences if they don't obey the standards having to do with the World Trading Organization requirements that they entered into, or human rights, or religious freedom, or tolerance of other points of view. And China hasn't become a full democracy overnight, but it's certainly not where it was 20 years ago.

And so, the value system that you started out with, Mr. Berman, is the foundation stone for the president's foreign policy. It's what we spend an enormous amount of our time in the department doing -- balancing this value system against what a particular country is doing, and then determining what should we do with that country to keep it moving, not just to serve a particular interest we have at a moment in time, but to keep it moving so that it slowly but surely moves in the direction -- not just because we want them to -- but because we think it's best for them to move in that direction in order to create a more peaceful environment in their part of the world, a more peaceful world, and to have them join a community of nations that believes in democracy, and believes in the individual dignity of men and women, and believes in open economic systems.

REP. HYDE: Mr. Chris Smith.

REP. CHRIS SMITH (R-NJ): Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. And Mr. Secretary, thank you for the extraordinary job you, President Bush and John Miller, and so many others are doing on the human slavery, trafficking in persons effort. I think you would agree, smart sanctions do work. When the threat of those sanctions hung over Israel, Turkey, Greece, and South Korea, they did an enormous amount of work to get off of the list, the Tier 3 list, as we call it, and more importantly to make reforms to mitigate and hopefully end trafficking within their own country.

I would just ask you, one of the new tools, as you mentioned a moment ago, that we have given to the department is the whole idea of the watch list, and I hope that that watch list, which the president just signed into law as part of a whole package of new tools, will be used very, very rigorously. There are countries like Russia where we are still waiting for, and holding our breath, and hopefully soon we'll see the necessary legislation get enacted.

Take a look, if you would, Mr. Secretary, at The Netherlands. A recent rapporteur report suggested that something on the order of 80 percent of the women who are being bought and sold every day in The Netherlands are foreigners, a significant portion of which have been trafficked, and yet they're Tier 1. I would hope that they would be look at with some -- some real scrutiny.

The other day -- or just in the ongoing -- one of the Tier 3 countries, and this deserves, I think, some real look, Uzbekistan's daughter, Ganora Karimova (sp), she has been linked to trafficking. And there are others who are very high up in government that whenever this information comes forward, we ought to be following it up very rigorously.

On religious freedom, Mr. Secretary, yesterday the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom testified that they think there ought to be at least 11 countries on the CPC list, the countries of particular concern, including Vietnam. And I would encourage you to look at those countries. John Hanford said that it is under a very, very active review -- our U.S. ambassador -- special ambassador for religious affairs. And it seems to me, looking at what's going on in Vietnam, including the renunciation of faith that the government is imposing on some religious believers, warrants, I think, CPC designation.

Thirdly, and you mentioned China briefly, but China continues to be a basket case when it comes to human rights issues. They continue to repress all dissidents. The one child per couple policy remains one of the worst assaults in humankind, in human history, I should say, on women, children, as well as on families where children are illegal if they're not explicitly authorized by the state. And, of course, that's enforced by forced abortion and forced sterilization.

And finally, I chair the Helsinki Commission, as you know, and I continually hear criticisms of what goes on in Guantanamo. I've gone there. I and others, you know, didn't find any of the torture that was being talked about by our -- by our friends and allies in Europe. But, why don't we have in Europe the same kind of expression of angst and opposition to what goes on right across the border line, and that is to say what goes on in Havana with Fidel Castro. As we all know, he recently rounded up some of the best and the brightest and the bravest in Cuba, including Dr. Oscar Biscet and others, and had meted out 25, 26, 27-year prison terms for aspiring for democracy and for speaking the truth to power. I would hope that our European allies -- they did initially, a few of them, would speak out against these atrocities that are going on in Cuba today.

Thank you, Mr. Secretary.

SEC. POWELL: Thank you very much, Mr. Smith. With respect to trafficking in persons, I think you -- you know how aggressively the department is pursuing this issue and how much we appreciate the support and the nudge Congress has given us over the years. I've participated in television shows, the Dateline show a few weeks ago that I thought was very moving in describing what goes on in trafficking in children, some of the horrific scenes that the Dateline crews came up with, which should shock all -- all -- civilized people. And you can -- you can count on this department and this president following up on this as much as we can.

When I was in Russia two weeks ago, I met with President Putin, I met with a lot of people, but as part of my trip I went and visited a conference on trafficking in persons, with civil leaders, with government leaders, with all sorts of people who have come together to begin talking about this problem in Russia, and I addressed that conference.

I'm aware of The Netherlands problem, and we called that to the attention of our colleagues in The Netherlands.

On China, we're not holding back on that. We have told the Chinese that we have seen backsliding over the last year, not progress, and that this is of concern to you.

And with respect to Guantanamo, there's no question that we're treating all the detainees down there in a proper manner, consistent with our international obligations. I did a television television interview earlier today on Spanish television to announce that the Spanish detainee will be released in the next day or so, and you will see in the next couple of weeks that the interrogation, and other procedures that had been in place to make sure we knew who we were dealing with down there, have been expedited so that more and more people that we have no reason to detain will be released, and sent back to their countries. But for those who are bad guys and we have every reason to detain, because they could go right back out on the streets and attack us, we are going to retain. And we'll make the case to the international community and the human rights organizations as to why it is necessary for us to do that to protect our citizens.

I think even my European colleagues finally are starting to realize that you look over the fence at Guantanamo, and there's Cuba. And it is the worst offender. And I found it much easier to make that case to my European Union colleagues in recent months as a result of continued misbehavior -- horrible misbehavior on the part of the Cuban government.

REP. BEREUTER: Thank you, Mr. Smith.

The gentleman from New York, Mr. Ackerman, is recognized for five minutes.

REP. GARY ACKERMAN (D-NY): Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Secretary, thank you for being with us today, and glad to see you looking so robust. And thank you for the great work that you are doing for us all over the world.

Mr. Secretary, a year ago you appeared before the United Nations Security Council and brilliantly detailed the case against Saddam Hussein and his regime. Your presentation that day was the apogee of a larger campaign by the president and his senior advisors to make the public case for going to war and removing Saddam Hussein and his government from power. I want to be clear, Mr. Secretary: I supported the decision to go to war. I voted for the resolution authorizing the president to use force as a last resort. And I would have voted for it for the right reasons. I would have voted for it for the honest reasons. They would have been sufficient for me.

But I also believed in the administration, and I believed their case, and the case that they were making. But in the aftermath of the war, finding no weapons of mass destruction and no plans in a decade thereto, and with shifting justifications from the war coming from the president, who refuses to take personal responsibility for what is at best an intelligence disaster, or at worst massaging the intelligence books, I can't help but feel the same unease that my constituents feel that we were sold a bill of goods, and that the buck will stop somewhere short of the president's desk.

While no one in a policy-making position in the administration ever publicly said the word "imminent," everything that was said to convince the public and the Congress suggested that we needed to take immediate action -- immediate if not sooner. The president said we would not live at the mercy of Iraq's dictator. Dr Rice said, quote, "We don't want the smoking gun" -- I'll underline it -- "the smoking gun to turn out to be the mushroom cloud," unquote -- and we know what makes mushroom clouds. And in case there was anyone who didn't get the picture that was being painted, the vice president said, quote, "Simply put, there is no doubt that Saddam Hussein now has weapons of mass destruction," unquote.

That kind of language amounts to a case for imminent, even if no one actually said that word.

The distinguished chairman of this committee cited in his remarks the adage that truth is the first casualty of war. I would content that the truth was murdered before a shot was fired.

Now unable to discover the stockpiles of weapons that Vice President Cheney asserted were absolutely there, and that Secretary Rumsfeld claimed to know the exact location of, we find ourselves with a big problem. Not that our failure to find the weapons is not a big problem, or that al Qaeda forces are sneaking into Iraq to attack our troops is not a big problem, or that rebuilding a nation the size of California is not a big problem. The real problem is much bigger. The problem is an utter lack of credibility. This administration lacks credibility with Congress, the American people and the international community.

The credibility gap is not just about the reasons we went to war in Iraq, but extends to the plan for what we would do after the war. I was one of those in Congress who agreed that by comparison winning the war would be easy, and winning the peace would be hard. We won the war. The secretary of war makes good war. And for the peace, we were assured -- the American people were assured that there was a plan. And in fact there was a plan. It was produced by the State Department, and I suspect at your direction. It fills 13 volumes and occupies a shelf in our committee's office. It is very detailed and discusses all the issues that we've now confronted since the very first day of the occupation. Yet this plan was deliberately shoved aside, and its chief architect summarily removed from our reconstruction efforts in Iraq. How are the American people to believe the current plan to hand over power to Iraqis on June 30th, ready or not, come hell or high water, will actually work, when all the expertise the United States government could muster has summarily ignored?

I've concluded the administration's plan to get us into the war was bait-and-switch. And the plan to get us out looks very much like cut-and-run.

REP. BEREUTER: Mr. Ackerman, your time has expired. To keep on track here for everyone, we really need to stop at this point.

REP. LANTOS: May I -- Mr. Chairman, I request unanimous consent that the gentleman have a minute to conclude his statement.

REP. BEREUTER: Is there objection?

REP. DANA ROHRABACHER (R-CA): I object, Mr. Chairman, because some of us are waiting for some time as well, Mr. Ackerman.

REP. BEREUTER: Objection is heard. Objection is heard.

REP. ACKERMAN: If I could just conclude.

REP. BEREUTER: I need to use the gavel, Mr. Ackerman, because you're 30 seconds are over, and an objection was heard.

REP. ACKERMAN: It's your gavel, Mr. Chairman.

REP. BEREUTER: Thank you. Mr. Secretary, do you wish to respond?

SEC. POWELL: I'll respond briefly. First, truth is not murder, Mr. Ackerman. The information that we were presented by the intelligence community and was carefully examined -- nobody shaped it, nobody told the intelligence community what to say. When I made my presentation to the U.N. last year, February the 5th, I knew that I was going before a world audience, and I knew that I had to have it right. And "right" meant I had the considered total views of the intelligence community. And where there was a difference of opinion or a difference of view, I had to take that into account, ask the DCI, Mr. Tenet, to resolve it. And if it was not resolvable at least make note of it in my presentation, which I did. And in my presentation I laid out clearly the intent, the history of Mr. Saddam Hussein's behavior. I laid out the programs that he had. I laid out all the gaps in knowledge that we had, and asked him to answer those gaps, as he was required to do so under 1441. And I went into that briefing believing that there were stockpiles, that there were weapons there. We expected to find them. We all believe t hat, because all of the intelligence data that we had suggested that there were stockpiles, and it was derived from 12 years of examinations, eight years of which included U.N. inspectors on the ground, and all the intelligence that was available to us, available to other agencies in other governments.

And so there's not a question of we knew nothing was there and we lied about it. What we did was we presented the facts that our intelligence community provided to us -- nothing more, nothing less. And I did not go before the U.N. and tell anything but the truth as we knew it at the time that we presented it. With respect to --

REP. ACKERMAN: Your presentation was impeccable before the U.N., and I did not mean to impugn that, Mr. Secretary.

SEC. POWELL: I beg your pardon, sir?

REP. ACKERMAN: I said your presentation at the U.N. was impeccable.

SEC. POWELL: Yeah, but it reflected the intelligence community's view and it reflected the information that was in the NIE that was presented to the Congress. So -- and it was the definitive U.S. government statement presented before the world body.

On the aftermath, the information in the 13 volumes was made available to the Department of Defense, which had responsibility -- appropriately so -- for the immediate aftermath. It was still a war. It was a war zone. And our experience in Japan, in Germany and elsewhere is that's the department that has to run it. No other department has that kind of capacity. One can question the decisions and judgments that were made, but I think we are on a good track now with the Coalition Provisional Authority under the leadership of Ambassador Bremer. And I have started the transition process in the department where State Department officials, appropriately so, as we get closer to transition will take more and more responsibility until transition comes and an ambassador running a normal, but very large, embassy will become responsible for our interests and presence in Iraq.

REP. BEREUTER: The gentle lady from Florida, Ms. Ros-Lehtinen, is recognized for five minutes.

REP. ILEANA ROS-LEHTINEN (R-FL): Thank you so much, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Secretary, it's always a pleasure to see you. It's not a quickie, but it's a little longer, but your performance is always great.

I have a few questions on Cuba, human rights, Israel and the Middle East Partnership Initiative all rolled into one. Just last night I received a letter from the human rights activist that my colleague Congressman Smith was speaking about, Dr. Oscar Elias Biscet, one of the many prisoners of conscience languishing in Castro's gulag. And in that letter that I would like to submit for the record, Dr. Biscet says, "There is not doubt that existing evil and injustice in our country is made up of the structure well designed to repress." And, Mr. Secretary, I'd like to ask what your department is doing to underscore the threat of Fidel Castro internationally. What are we doing to try to secure the release of Dr. Biscet and, as Mr. Smith pointed out, almost 80 other human rights activists who were arrested, sentenced to last spring merely for speaking out on behalf of democracy? Are we getting international support calling for their release?

And on the subject of human rights, we have the upcoming session of the United Nations Commission on Human Rights, and I'd like to ask you what is our department strategy regarding country-specific resolutions? What oppressive regimes, which ones will the U.S. be focusing on at this year's session? And of particular interest is the response from European nations on the efforts to prevent anti-Semitic, slanderous attacks against one of our staunchest allies, our friend and partner Israel. What are we doing to prevent the commission from being hijacked, as it has so many times, by extremist elements?

And, similarly, could you update us on the department's efforts concerning the International Court of Justice and Israel's security fence? I am very pleased that the administration chose to file a brief with the court on the U.S. views of Israel's security fence. And just this morning from your department, Mr. Secretary, I received a response regarding Israel, and I thank you for that. And the letter states the administration's strong support for Israel. It says the United States has always supported Israel's security needs and its right to defend itself. We believe that there can be no excuse for the violence and terrorist attacks against the Israeli people that they have been forced to endure. And we have made it clear to the Palestinians that a Palestinian state will not be established on a foundation of terror. And we thank you and President Bush for your strong stand. So, lastly, how would you assess the performance of the Palestinian prime minister to date? Do you believe that he has succeeded in limiting the ability of Arafat to run the show and control terrorist attacks against Israel? And, if you have a minute to spare to elaborate on the programs of the countries that will be the focus of the Middle East Partnership Initiative. And we thank you for your progress on that great program.

Thank you, Mr. Secretary.

SEC. POWELL: Thank you very much, Congresswoman. I will run down some of these very briefly. With respect to the doctor, we share your concern for him and for the other 80 who are incarcerated in that manner, and we raise this as an issue with our European Union friends at every opportunity. I wish I could snap a finger and free them all, but that's, of course, not possible.

But I think, by these terrible actions, Fidel Castro has isolated himself more and more, and there are fewer and fewer people willing to stand up and defense him or his regime. With respect to the Human Rights Commission and what we're looking at, we are still examining the various resolutions that might be put forward but certainly the Cuban resolution will be one of those that we would be putting forward and try to generate support from and work with our European Union colleagues.

Anti-Semitic actions, we participated in anti-Semitic conference last year under the auspices of the OECD -- OSC, excuse me -- and we are going to do so again this year. And I'm pleased that a number of my European Union colleagues realize that this is an issue that they can't just ignore and pretend it isn't real. It is real, and they have to deal with it, and we are participating in the conferences that are dealing with it.

With respect to the ICJ, we were pleased to file a brief that said we don't believe that we're standing for this issue before the ICJ. I am not satisfied with everything that Prime Minister Abu Allah has done. I have conveyed to the Palestinian side repeatedly that they have to do more with respect to security, and we won't be able to get anywhere until they do do more and wrest control of the security forces from Yasser Arafat, and there is just no question about that.

And then the Middle East partnership initiative, which will grow into the Greater Middle East initiative -- we are examining now how far that should extend. Should it stop at the Gulf? Should it continue over to Afghanistan and Pakistan? How wide should we consider the Middle East region to be as we think about this for the G-8, NATO, and EU meetings that are coming up later this year? The Middle East Partnership Initiative is essentially for the Western part of that wide region.

REP. BEREUTER: The gentleman from American Samoa, Mr. Faleomavaega, is recognized for five minutes.

REP. FALEOMAVAEGA: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Secretary, I want to offer my compliments to you for your outstanding leadership and commitment and especially for the tremendous services that you are rendering to our country. It's not easy to be constantly faced with serious events and conflicts. They might either require instant response or pretend the problems don't exist or, by sheer negligence, just do nothing.

Our nation is now in the middle of a highly politically charged atmosphere where the people of our nation will decide who should represent their interests, both domestically and to the world. As our chairman has stated clearly, truth becomes the first casualty not only of war but in an atmosphere where partisan politics consumes our appetite, and as human nature would have it, not only to be heard but to be given the power to make decisions that will control the lives of the people of our country.

Mr. Secretary, 30 years ago India exploded its nuclear device in 1974 and thereby immediately, as I recall, Prime Minister Rajiv Ghandi pleaded before the United Nations General Assembly of the dangers of the proliferation of nuclear weapons and requested that there should be a worldwide ban of nuclear weapons altogether and that India would be among the first to voluntarily submit to the destruction of nuclear weapons. My understanding the reaction from the five permanent members of the Security Council who possesses, to this day, nuclear weapons -- France, Great Britain, China, our country, Russia -- we did nothing. The point that India has been advocating for the past 30 years, Mr. Secretary, is simply this -- what gives our nation, Russia, the United Kingdom, China, and France the right to tell the rest of the world not to produce nuclear weapons or even prevent Third World countries from producing nuclear weapons when these five nations should be setting an example by destroying their own supply of nuclear weapons?

Common sense would dictate that Pakistan, which borders India, has every right as a nation to also produce nuclear weapons to protect itself from possible threat of a nuclear attack by India. Now, Mr. Secretary, that's the best example of proliferation -- Pakistan's security is threatened by India, and India's security is threatened by China, and it goes on and on. And all this because five nuclear nations refuse to set the example of getting rid of their nuclear weapons themselves.

With the recent pardoning of Mr. Khan by President Musharraf of Pakistan, Mr. Secretary, for the exportation of nuclear technology to Iran, Libya, and North Korea, how will this impact, again, the issue of non-proliferation of nuclear weapons among countries who have them and other countries do not have them but maybe hope to possess them? And, of course, the question of proliferation, you are talking about nuclear testings and, from my own personal experience, Mr. Secretary, as I recall, that hundreds of Marshallese were directly affected by nuclear contamination in our own nuclear testing program of the Marshall Islands, thousands of Tahitians were directly affected by nuclear contamination of the French nuclear testing program that took place for some 30 years in the South Pacific and some 2 million Kazaks of the Kazakhs among the people of Kazakhstan that were also exposed to nuclear testing by then-Soviet Union. So there is nothing pretty about the whole question of nuclear weapons, but I just wanted to ask for your comment and where are we now? I mean -- what is -- it just makes the whole question of non-proliferation as irrelevant if countries that have against countries that do not have nuclear weapons and which also invites terrorists, if you will, rogue nations, that the only way that they can perceive on setting a sense of balance against those nations that do possess them, whether they be democratic or controlled by dictators.

So I wonder, Mr. Secretary, if you would respond to that.

SEC. POWELL: I would love to see the day when there were no nuclear weapons anywhere, but they are there, and history produced those first five in the aftermath of the end of World War II and the few years after the World War, and then other nations have joined that party. But I think we now have the opportunity to keep the club from growing. We've certainly gotten Iraq out of the club. Libya said we don't know why we asked for membership in the first place. I hope we can convince Korea -- and, frankly, Korea says it is willing to give them up but is placing conditions and a price tag on it. And, hopefully, they can be persuaded not to become a member of the club. And I think with the breaking up of the A.Q. Khan network, we have succeeded in keeping this kind of material from going to non-state actors, terrorist organizations, less likely. I'm less worried about it getting out of our inventory or British or French or Chinese or even Russian inventories, but A.Q. Khan was another matter, and now we've dealt with that.

So our proliferation activities are bearing fruit. We have nations who have forgotten about it altogether -- South Africa, Argentina, Brazil, others that were looking at it over the years -- forget it. It doesn't do anything for me.

With respect to our own nation, I often tell the story and I've probably done so here before, that when I became chairman of the joint chiefs of staff in October of 1989 while the Cold War was still on, I had responsibility for a stockpile that had 28,000 weapons -- nuclear weapons. When I left four years later, it was heading down to under 15,000, and we've just concluded yet another treaty with Moscow that will bring it to an even lower number, and I hope we can find ways to make that even lower, until the point is reached where both sides say, "Enough, get rid of it," and set an example for the rest of the world.

So I think we have it moving in the right direction now. There is no testing taking place to expose people of the islands or anywhere else to this kind of danger, and so I think we've got it moving in the right direction, and we've got to stay on it until we reach that day when there are no nuclear weapons left on the face of the earth.

REP. BEREUTER: Thank you, Mr. Secretary. We have a vote on we need to go to, and without objection, the entire statements of Mr. Ackerman and Ms. Ros-Lehtinen will be made a part of the record.

REP. : Mr. Chairman?

REP. BEREUTER: That will be the order, and we were only recessing.

REP. : Some of us are willing to stay. Is that amenable to the chair?

REP. BEREUTER: We are going to have a very brief recess, and so I would say perhaps as little as five minutes, perhaps 10. So we need to recess. The committee is in recess.

(Recess.)

REP. HYDE: The committee will come to order. Mr. Rohrabacher of California.

REP. DANA ROHRABACHER (R-CA): Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.

First and foremost, let me congratulate you, Mr. Secretary, and our president for doing a magnificent job that has made this world a safer place and have made sure that the United States of America is more secure than it was when you took over.

Three years ago, when this administration took over, radical Islam was, you know, on a course that looked like it was going to basically threaten the entire planet. And radical Islam and other forces of evil in this planet had not been dealt with by the last administration in a way to alleviate that threat.

And today you sit here before us and our president is before us -- yes, he's apt to take arrows and slings that often have political motivation -- but you have made our country safer and you have made the world a better place and you've opened up new avenues for people around the world, especially new options for young people who grow up in Muslim countries, so that now radical Islam is not just the option but instead democracy and freedom are the option, and whether it's Iraq or Iran or Afghanistan.

So thank you very much. This rhetoric that what you've overseen is an intelligence disaster and a bait-and-switch and cut-and-run -- this is so much political-year nonsense and it does not reflect at all the gratitude the American people will have once your time in office is over and they can analyze the historic changes that have been made for the betterment of this world. So thank you very much.

I have a couple of issues that I would like to bring up. First of all, I'd like to compliment you on something that I'm sure is not at your attention. There's a family in my congressional district in Orange County, a well-thought-of family that is an immigrant family from Africa, and it's the Brahami (ph) family. And they had their property confiscated by the Ethiopian government, which is still refusing to give it back.

And OPIC, under your leadership, Mr. Secretary, has decided to cut off business with Ethiopia until these American citizens are dealt with fairly. And I think that that's a wonderful thing that finally some of the financial decisions that are being made are taking the American citizens into consideration like this, and I congratulate you for that.

I hope if Ethiopia doesn't reach some sort of a just compensation or give back these people's property, that they'll face some more pressure from the administration. But thanks for what you've already done.

A note of disagreement here, and that is, in your remarks you noted how part of the decision-making -- and as I just pointed out, what's in America's interest is certainly part of the decision-making process -- but human rights is also an important part of the decision- making process.

I've noted that in your material that it says that Burma is eligible to receive up to $30 million in a program, the Economic Support Fund. Burma -- I do not understand why we would ever want to give money to Burma while they are under the current dictatorship. And that's one question.

And the second one is China. Didn't China have something to do with Pakistan's acquisition of its nuclear capability, and thus has to share some of the responsibility for the proliferation?

SEC. POWELL: I'm glad we were able to help with the family, and I'll follow up with our folks to make sure we're watching carefully to see that that plays out the way it's supposed to play out, Mr. Rohrabacher.

On human rights, as you know, we have been very tough on Burma and made it clear that we find their political and human rights actions to be deplorable, especially with respect to Aung San Suu Kyi, and we will continue to say so.

I will look into the specific item you mentioned about the ESF funding. It may relate to some humanitarian or other programs that are in our interest to fund. But I will get you a detailed answer for the record on that, if I may.

With respect to China and Pakistani cooperation, I would have to yield to my intelligence colleagues to see what substance there might be to the question you raise. And I'd prefer for them to answer it than me.

REP. ROHRABACHER: Thank you very much, Mr. Secretary.

SEC. POWELL: My staff hands me a note that says Burma -- it's $7 million, and it's to the democracy-building. And that's what it's for.

REP. ROHRABACHER: That's good. Thank you very much, Mr. Secretary.

REP. HYDE: Mr. Menendez.

REP. ROBERT MENENDEZ (D-NJ): Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. Secretary, thank you for coming before us today. I have two sets of issues to raise with you. First, as the ranking Democrat on the Western Hemisphere (Subcommittee), I am outraged that the Latin American budget has been slashed.

I hear the president say that Latin America is a priority, but when we look at the facts, it's different. In this budget, Latin American development programs are cut by nearly 11 percent, as compared to 2004, in active levels. Child survival and health programs are cut by almost 12 percent.

Latin America is the only region in the world, the only region, to be cut in both total economic and development aid and total narcotic and military aid.

And if one tries to make the argument that the MCA will take care of Latin America, I think we need to get our facts straight, because even if we include all of the five countries eligible based on income levels, for which, of course, there is no guarantee, a maximum of 7.2 percent of Latin America's poor would benefit from the MCA. So, so much for us being un amigo.

And then I'd like to turn to Iraq. It's clear now to me and to many Americans that we went into this war under false premises. And Mr. Secretary, I respect loyalty to the president. I even respect more your loyalty to the American people when you have made comments that sometimes were honest and out of what may be seen as the mainstream, when in that Washington Post article you honestly said that you're not sure you would have recommended going to war if you knew that Saddam did not have stockpiles of banned weapons.

And it's also clear to many of us that the question of Saddam's actual stockpiles that have not been found were not expanding but they were contracting. And that was not the case made to the American people if one looks at, for example, the report by the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, "Weapons of Mass Destruction in Iraq," and looked at the key to their findings, where they say, "With respect to nuclear and chemical weapons, the threat was largely known."

And it says, "Iraq's nuclear program had been dismantled and there was no convincing evidence of its reconstitution"; that regarding chemical weapons, UNSCOM discovered that Iraq's nerve agents had lost most of their lethality as early as 1991 and that all of the subsequent operations -- Desert Storm, Desert Fox and U.N. inspections and sanctions -- effectively destroyed Iraq's large-scale chemical weapon production capabilities; when they say that it is unlikely that Iraq could have destroyed, hidden or sent out of the country the hundreds of tons of chemical and biological weapons, dozens of Scud missiles and facilities engaged in the ongoing production of chemical and biological weapons that officials claimed were present, without the U.S. detecting some sign of this activity before, during or after the major combat period of war; that prior to 2002, the intelligence community appears to have overestimated the chemical and biological weapons in Iraq; that the dramatic shift between prior intelligence assessments and the October 2002 national intelligence estimate, together with the creation of an independent intelligence entity of the Pentagon and other steps, suggest that the intelligence community began to be unduly influenced by policymakers' views sometime in 2002; that there was and is no solid evidence of a cooperative relationship between Saddam's government and al Qaeda; that there was no evidence to support the claim that Iraq would have transferred weapons of mass destruction to al Qaeda and much evidence to counter it; and to their conclusion that administration officials systematically misrepresented the threat from Iraq's weapons-of-mass-destruction and ballistic- missile programs beyond the intelligence failures noted above, and they say that by treating nuclear, chemical and biological weapons as a single weapon-of-mass-destruction threat; that the conflation of these three distinct threats were very different than the danger they posed, distorted the cost-benefit analysis of the war, that insisting without evidence yet treating as a given truth that Saddam Hussein would give whatever weapons of mass destruction he possessed to terrorists; that routinely dropping caveats, probabilities and expressions of uncertainty present in intelligence assessments from public statements and by misrepresenting inspectors' findings in ways that turned threats from minor to dire.

That is the nature of what we find ourselves in. And so I simply close by saying I don't understand how we, to this day, can have a process where we have no exit strategy, where we are nation-building, which I have heard my colleagues oppose, where we're ready to have -- we want to have an election that the majority of the Iraqi population says -- in a way in which the majority of the Iraqi population says that they are not supportive of, and we have made this timetable without seeing if it, in fact, will work.

And lastly, our status-of-forces agreement -- how is it that we're going to keep our troops there? Under what set of circumstances? We don't have negotiations with the Iraqis on this issue. When will they be resumed, and with whom? And what will be the purpose of those troops that will stay there? When will they be home? When will they be -- where will be their mission? Will they be there to deter an invasion from outside forces? Will they be there at the service of a new Iraqi government?

REP. HYDE: The gentleman's time --

REP. MENENDEZ: How long will they stay in power after the transfer?

REP. HYDE: The gentleman's time --

REP. MENENDEZ: Those are all questions we'd like to hear answers to.

REP. HYDE: The gentleman's time has long since expired.

REP. MENENDEZ: Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

SEC. POWELL: Thank you very much, Mr. Menendez. With respect to Latin America, we have reduced the overall amount of funding there because we had higher priorities that we had to deal with of a more serious nature in some of these programs in other parts of the world.

It's one of those tradeoffs we make. I wish we didn't have to do it, but within the limited funding stream, these are the kinds of choices that we do have to make. And I hope it will be offset to some extent by the Millennium Challenge Account funding as it starts to flow, recognizing it will probably not make up the complete difference. But we won't know yet until we actually do the Millennium Challenge Account funding.

With respect to Iraq and what you attribute to be my difference of opinion in a Washington Post interview, let me say that the information that the president based his decision upon and the information that I used to make my presentation to the United Nations reflected the judgment of the intelligence community.

It wasn't shaped. I didn't spin it. I didn't add anything to it. Every word in that presentation reflected the decision of the director of Central Intelligence after examining all the evidence available to him, the different points of view.

We sat at the CIA for several nights debating and arguing every point in that presentation. And so, it wasn't that we didn't present the truth, we presented what we believed the truth to be at the time, and we had every basis for believing that was the case. And as I said earlier, intent is no question.

Delivery systems, I didn't linger on that earlier in my presentation, but he was developing longer-range delivery systems, and not to deliver popcorn. And so delivery capability was under development. There was clearly an intention to keep these programs alive. The part of the equation that is still an unknown because the research continues, and the work of the Iraqi survey group continues, has to do with stockpiles. And in the 30 minutes that I discussed this issue with the Washington Post and all of their reporters, I spent 29-1/2 minutes describing how we came to the conclusion we came, and why it was the right conclusion.

And then it was asked, well, suppose the CIA had said something entirely different about this for that whole period of time, what would the recommendations have been? I said, well, that changes the equation, so I don't know what I would have recommended. But based on everything else that was in the equation at that time, I might have recommended or said to the president, we have to go anyway. I was giving an honest answer at that time. I didn't duck the answer. I didn't hide behind the hypothetical question. I told the truth as I always did, to the best of my knowledge and belief, not shaping, not spinning, but it caused some members of the press to go hysterical over the answer, and so be it, that's the way it is in this town.

But the president had the correct basis upon which to make the decision he made. He got solid intelligence information, it reflected the judgment of the intelligence community, the intelligence communities of many other nations. It reflected our best estimate of what Iraq had, and it has been established that they had the intent, they had capability in a variety of areas. It remains to be seen whether or not we come across any stockpiles or not. Dr. Kay says he doesn't think we will. Dr. Kay also says they were clearly in material breach of their obligations, and the president did the right thing, as Dr. Kay says, even in the absence of information at this point with respect to the stockpiles. And I don't think we have anything to be apologetic about it.

And under no set of circumstances do I believe anybody in America should think that the president cooked the books, or in some way tried to mislead them. The president took this to the United Nations, and said to the United Nations, here's the problem we're trying to solve. It could have been solved peacefully. Saddam Hussein was given the opportunity to solve this peacefully. If the president did not intend that, he wouldn't have taken it to the United Nations. He didn't take the opportunity that was given to him. He demonstrated he continued to have the intent. He demonstrated he continued to try to keep the capability, and play hide and seek with us on the capability. He paid the consequences.

But the American people are going to see that in this difficult process ahead of putting in place a government, putting in place a democracy, there will be challenges ahead. Regrettably, lives will be lost. It will take us a great deal of money. But when we're through, we won't have to worry about weapons of mass destruction, we won't have to worry about dictators. We'll have a country that we're going to be proud of.

We are working on all of the issues you mentioned with respect to timetables, with respect to security agreement with the new transitional government, and the permanent government, that will follow from that. We understand those challenges, and we think that we haven't seen a challenge yet we don't know how to deal with or meet. But it will be difficult. And what we need is the support of the Congress, and the continued support of the American people to get this job done.

REP. HYDE: Thank you very much, Mr. Secretary.

Mr. Chabot. Would you put your microphone on.

REP. CHABOT: Let me thank you for your leadership on the issue of international child abduction. You are very familiar with one of the most egregious cases involving Corrina Sylvester, an American citizen who, when barely a year old, was kidnapped by her mother and taken to Austria, where she lives today. She's now nine years old. And during the last eight years, her American father, Tom Sylvester, of my district, Cincinnati, has seen his daughter only occasionally, and under strict supervision. During that period, the child's mother has refused to comply with American and Austrian court orders. She's ignored appellate decisions, and has lived in a continual violation of the Hague Convention. All the while, the Austrian government has failed to enforce the Hague Convention return order.

In April of last year, the European Court of Human Rights ruled that Austria violated the human rights of both Tom and his daughter, Corrina, when it failed to enforce an order entered by the Austrian court that Corrina be returned to the United States under the Hague Convention of 1995. The decision of the seven-judge panel was unanimous.

Mr. Secretary, you have been a great ally in this case, and you've been willing to help us whenever we've asked. And Ambassador Hardy has been steadfast in her efforts to bring about a resolution of this case. We very much appreciate her help, and I understand that whenever a meeting involving representatives of our government and the government of Austria takes place the Sylvester case gets raised. Unfortunately, the Austrian government remains unwilling to cooperate. It's clear that they have allowed the mother of the child, the kidnapper, to flout the law and deny the American father the right to have a life with his daughter.

As you can understand, this case continues to frustrate all of us. At this point, I'm wondering what further steps we can take to bring a resolution to this unbelievably painful situation. I'm considering bringing a resolution before the House that would spell out the intransigence of the Austrian government in this fundamental human rights case, but I would hope that would not be necessary. It would be unfortunate, because unlike some other countries whom we would consider to be at least nominal allies Austria's record on Hague Convention cases has been, for the most part, good. That's why it's so frustrating to deal with this particular case, and why it is so hard to understand why the Austrian government would not want to resolve this case before more emotional damage is done to the father and the child.

I know we can count on you and your good offices, Mr. Secretary, to continue to help us in this fight, and you have my thanks, and the thanks of this left behind parent.

Now, at the risk of offending yet another European country, let me move a moment to France. And please keep in mind that I'm a legislator, and I'm not a diplomat, so I'm going to be very frank with you.

SEC. POWELL: They're not always inconsistent.

REP. CHABOT: No, they're not. Certainly not in your case. Last year when we were here we were discussing French opposition to our efforts to bring to an end the brutal, murderous regime of Saddam Hussein and liberate the Iraqi people. I made the comment that, as one with a French surname, Chabot, or as the French pronounce it Chabot, I was troubled that the French, of all people, seemed to forget about the high price of appeasement. The next day a Paris newspaper reported that I was ashamed of my name, which then caused the leader of the French Senate, name Chabot, or Chabot as he pronounces it, to engage me in a spirited trans-Atlantic colloquy. I told him I was not the least bit ashamed of my name, it was the French government that I was ashamed of. That went over real big in France.

Now, the French are at it again. It's widely known that they are willing to sell military components to just about anybody with a checkbook. Just last month France led an effort within the European Union to lift a 14-year ban on weapon sales to China. This comes at a time when China has nearly 500 missiles aimed at Taiwan less than 100 miles away. After actually turning the lights on the Eiffel Tower a fitting red, in honor of a visit by Chinese President Hu, President Chirac curried further favor with the communist dictator by calling Taiwan's March referendum on cross-straight relations a grave mistake. Although it's uncertain whether his comments whether in the company of Asia's biggest neighborhood bully were of interest to anybody else, including the Taiwanese.

As school children we all learned about the special relationship between France in the United States and the battles against tyranny --

REP. HYDE: Mr. Chabot, your time is --

REP. CHABOT: If I could just ask for an additional minute, I'll wrap up, Mr. Chairman.

REP. HYDE: Oui, oui.

REP. DELAHUNT: Mr. Chairman, I have no objection.

REP. CHABOT: Our children, too, have learned about that history. My concern is that our grandchildren will grow up with a different view, not of the Revolutionary War, and the Statue of Liberty, and the Battle of Normandy, but of a nation that no longer shares our values, and continually works to undermine our interests, and those of the free countries around the world. So, Mr. Secretary, I know that time is limited here today, but is there any future? What should we be concerned about, about our relationships with France at this time?

SEC. POWELL: Forgive me, Steve. The Chairman and I were having a private, inside joke for a moment that only he and I understand.

On the Sylvester case, it's tragic. And as you know, I've spent a lot of time on the case, I've met with Mr. Sylvester, and I know how difficult this one is for him. We're working it and, as is the case with so many of these child abduction cases, they're not easy to resolve. Our laws are sometimes different from the laws in the other country. We can't impose our decrees there, and they have their own set of decrees, or you have a family that just finds ways to hide within the law of the other country, and that really brings us to a gridlock.

All I can say to you, sir, is that we're trying very hard, Assistant Secretary Hardy is doing a tremendous job. She resolved 180 cases over the last year, year and a half, we've been able to solve the problem between the parents to the benefit of the child. And she has been holding hometown meetings with people all over the country who are in this situation. So as a policy matter, and a programmatic matter, we're working as hard as we can on this, and I'll never ignore the Sylvester case until we get it resolved to the satisfaction of the child, principally.

REP. CHABOT: I appreciate that very much, Mr. Secretary.

SEC. POWELL: With respect to France, I raised the issue of European Union sales to China, sales of military equipment, with the French Foreign Minister last Friday at lunch. He understands the sensitivity with which we think about this issue in light of the missiles arrayed against Taiwan, the Taiwan referendum that's coming up, very sensitive time, why start changing this policy. China's human rights activities, why start thinking about changing this policy?

I had the same conversation this morning with the foreign minister of Ireland, Mr. Brian Cowen, who is also the presidency of the European Union. And so I have been talking with all of my European Union colleagues -- Mr. Straw last week of the United Kingdom, Joschka Fischer of Germany -- to say that this is something they really need to give long and hard thought to, and not do. As you know, they met on it about two weeks ago and have tabled it for the time being, but it will be coming back up, and we will be pressing our European Union colleagues not to abandon this policy.

REP. HYDE: Mr. Brown.

REP. SHERROD BROWN (D-OH): Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Secretary, thank you for the work that you are doing on international HIV/AIDS and TB. I wish the rest of the administration were as committed as you are, and thank you for that.

I have sent you a dated January 20th letter about Haiti, the situation there, which you have not yet answered, and I would ask that you instruct your staff to answer it as quickly as possible. It's certainly a complicated issue, but especially about our involvement there.

One quick question, and then I want to talk about something else. The Taiwanese president, Chen Shui-bian, is moving forward with plans for two national referenda to take place the same day as the presidential election. Is the administration supporting either or both of those referenda?

SEC. POWELL: Forgive me, Mr. Brown, I was -- I was distracted.

REP. BROWN: Okay. Chen Shui-bian is the day of his election?

SEC. POWELL: Yes.

REP. BROWN: -- for president -- reelection or defeat --

SEC. POWELL: Uh-huh.

REP. BROWN: -- there are two referenda.

SEC. POWELL: Right.

REP. BROWN: Is the -- is the administration supporting one or both of those referenda?

SEC. POWELL: On -- on the first point of Haiti, I believe that Assistant Secretary Kelly has answered your letter.

REP. BROWN: Oh, okay.

SEC. POWELL: Haiti is a very difficult issue right now. We are monitoring it very closely. If I can just talk about the overall subject --

REP. BROWN: Okay, briefly, because I really want to get to another issue, and I would just like -- and let's put Haiti aside, and just what are we doing on the referenda?

SEC. POWELL: Okay. On the referenda, we don't really see a need for these referenda, but Taiwan is a democratic place, and if they choose to have a referenda, they can have a referenda. We made it clear to them, however, that we do not want to see these actions lead in any way to a change in the situation. We still are fully supportive and totally committed to our one-China policy based on the three communiques in the Taiwan Relations Act, which gives us certain obligations with respect to the security of Taiwan. And we don't believe any action should be taken in the region that would unilaterally change the situation. Both sides have to work together to eventually find a way of reconciling their different points of views and interests.

REP. BROWN: Okay --

SEC. POWELL: So, we are not expressing support for either of the referenda.

REP. BROWN: Okay. Thank you for that. Americans are still very confused about President Bush's reasons to launch a preemptive strike about Iraq. And I think the media certainly are showing that now. And I hope you can clear it up. And I want to recount a bit of history maybe that can enable you to clear that up for us better than the media have and the administration officials have in the past.

In February of 2001, you said of Saddam Hussein, "I think we ought to declare our policy a success. We've kept him contained, kept him in his box. Saddam is unable to project conventional power against his neighbors. He threatens not the United States."

Condoleezza Rice said in July of 2001, again before September 11th, "We're able to keep arms from Saddam. His military forces haven't been rebuilt."

Right after September 11th, the vice president said, "Saddam Hussein is bottled up."

On January of 2003, the Bureau of Intelligence and Research, the State Department's in-house analysis unit warned that during the preparation for your U.N. speech, that its -- some of the analysts were not persuaded that the aluminum tubes the administration was citing could be used to enrich uranium.

In February 2003, you testified, "Our conservative estimate is that Iraq today has a stockpile of between 100 and 500 tons of chemical weapons." You then stated at -- (inaudible) -- "Saddam has chemical weapons. Iraq's weapons posed a real and present danger to the region and the world."

On May 4th, 2003, you were asked by "Meet the Press," the rational to go to war was to find weapons of mass destruction. We have not found them yet. You answered, "We will. I am absolutely sure there are weapons of mass destruction. The evidence will be forthcoming."

A Carnegie report since then has stated, "Iraq's nuclear program had been dismantled. There was no convincing evidence of its reconstitution. Operations Desert Storm and Desert Fox and U.N. inspections effectively destroyed Iraq's large-scale chemical weapon production capabilities."

The War College stated in its report, "The administration unnecessarily expanded the war on terror by launching preventive war against a state that was not at war with the United States. It posed no direct or imminent threat to the U.S." "Imminent" a word the vice president had used several times, as the secretary of defense did.

Former weapons inspector, presidential appointee David Kay now says Iraq probably didn't have WMD before the war. The administration's case was predicated wholly on the supposed threat of Iraq's WMD posed to Americans.

On February 3rd, the interview you've talked about -- the Post reported you didn't know whether you would have recommended an invasion of Iraq. They ask a specific question, if you would have recommended an invasion knowing Iraq had no prohibited weapons. You reply, quote, "I don't know, because it was the stockpile that presented the final little piece that made it more of a re al and present danger and threat to the region and to the world. The absence" -- still your words -- "of a stockpile changes the political calculus, it changes the answer you get." The next day, after remarks coordinated with the White House, you quickly retreated, said the president made the right decision.

Now, Mr. Secretary, we count on you. You are one of the very few people in this administration that understands war. We have a president who may have been AWOL, a vice president who says --

REP. HYDE: The gentleman's time has expired --

REP. BROWN: May I have an additional minute, as Mr. Chabot did, Mr. Chairman?

REP. HYDE: Pardon?

REP. BROWN: May I have an additional minute, as Mr. Chabot did, Mr. Chairman? Unanimous consent?

REP. HYDE: You certainly may, by unanimous consent.

REP. BROWN: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. We count on you. The president may have been AWOL, the vice president said he had other priorities during Vietnam. Other high administration officials never served. You understand war. We absolutely count on you, and I think a lot of us wonder what happened between that Post interview and your statement the next day when you said the president made the right decision?

SEC. POWELL: First of all, Mr. Brown, I won't dignify your comments about the president, because you don't know what you're talking about.

Second, let me get to the points that you were raising.

REP. BROWN: I'm sorry, I don't know what you mean, Mr. Secretary.

SEC. POWELL: You made reference to the president --

REP. BROWN: I say he may have been AWOL.

SEC. POWELL: Mr. Brown, let's not go there. You know, let's just not go there. Let's not go there in this hearing. If you want to have a political fight on this matter, that is very controversial, and I think is being dealt with by the White House, fine. But let's not go there. Let's talk about what is the guts of your question with respect to what I've said on weapons of mass destruction.

What I presented in 2001, the very beginning of this administration, a view that at that time, based on what we knew, Saddam Hussein was contained. And what I was working hard at that time to do was to get the sanctions reaffirmed and made into smart sanctions, so that we could keep control of the money that he was getting at that point. And everybody was working to bust out of those sanctions so he could get more money to do anything he wanted with, and not funnel to the oil-for-food program. That was a fair statement. But things changed. Things changed with 9/11. Things changed as we learned more and more from our intelligence community as to what their belief was with respect to what he was doing. And when I made my presentation last February, it was based on the best intelligence available to me, to the president, to Secretary Rumsfeld, to the vice president, to Condoleezza Rice, to all of us. We didn't make it up. It was information that reflected the views of the analysts in all of our various agencies. Were there different points of view? Aluminum tubes? Yes, there were. But it was the director of central intelligence's judgment -- he's the one who has to make these calls -- that the tubes were for centrifuge purposes. And that's why I presented them that way.

When I was at the Washington Post I spoke for almost 28 and a half minutes or so about why the case was right, why we did what was right. And if you read the whole story, most of the story is about that. But I was asked a hypothetical question. I didn't duck it. I said if the facts were different, I would have to consider whether I'd make the same recommendation. I don't find that startling. I find that admission a fairly candid admission.

The next day I went out to make sure people didn't forget what I said for most of that time in that interview, that the president did the right thing, and he made the right decision based on the information he had, and based on the intelligence community's view, the intelligence community's judgment. And if the intelligence community had said something entirely different about intent and the various levels of capability, then everybody would have had to take a look at what we were doing. But they didn't. The information given to the president -- and it was available to me -- and I sat to make sure that I had the best, most objective presentation I could give to the world at the United Nations -- I went and lived at the CIA for about four days to make sure that nothing was -- are you shaking your head for something, young man, back there? Are you part of these proceedings? Thank you.

I wanted to make sure that I had the very best information I had. And I sat there with the director of central intelligence and his people, and went over all of these items one by one by one, and every word was cleared not by political people but by the Central Intelligence Agency, representing the views of the community.

With respect to the Army War College report, it's a report by an individual. It doesn't represent the views of the Army War College but it represents the views of the individual who had it published in a document at the Army War College, where they allow lots of points of views to exist.

Mr. Kay, yes, he said based on his analysis they didn't have any stockpiles. When Mr. Kay went into the job eight months ago to begin his work, he thought they did have stockpiles. And he was no rookie. He had the same access to intelligence all the rest of us did. And he thought the stockpiles were there. He doesn't know what happened to them, but he doesn't think they are there now. But he's also convinced that the intent and capability never went away, and that the president did absolutely the right thing, and that Saddam Hussein and his regime was probably a greater problem and a greater threat than even we had anticipated before we went in, and that he was in total material breach of his obligations to the U.N. And so Dr. Kay has no second guesses, no second questions, no doubt that the president did the right thing. The question is why were we off, if we were off, and the work continues to see if we were off with respect to the stockpiles. And that's why Mr. Duelfer has been appointed to replace Dr. Kay and to finish the work that Dr. Kay was undertaking.

REP. BROWN: Thank you for your candor. Mr. Chairman, I've never heard a witness reprimand a staff person in the middle of a question.

SEC. POWELL: I seldom come to a meeting where I am talking to a congressman and I have people aligned behind you giving editorial comment by head shakes.

REP. BROWN: Well, I think people have opinions.

REP. ROHRABACHER: I think the secretary is owed an apology for that, not reprimand --

REP. BROWN: Well, I --

REP. ACKERMAN: Point of order, Mr. Chairman. Has that gentleman who's speaking been recognized?

REP. HYDE: The chair will announce that we have been doing swimmingly until now, and we're on a very emotional subject, and I think it's in the interest of truth and getting to the end of the secretary's testimony -- his time is valuable as --

REP. BROWN (?): The truth died.

REP. HYDE: -- that we calm down, and that I ask Mr. Royce for his questions.

REP. ROYCE: Well, thank you, Mr. Chairman, and I hope we can all agree that we have a critical interest in having America succeed in Iraq.

I wanted to maybe open up on another front, because our secretary of State has been himself an architect of an innovative plan -- and maybe not that original, since Theodore Roosevelt set up and helped develop the national park system in the United States. But he has been one of the architects of a system to develop in Africa a national park system which will save the white rhino, the silver-backed gorilla, many species that are in danger of extinction, in fact. And last week this Congress sent to the president's desk an authorization bill for the Congo Basin Forest Partnership, which I managed in the House, and I know that our secretary of State has visited this program to conserve critical forest and wildlife in Central Africa, and I think the administration, and I think you, Mr. Secretary, deserve kudos for this conservation effort. And it is my understanding that this program is fully funded in this budget.

I also wanted to take an opportunity to speak briefly on the African Growth and Opportunity Act. As you know, this has been a great success. In a very few short years, it has attracted hundreds of millions of dollars of investment to a continent in a desperate fight to join the global economy. I've had the opportunity to visit several of these investment sites, which are given needed employment to tens of thousands of Africans. It's been a win for Africa and for America. And much of this progress though is in jeopardy, because there's an expiration of a key provision in this bill, the third- country fabric provision, and that runs out in September. So we are informed that many of these jobs could leave Africa and go to China -- and that's what my office is hearing from U.S. retailers doing business there in Africa.

Several of us, including Congressman Don Payne, are working on AGOA III, which extends this provision, and which has many other provisions to promote trade and investment with Africa. We don't have much time to act on this bill. So the administration's vigorous support here would be appreciated.

And I just wanted to mention Liberia. Reports suggest that you're pressing the U.N. Security Council at this point, Mr. Secretary, to impose an asset freeze on Charles Taylor, who is the former Liberian president who is now exiled in Nigeria. And I was going to ask you if that's accurate. And what's the administration's position on bringing Taylor before the U.S.-backed special court in Sierra Leone, where he has been indicted for war crimes for the forced amputations on civilians in Sierra Leone? Thank you, Mr. Secretary.

SEC. POWELL: First, on the Congo Basin Initiative, sir, you know how proud we are of that initiative, and it will be fully funded, and I'll never forget the memorable afternoon that I spent in Gabon, seeing what we could do in that part of the world to preserve that gift that we all enjoy, given to us by Almighty. And so this is one that we are really behind and proud of.

On AGOA, we certainly support the extension, AGOA III. Anything we can do to help it along, be delighted to do so.

On Liberia and Mr. Taylor, we're pleased at the progress we have made in Liberia. As I mentioned earlier, Chairman Bryant was in to see the president, and we had a very successful donors conference in New York on Friday, raising over $500 million. I'm proud that the United States was contributing $200 million out of the supplemental that the Congress gave us for 2004, and we have another $245 million for peacekeeping activities in Liberia for the United Nations.

With respect to Charles Taylor, I think he is safely ensconced in Nigeria, and not a factor. Anything that can be done to recover his assets, ill-gotten assets, we should support.

And with respect to the international tribunal, the deal that was struck to get him out of the country said if he went to Nigeria there would not be pressure on Nigeria to turn him over. So it is still a matter between Charles Taylor and the tribunal. We believe he is still unanswerable to that tribunal, and hope circumstances will one day permit him to stand before the tribunal to give the answers. But we are not pressuring Nigeria on that matter right now. It was one of those compromises that was necessary to end the killing and end the horrible situation that existed in Liberia at the time.

REP. ROYCE: Thank you, Mr. Secretary. I hope justice won't be delayed too long, and that Charles Taylor does not go back to Liberia as a consequence. Thank you.

REP. HYDE: I'm sorry to announce that the secretary must leave at 3:00. And so if we could be a little more concise with our questions, maybe we can get to more members before the secretary must leave.

Mr. Sherman.

REP. SHERMAN: Mr. Secretary, I've got some questions I'll submit for the record, but they'll focus on the fact that given that Azerbaijan walked away from the Key West peace talks, is it really a good idea to have Azerbaijan getting a lot more military foreign aid than Armenia, when the practice in the past has been to keep parity in military aid?

But knowing your time is scarce, I'd like to focus on the fence that Israel is building. Wee are the country of Robert Frost that said that good fences make good neighbors. We have the largest barrier in the world, manned by American forces, namely the DMZ. Whether that saved only dozens of American lives, or whether it's prevented a war that would involve hundreds of thousands of deaths, you can only conjecture, but DMZ good idea. India is building a barrier, and it is my understanding that we support that barrier. And they are of course subject to cross-border terrorism.

Putting aside the exact route that Israel is building this fence, and knowing that in fact there will be several routes for several different barriers, why wouldn't we strongly support the idea of having something to impede terrorists moving into Israel from the West Bank? It's my understanding that we never opposed the building of a barrier between Israel and the Gaza Strip, and that that barrier has been successful in deterring terrorism.

SEC. POWELL: I don't think, sir, we have ever said we oppose the building of the fence. The expression the president used when he spoke about this with Mr. Sharon some time ago, is that we have a problem with the fence. And the problem is the route of the fence. It is not an insignificant issue if the fence follows along generally what is accepted to be, you know, Green Line. But when the fence started to go deeply into territories occupied by Palestinians and disrupted communities, disrupted access to go back and forth to jobs and other places, that's what caused the problem. We wish there wasn't a need for a fence, but if the Israeli government, the Israeli people --

REP. SHERMAN: I thank you for that clarification, and I would point out that if the fence saves one life, that more than counterbalances a few diplomatic or even economic problems caused by the fence.

SEC. POWELL: Sir, these aren't just a few diplomatic problems. This is a significant --

REP. SHERMAN: Weigh that against one life.

SEC. POWELL: I have to weigh these things all the time.

REP. SHERMAN: But I'd like to shift to another area of the world. We're all concerned about Iran developing nuclear weapons. We see that many people in Iran are pressing their government to do what's in that country's economic interest, and yet we have ignored opportunities to impose economic pressure on this government to prevent them from developing nuclear weapons. Today we import their caviar and their carpets -- things that we might be able to survive without. Why do we continue the Clinton Administration policy of opening our markets to Iran's non-energy exports and why did we do so little to prevent the loan of about a quarter-billion dollars from the World Bank to the Iranian regime? I mean, if this was all in return for really stopping their nuclear program, I would understand. But I don't think you or I believe that Iran's nuclear ambitions are blocked at the present time.

SEC. POWELL: No, I wouldn't agree that they have been blocked. I would have to say, however, that in light of their signing of an additional protocol and some of the progress that's been made by European foreign ministers, we have seen some change in attitude. But we have no reason to believe that their ambitions have suddenly totally disappeared and gone away.

Our European colleague friends and other friends in the international community do not have the same policy toward Iran that we do and do not see it in the same terms that we do. We try to persuade them that they should, but it is not yet the case. With respect to the items of import that are allowed, I would have to go back and review that for the record with my colleagues elsewhere in the administration.

REP. SHERMAN: I would point out that the Clinton Administration announced in 2000 that they were going to let these in, and they were hoping for a rapprochement with Iran and instead the foreign minister of Iran figuratively kicked your predecessor in her teeth as a thank you for this $150 million market for goods that they would have difficulty exporting to another country. So it was a failed opening that has been allowed to be opened, I believe, because of some economic and political pressures on your department that, hopefully, will be overridden by a good policy.

SEC. POWELL: Thank you, Mr. Sherman.

REP. SHERMAN: Thank you.

SEN. HYDE: Mr. Tancredo.

SEN. TANCREDO: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Secretary, certainly there have been times that -- and I have been in disagreement even with the president and with you on various issues. I have never -- that has never stopped me from -- and my affiliation with the Republican Party -- has never stopped me from expressing those differences of opinion. But, I will tell you, at some time in this business, as you are certainly well aware, there comes a point at which you have to -- you look at all of the information, all of the empirical evidence available to you, and then you make a decision based on that and what you believe to be the integrity of the people making the case. And I've got to tell you, sir, with all my heart, that, to a great extent, the case, for me, was made to cast my vote as I did, based upon what I believe to be your integ-- the comments you made, the testimony you provided here, and to the world in the United Nations, because I believe with all my heart that you are a man of great integrity, as I do the president of the United States, and I do not believe that he or you would mislead us to take us into a war for some frivolous reason. I believe it was done with every amount of deliberation necessary to make a decision of that nature. And so I just want to assure you that I feel that way, and I know a majority of my colleagues do, and I believe a majority of Americans do, and I want to thank you for -- I want to thank you for helping restore that degree of integrity to the office that I think may have not have been present in past administrations.

SEC. POWELL: Thank you, sir.

SEN. TANCREDO: I notice in the bill that you are putting forward -- I mean -- in the operations bill, that there is a -- actually, it was in the supplemental. There was a significant amount of money -- $1.15 billion appropriated for Pakistan, Jordan, and other key cooperating nations to compensate them for logistical and military support in the U.S. efforts to -- in Afghanistan. There is a great deal of money, also, in the president's budget to continue this activity, and I am just wondering -- that is an enormous amount of money. I'm wondering how, first of all, we are monitoring that expenditure. How we know that when we -- especially because I know a great deal of it -- $900 million, I believe -- went to Pakistan. How do we know how that money is being spent? And, also, if you think we can use it -- if we have any greater leverage now in talking to Pakistan about some other issues, the madrasas that they support or that they allow to actually exist -- I won't say "support," necessarily, but allow to exist -- treatment of the Sindhi, another issue that I have always -- I've had some concern about for some time, and I wonder if we can leverage that in any way, if you think that that's advisable to do so?

And then, secondly, just -- I know I've communicated with you in the past about another issue, and that is something I find very disconcerting about what keeps happening on our Southern border. As recently as the 24th of January, according to reports in the Arizona newspapers, we had another incursion into the United States of Mexican military forces -- contingents of the Mexican military crossed into the United States. There were pictures on the front page of the newspaper there. Shortly thereafter, as I understand it, a drug shipment came through in that area relatively close to where this happened. We know that these incursions happen as a result of the fact that the Mexican military is providing some cover, essentially, for the movement of drugs across the line, and I just wonder -- you know -- I see also in your budget that those $71.5 million in there for Mexico, and I wonder if we can't use some leverage there to get them to do something about the fact that we have now had over 200 -- in the last five years, Mr. Secretary, we've had over 200 incursions into the United States by Mexican military forces that were not simply just they got lost, you know, they just wandered in. It was purposeful and sometimes shots were fired. I mean, this is very, very dangerous stuff.

SEC. POWELL: First, once again, sir, thank you for your earlier words of support. With respect to Pakistan, the amount you mentioned is really reimbursement for services they have provided to our military. So DOD provides them a bill. They get a bill from them, and DOD responds to that bill, and DOD audits the bill to make sure they are paying for services that were received -- fuel or other support for the operation of our forces. And so I think we're in pretty good shape there.

With respect to other funds that might go to Pakistan through my accounts -- they flow through our embassy and our chief of mission, and we do everything we can to make sure that the funds are going to the intended purposes, and they are accounted for, and my own inspector general of financial people as well as those in USAID follow up on that.

We do have, I think, leverage over Pakistan as a result of not just financial support but the relationship we've been able to develop with President Musharraf over the last several years. And as a result, I think the A.Q. Khan outcome that we've seen in recent days is evidence of that.

President Bush and President Musharraf have spoken a number of times about the madrasas and the efforts that President Musharraf has underway to make sure these schools start to return to public-school format, where they're actually teaching youngsters and not indoctrinating youngsters. That's going to be a long-term process that President Musharraf is committed to. And we are committed to help with funding as these schools are converted back to their real needed purposes.

And I'm not that familiar with this particular newspaper article, but I am concerned about any incursions on our southern border. And we certainly should use the $71 and a half million as leverage to make it clear to the Mexicans that this kind of activity is unacceptable.

REP. : Thank you, Mr. Secretary.

REP. HYDE: Mr. Wexler.

REP. ROBERT WEXLER (D-FL): Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. Secretary, on each of the occasions that you have come before this committee, I have tried to always express my heartfelt belief that the men and women that make up the State Department are, in fact, America's unsung heroes. They are our finest ambassadors in the world, and that morale in the State Department since you and your leadership team have taken over the State Department, I think, has been remarkably tremendous. And that's a credit to you and your leadership team.

Although you're probably way too humble to acknowledge it, for me -- I'll speak for myself, but I think there are probably several members on this side of the aisle would concur, and I know an overwhelming number of my constituents feel as I do -- you are the credible voice in this administration.

When you reached the conclusion that Iraq presented a clear and present danger to America, that was important to me, extremely important. And I not only take you at your word, I believe you, I don't question your credibility or your integrity or your honestly- held belief that everything you said reflected the best evidence given to you -- I don't question that.

But the facts as we now know it suggest that there was a part of the story that was, in fact, not told. You have referred to Dr. Kay on several occasions today, fairly so. But what hasn't been stated today is that Dr. Kay said we were all wrong. We were all wrong for the basis of why we went to war.

And taking the emotions, as the chairman, I think, referred to it earlier, out of it, I know you have to agree that it is not only fair for members of this committee and this Congress, but it's our obligation to, as strictly as we possibly can, question the basis of why we went to war.

And today you've presented an argument regarding the intent of Saddam Hussein. And as persuasive as that argument may be regarding the intent, I find it a remarkably low threshold that we're now talking about a dictator's intent relative to America's veracity and ability and credibility in going to war.

So the question I'd like to ask you, which I believe and I hope you feel is a fair one -- and it's not a hypothetical question like the Washington Post asked you -- but knowing what you know today, do you believe that Iraq presented a real and present danger? Do you believe that Iraq presented an imminent threat?

SEC. POWELL: Iraq presented a real and present danger. The president never used the specific word "imminent," nor did I. Intent is important. Capability is important. We examined capability at every level. Did he have the wherewithal? Did he have dual-use programs? Did he have dual-use facilities that could make chemical and biological weapons? Yes, yes, yes, yes.

Did he have delivery systems and was he trying to improve them? Yes. Did he have stockpiles? Our belief, based on the evidence that was available to us, was yes. That was also Dr. Kay's belief.

So it's not a question of "Gee, if there are no stockpiles now, why did you tell us there were stockpiles then?" The reason is because we believed there were stockpiles then. We believed there were stockpiles then when I said so before the United Nations on the 5th of February last year. We believed there were stockpiles when Dr. Kay went in.

We believed there were stockpiles when our forces went in, and we were surprised that they didn't find them right away. We were surprised Dr. Kay didn't find them. It's not because we knew they weren't there and now we're pulling a bait-and-switch. We believed it at the time. And we believed it not just because we wanted to believe it to start a war. We believed it because the intelligence information available to us said the stockpiles were there.

And you can roll up all of these elements -- intent, delivery systems, infrastructure, previous use, the belief of other intelligence organizations in other countries that were going on the same basis that we were, the national intelligence estimate that was presented to members of Congress, presented to a broad community, the work of the U.N., my own experience, knowing that they had them and had used them before, and they had stockpiles after the war. Should we suddenly believe they were all gone?

The preponderance of evidence was that they had stockpiles. And that was the basis upon which, with all other elements of evidence -- intent, delivery systems, infrastructure, hiding -- all suggested that the case was clear and a clear violation of international obligations, clear material breach of their obligations under the U.N. resolutions.

Dr. Kay said we were wrong. Dr. Kay said we were wrong with respect to the stockpiles. That's his belief. We'll let Mr. Duelfer finish the work and see whether any other evidence comes forward. The work is not done yet.

But what Dr. Kay also said -- and I have to say it, to put it in context with "We were wrong" -- is that he also said we were right in taking out this threat, because all these other elements were present. And there was no doubt in Dr. Kay's mind that the president acted correctly on the basis of Iraq's failure to meet its obligations to the U.N. and Iraq's ability to have these kinds of weapons, as Dr. Kay sees it, at a time and place of their choosing, once they got rid of the problem of international pressure, international sanctions.

And the one thing that's always tossed me over the line, so that I believed in what I was saying and I believed in the evidence that I was being presented, I would ask myself the question, "If the U.N. didn't act now or if we didn't act now, and he was released from the pressure of sanctions and there was no other pressure on him and he'd gotten away with it" -- and he would have gotten away with it if we'd gone through another year of U.N. meetings and resolutions and nothing happening -- "would he have, at that point, said, 'Well, gee, I got away with it, so I will give up all of this infrastructure; I will no longer pursue this'?"

The only answer I could come to was that, no, he would not have done that. And since he would not have done that, then the president decided this was the time to act. He decided properly. He decided correctly. And we're better off without Saddam Hussein.

REP. HYDE: Mr. Paul.

REP. RON PAUL (R-TX): Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

I have two brief comments and then a question dealing with the Intelligence Committee investigation. First off, I found it interesting that there's a change in policy in Libya and a movement toward normalization, which is something I could support, but it also raises questions because, you know, here we've had a bad guy and he was a friend one time, and then he became an enemy and there were sanctions against him. Now he's going to be a good guy again.

And I just wonder what's going on, and asking some around here what it was, and somebody suggested to me it might have something to do with natural gas.

But, anyway, I would suggest that, you know, in the '80s we did this with Saddam Hussein. You know, he was on the terrorist list. We removed it. We gave him subsidies, subsidized loans. We became an ally. We helped him fight a war. And look what came of it.

Normalization to me should mean that we should trade with people, because I think when you put on sanctions, you're more likely to fight with them, and if you trade with them, but not give them subsidies and not pay them so much of taxpayers' money to benefit.

The other comment I wanted to make has to do with the casualties. Along with Senator Hagel, I've been anxious to find out how much this war is really costing us. And we really don't get the answers from -- I know this is probably more in Defense, but we don't get it from the Defense Department.

There was an assistant secretary of Defense for health affairs in January who said that there were probably 10,000 and qualified it by saying this was the worst casualty rate ever in our history for 10,000. Our official numbers that you get on occasion are lower. But the other numbers are much higher, so we really don't have that answer. And I hope someday that we will.

But the question I want to ask is dealing with how politicized this investigation has become. I'm in favor of the investigation. There was a failure and we need to look into it, and I'm all for that. And I like to think of myself as a nonpartisan rather than -- and sometimes not partisan enough. But the nonpartisan approach to me would be, you know, we set ourselves up for the finger-pointing.

All of a sudden, the way we went into this mess meant that it was decided in a way that I, you know, challenged at the time. In 2002, in October, you know, I came to the conclusion that we were not threatened by Saddam Hussein. I felt strongly about that, and also that the al Qaeda wasn't involved. And I think so far the facts have (bared?) that out to be correct.

But I argued that going to war is a very, very solemn decision- making process. And we went to war the wrong way. And we can't argue that this wasn't a war -- 130,000 troops, 500 men killed and thousands wounded. We occupy a land. We have been at war. But we went to war by this Congress giving the authority and the power to the president to decide when and if he goes to war, and we all know that, to enforce U.N. resolution.

Now, my suggestion is, why should we give up on the constitutional approach to war where this body would be doing the debating back in October, not now, sorting out all these facts, and then the country coming together, the people coming together, making a decision, instead of transferring the power? Some who transferred the power say, "Mr. President, make your decision any way you want." And then it doesn't go well and they jump on him.

So I think that's unfair to have given him the authority, then all of a sudden say, "Now we're going to get you for political reasons." I think we could have prevented a lot of problems by having this debate that we're having now in the media and in these committee investigations a long time ago.

And I would ask you, is there any reason why we can't consider going to war in a more precise manner rather than allowing our executive branch to make the final decision?

SEC. POWELL: War should always be considered in all seriousness. It should be a matter that is discussed, time permitting -- if there isn't a sudden attack that you have to respond to -- time permitting, by deliberations between the Congress and the president; Congress, the president and the American people.

I think that discussion was held over a period of time in the fall of 2002 when members of Congress were asking for an opportunity to hear from the president and the intelligence community and to express a view through a resolution.

It could be done other ways with the Congress determining that a resolution for war at the time of the war is required. It's been done different ways over the course of our history, Mr. Paul. And I wouldn't presume to tell the Congress how to discharge what its constitutional obligations are.

But I would certainly agree with you that, as one is approaching the possibility of war, there should be the broadest national conversation between the president and the people, the president and the Congress, the Congress in its collective and individual capacities, with the citizens of the United States.

REP. PAUL: Well, do you think that process might have prevented some of this politicizing that's going on and now the finger-pointing? That's what I think it would have prevented. And I think the founders were --

SEC. POWELL: That could well be the case. The intelligence information that was available to the Congress as they were considering the resolution was the same intelligence information that was available to the president and was available to me. There was no other body of intelligence that I was using. It was what was made available to the Congress for its deliberation.

REP. PAUL: Thank you.

SEC. POWELL: I can't comment on the issue of casualties, Mr. Paul.

REP. PAUL: On the what?

SEC. POWELL: You made reference to casualties.

REP. PAUL: Oh, yes.

SEC. POWELL: Yeah. That's beyond my competence to talk about.

REP. HYDE: The last questioner, Mr. Engel.

REP. ELIOT ENGEL (D-NY): Well, thank you, Mr. Chairman. I should say last but not least, I hope.

Mr. Secretary, I have a couple of questions. As you know, I was the author and lead sponsor of the Syria Accountability Act, which had strong bipartisan support in both houses of Congress; passed overwhelmingly. The president signed it into law. And yet the administration has not yet implemented the Syria Accountability Act.

In the newspapers we have accounts. Foreign fighters continue to come into Iraq, most of them from Syria, military officials said. Syria is supplying Hezbollah, the terrorist group in the south of Lebanon, Israel's northern border. And there are all kinds of credible reports that when the Syrians went to Iran to give earthquake aid, the planes that came back were resupplying Hezbollah.

So I'd like to ask you, in light of all that, they still occupy Lebanon. They still obviously have weapons of mass destruction. There are lots of people who say the weapons of mass destruction that Iraq once had might very well be buried in Syria.

So when is the administration going to implement the Syria Accountability Act?

And then I'd like to ask you about Northern Ireland. We have the Good Friday Accords, Ian Paisley is spewing forth some of the most vicious and virulent anti-Catholic rhetoric -- (audio break) -- back on track?

And also, jumping to the other side of Europe, Kosova, I chair the Albanian Issues Caucus, and just want to know, I know you met with Prime Minister Rexhepi of Kosova last week, and want to know the standards before status? I think it's merely a formula for delaying discussions of Kosova's future, and I would hope that we can move, those people can move towards independence if that's what they desire.

SEC. POWELL: Thank you, Mr. Engel.

On the Syria Accountability Act, I used the prospect of that act with President Assad last year, and I told him, you've got to perform on the list of things I gave him to perform on, because your strategic situation has changed in light of what's happened in Iraq. You have to respond. And I also said, and the American Congress is watching, and they're going to pass the Syrian Accountability Act, which you did overwhelmingly. And, I intend to use it. You give us options within the act, and we're in the process of examining those options now to see how to use the lever, the tools that you've given us inside of the act.

With respect to Northern Ireland, we now have a new emissary, Mr. Mitchell Reese has replaced Richard Haass as our man. He just went over and made his first calls on all the leaders in Northern Ireland, as well as in the United Kingdom, and Ireland, and I'll be meeting with Mr. Reese over the next several days to get a full report on the situation and how to move forward. It's going to be difficult moving forward, but at least at the moment the violence is not starting up again. That's the good news.

With respect to Kosovo, I did meet with the prime minister last week, and I encouraged him to move in the direction of standards before status by early 2005, and I sense he understands that this is the proper approach to take.

REP. ENGEL: Can you give me a timetable with regard to the Syria Accountability Act, are we looking at a couple of weeks where the administration will --

SEC. POWELL: I don't think it's any longer than that. I don't think I can be anymore precise than that, but it's in the near future, Mr. Engel.

REP. ENGEL: Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

REP. HYDE: Mr. Secretary, we want to thank you for a most instructive, illuminating, and somewhat contentious hearing. We commend you, at least most of us commend you, for a superb job, and a very straightforward recital of the path to war that is logical and, politics aside, makes sense, at least in my opinion, and some others' very close to me up here, too. Thank you and good luck.

SEC. POWELL: Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

REP. HYDE: The committee stands adjourned.

REP. : Mr. Chairman, if we have other questions, can we submit them to the secretary for comment and answer?

REP. HYDE: Without objection, members have two days to submit questions and we will obtain a written response.

REP. : Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

REP. HYDE: Thank you.