REMARKS AT THE UNITED NATIONS SECURITY COUNCIL MINISTERIAL SESSION ON TERRORISM

COLIN L. POWELL
SECRETARY OF STATE

US STATE DEPARTMENT

January 20, 2003

Excerpts

SECRETARY POWELL: Mr. President, thank you for bringing us together today to reaffirm our commitment to the fight against terrorism. I thank the Secretary General for his excellent remarks earlier.

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I’d also note that a number of my colleagues have made reference to the situation with respect to Iraq and Resolution 1441. In the very near future, this council will meet again to determine what to do about this situation. Iraq was given a last chance with Resolution 1441. I’m pleased that it was President Bush who brought this situation to the attention of the Council in the most forceful way last September to give them this one last chance. And we must not shrink from our duties and our responsibilities when the material comes before us next week, and as we consider Iraq’s response to 1441.

And we cannot fail to take the action that may be necessary because we are afraid of what others might do. We cannot be shocked into impotence because we’re afraid of the difficult choices that are ahead of us. And so we’ll have much work to do, difficult work, in the days ahead. But we cannot shrink from the responsibilities of dealing with a regime that has gone about development, acquiring, stocking of weapons of mass destruction, that has committed terrorist acts against its neighbors and against its own people, trampled human rights of its own people and its neighbors.

So however difficult the road ahead may be with respect to Iraq, we must not shrink from the need to travel down that road. Hopefully, it will be a peaceful solution. But if Iraq does not come into full compliance, we must not shrink from the responsibilities that we set before ourselves when we adopted 1441 on a unanimous basis and so many other nations expressed their support for 1441.

Weapons of mass destruction in the hands of terrorists or states that support terrorists would represent a mortal danger to us all. So we must make the United Nations even more effective. And we must build even closer international cooperation to keep these weapons out of the hands of terrorists.

The United Nations has long worked to marshal the international community against terrorism. For example, as we have noted here this morning, there are 12 counter-terrorism conventions and protocols negotiated under the auspices of the United Nations and its affiliated agencies. It is vital that all states become parties to all of these conventions and protocols, and fully implement them as soon as possible.

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