Remarks at the World Economic Forum

COLIN POWELL
SECRETARY OF STATE

U.S. STATE DEPARTMENT

January 26, 2003

Excerpts

SECRETARY POWELL:

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When we talk about trust, let me use that as a bridge to one of the major issues of the day, Iraq. Let me try to explain why we feel so strongly about Iraq and why we are determined that the current situation cannot be allowed to continue. We are where we are today with Iraq because Saddam Hussein and his regime have repeatedly violated the trust of the United Nations, his people and his neighbors, to such an extent as to pose a grave danger to international peace and security.

The United Nation’s Security Council recognized this situation and unanimously passed Resolution 1441, giving Iraq one last chance to disarm peacefully after 11 years of defying the world community. Today, not a single nation, not one, trusts Saddam and his regime. And those who know him best trust him least: his own citizens, whom he has terrorized and oppressed; his neighbors, whom he has threatened and invaded. Citizens and neighbors alike have been killed by his chemical weapons.

That is why Resolution 1441 was carefully crafted to be far tougher and far more thorough than the many resolutions that preceded it. 1441 places the burden squarely on Iraq to provide accurate, full and complete information on its weapons of mass destruction.

1441 is not about inspectors exposing new evidence of Iraq's established failure to disarm. It is about Iraq disclosing the entire extent of its illicit biological, chemical, nuclear and missile activities, and disarming itself of them with the help of inspectors to verify what Iraq is doing.

This is not about inspectors finding smoking guns. It is about Iraqis failure -- Iraq's failure to tell the inspectors where to find its weapons of mass destruction.

The 12,200-page declaration Iraq submitted to the United Nations Security Council on December 7th utterly failed to meet the requirements of the resolution, utterly failed to meet the requirements of being accurate, full and complete. Iraq attempted to conceal with volume what it lacked in veracity. Not one nation in the Security Council rose to defend that declaration. Not one person in this room could do so. The requirement for a declaration was put in as an early test of Iraq's intent to change its behavior. It failed the test.

This past week, United Nations Inspector Blix and International Atomic Energy Agency Inspector El Baradei went to Baghdad to deliver the message that Iraq's cooperation has been inadequate. Iraq's response did nothing to alter the fact that Baghdad still is not providing the inspectors with the information they need to do their job. There is no indication whatever that Iraq has made the strategic decision to come clean and to comply with its international obligation to disarm.

The support of U.S. intelligence and the intelligence of other nations can take the inspectors only so far. Without Iraq's full and active cooperation, 100 or so inspectors would have to look under every roof and search the back of every truck in a country the size of California to find the munitions and programs for which Iraq has failed to account for.

After six weeks of inspections, the international community still needs to know the answers to key questions. For example: Where is the evidence -- where is the evidence -- that Iraq has destroyed the tens of thousands of liters of anthrax and botulinum we know it had before it expelled the previous inspectors? This isn't an American determination. This is the determination of the previous inspectors. Where is this material? What happened to it? It's not a trivial question. We're not talking about aspirin. We're talking about the most deadly things one can imagine, that can kill thousands, millions of people. We cannot simply turn away and say, "Well, never mind." Where is it? Account for it. Let it be verified through the inspectors.

What happened to nearly 30,000 munitions capable of carrying chemical agents? The inspectors can only account for only 16 of them. Where are they? It's not a matter of ignoring the reality of the situation. Just think, all of these munitions, which perhaps only have a short range if fired out of an artillery weapon in Iraq, but imagine if one of these weapons were smuggled out of Iraq and found its way into the hands of a terrorist organization who could transport it anywhere in the world.

What happened -- please, what happened -- to the three metric tons of growth material that Iraq imported which can be used for producing early, in a very rapid fashion, deadly biological agents?

Where are the mobile vans that are nothing more than biological weapons laboratories on wheels? Why is Iraq still trying to procure uranium and the special equipment needed to transform it into material for nuclear weapons?

These questions are not academic. They are not trivial. They are questions of life and death, and they must be answered.

To those who say, "Why not give the inspection process more time?", I ask: "How much more time does Iraq need to answer those questions? It is not a matter of time alone, it is a matter of telling the truth, and so far Saddam Hussein still responds with evasion and with lies.

Saddam should tell the truth, and tell the truth now. The more we wait, the more chance there is for this dictator with clear ties to terrorist groups, including al-Qaida, more time for him to pass a weapon, share a technology, or use these weapons again.

The nexus of tolerance and terror, of terrorists and weapons of mass destruction, is the greatest danger of our age. The international community knows what real disarmament looks like. We saw it in Kazakhstan. We saw it take place in the Ukraine. We saw it in South Africa. We see none of the telltale signs of real disarmament, honest disarmament, in Iraq. Instead of a high-level determination to work with inspectors, we have continued defiance. Instead of a transparent disarmament process, we get the same old tactics of deceit and delay, documents hidden in private homes, denial of reconnaissance flights, denial of access to people and facilities, the kind of access that must be unimpeded and unrestricted in order to be successful.

Tomorrow, Chief Inspectors Blix and El Baradei will make their report to the United Nations Security Council. My government will study their report carefully, will study it with gravity, and we will exchange views on its findings that were presented with other members of the Council.

We are in no great rush to judgment tomorrow or the day after, but clearly time is running out. There is no longer an excuse for Iraqi denial of its obligation. We must have Iraq participate in the disarmament or be disarmed.

We should not (sic) understand what is at stake here. Saddam Hussein's hidden weapons of mass destruction are meant to intimidate Iraq's neighbors. These illegal weapons threaten international peace and security. These terrible weapons put millions of innocent people at risk.

It is more than that. Saddam's naked defiance also challenges the relevance and credibility of the Security Council and the world community. When all 15 members of the Council voted to pass UN Resolution 1441, they assumed a heavy responsibility to put their will behind their words. Multilateralism cannot become an excuse for inaction. Saddam Hussein and others of his ilk would like nothing better to see the world community back away from this resolution, instead of backing it with their solemn resolve.

We will work through these issues patiently and deliberately with our friends and with our allies. These are serious matters before us. Let the Iraqi regime have no doubt, however, if it does not disarm peacefully at this juncture, it will be disarmed down the road.

The United States believes that time is running out. We will not shrink from war if that is the only way to rid Iraq of its weapons of mass destruction.

We continue to reserve our sovereign right to take military action against Iraq alone or in a coalition of the willing. As the President has said: "We cannot defend America and our friends by hoping for the best. History will judge harshly those who saw a coming danger but failed to act."

It is our hope, however -- it is our will -- that we can do this peacefully. It is our hope, if we will it to happen, that Iraq would participate in its disarmament. If it does not, it is also our hope that the international community will stand behind the elements of 1441, and as a great coalition, we will deal with this problem once and for all.

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QUESTION: Thank you. Mr. Secretary of State, I am Irene Khan, Secretary General of Amnesty International, a global human rights movement. I would like to thank you for coming to speak to us. And I have a question for you which I know is troubling many civil society groups around the world, including many of us who are represented here today.

My question is: Do you believe that the threat which Iraq poses today is so great, so grave and so imminent, that it justifies provoking a massive human rights and humanitarian crisis?

I say this because the humanitarian situation in Iraq is very fragile and military action could easily precipitate, in our view would certainly precipitate, a huge humanitarian disaster. We have seen -- we remember in 1991 -- the millions of refugees who were trapped on the border. There could be a bloodbath inside, a ripple effect as well.

And my question is: How does one balance the human rights and humanitarian concerns with that military action, the threat, the military action both with the humanitarian concern? Thank you.

SECRETARY POWELL: Thank you very much.    (Applause.)

SECRETARY POWELL: We do believe the threat is great and the Security Council believes the threat is great, and it's reflected in the 15-0 vote on 1441. Iraq must be disarmed.

We are sensitive to the plight of the Iraqi people, not only in the case of a conflict, but their plight right now. The Iraqi leadership has more than enough money to take care of the needs of the Iraqi people if the money would be spent in the right way, as opposed to being used to punish the Iraqi people by withholding aid.

And perhaps if a conflict were necessary -- and once again, we are hoping it will not be necessary -- but if it is necessary, the contingency planning that we are doing in the United States includes actions directly related to ensuring that the humanitarian needs of the Iraqi people would be taken care of, and perhaps with a regime that is more responsive to the needs of its people and more interested in using the wealth of the Iraqi people for the benefit of the Iraqi people, and not for weapons of mass destruction and not wasting the money on armies that invaded Kuwait, armies that invaded Iran.

Perhaps not only would the Iraqi people be better off in the aftermath of such a conflict, but so would the whole region.

MR. SCHWAB: Thank you. I saw another question here.

QUESTION: Mr. Secretary of State, I'm George Carey, the former Archbishop of Canterbury. I'm now happily retired and here at the World Economic Forum. And I thank you very much indeed for your address and for all that you are personally doing to improve the state of the world.

Mr. Secretary of State, at this conference, among the language that has been used has been a phrase, the difference between hard power and soft power: hard power and military power, and perhaps expressed in America as the only superpower with a grave responsibility to create and help to forward the cause of peace in the world; and then soft power, soft power which binds us all, which has something to do with values, human values and all the things that you and I passionately believe in.

Here at WEF, we are thinking of creating a Council of 100 which includes business leaders, politicians, religious leaders -- trying to cross all of the boundaries of media and so on. That may be something that you may wish to give your support to in the days ahead.

But I've got two questions, if I may. The first one: Do you feel that in the present situation, and I'm following on my colleague who just spoke, and regarding Iraq but also Palestine as well, that we are doing enough in drawing upon the common values expressed by soft power in uniting what is called West and the Middle East in Islam and Christianity, in Judaism and other religions?

And would you not agree, as a very significant political figure in the United States, Colin, that America, at the present time, is in danger of relying too much upon the hard power and not enough upon building the trust from which the soft values, which of course all of our family life that actually at the bottom, when the bottom line is reached, is what makes human life valuable?   (Applause.)

SECRETARY POWELL: The United States believes strongly in what you call soft power, the value of democracy, the value of the free economic system, the value of making sure that each citizen is free and free to pursue their own God-given ambitions and to use the talents that they were given by God. And that is what we say to the rest of the world. That is why we participated in establishing a community of democracy within the Western Hemisphere. It's why we participate in all of these great international organizations.

There is nothing in American experience or in American political life or in our culture that suggests we want to use hard power. But what we have found over the decades is that unless you do have hard power -- and here I think you're referring to military power -- then sometimes you are faced with situations that you can't deal with.

I mean, it was not soft power that freed Europe. It was hard power. And what followed immediately after hard power? Did the United States ask for dominion over a single nation in Europe? No. Soft power came in the Marshall Plan. Soft power came with American GIs who put their weapons down once the war was over and helped all those nations rebuild. We did the same thing in Japan.

So our record of living our values and letting our values be an inspiration to others I think is clear. And I don't think I have anything to be ashamed of or apologize for with respect to what America has done for the world.    (Applause.)

We have gone forth from our shores repeatedly over the last hundred years and we’ve done this as recently as the last year in Afghanistan and put wonderful young men and women at risk, many of whom have lost their lives, and we have asked for nothing except enough ground to bury them in, and otherwise we have returned home to seek our own, you know, to seek our own lives in peace, to live our own lives in peace. But there comes a time when soft power or talking with evil will not work where, unfortunately, hard power is the only thing that works.

We have seen these sorts of evil leaders before. We have seen them throughout history. And they are still alive today. There are still leaders around who will say, "You do not have the will to prevail over my evil." And I think we are facing one of those times now.

We have done everything. President Bush carefully analyzed the situation with respect to Iraq. We have felt strongly for years that they must be disarmed. The previous administration felt just as strongly. This isn't something that just arrived when the Bush Administration came in. The previous administration had the same concerns. It's been a problem for us for the last 11 years, for the international community.

And so finally, we decided it is time to deal with it. And we rallied the international community. President Bush came before the Security Council on the 12th of September and put down a powerful indictment. I worked very hard, I can assure you, seven weeks, to satisfy the concerns that people had about what kind of a resolution should be put forward.

A resolution was put forward. It's a resolution that puts the burden on Iraq, not on the inspectors. And it is not the United States, it is not the international community, it is not the United Nations that is the source of the problem. The source of the problem is Saddam Hussein and the Iraqi regime and their use of the treasures of the Iraqi people to develop weapons of mass destruction.

And let there be no doubt that the intent to do so is still there, as the inspectors are trying to do their job.

My heart grieves when I think about the situation in the Middle East. I've worked very hard on this for two years, and for years before that. But trust is broken down. We have to do everything we can in our power -- all of us, the United States, the European Union, any other nation that has the ability to influence the situation in the Middle East -- to work with the Palestinians to put in place a leadership that is responsible, with representative institutions of government that will clamp down on terrorism, that will say to its people, "Terrorism is not getting us anywhere. It is not producing what we want: a Palestinian state. It is keeping us away from a Palestinian state."

And we also have to say to our Israeli friends that you have to do more to deal with the humanitarian concerns of the Palestinian people, and you have to understand that a Palestinian state, when it's created, must be a real state, not a phony state that's diced into a thousand different pieces.

And that's what we're going to be concentrating on in the months ahead with the roadmap that's been created.  (Applause.)

MR. SCHWAB: We have time for one last question. We have in the room, Mr. Secretary, the CEOs of one thousand foremost companies, so let’s give the floor to a corporate leader.

QUESTION: So far, Mr. Secretary of State, I’ve been applauding for everything you’ve said.

MR. SCHWAB: Your name, please?

QUESTION: Bert Heemskerk, chairman of Rabobank. There’s no difference of opinion on values. There’s no difference of opinion on whether or not Mr. Saddam Hussein is a criminal. There’s no difference of opinion that he had weapons which were extremely destructive. There’s no difference of opinion that he should disarm. There’s seems to be only one slight difference of opinion. That’s on the course of justice.

We were all raised in a system in and outside our countries that before you hang somebody, when he’s a criminal, when you know he’s a criminal, that you deliver evidence. And if he does not want to cooperate with delivering evidence, you cannot do like we did in the medieval centuries, maybe we wish that we could put him into the chamber and torture him, that we go to war. I agree that we are all very impatient, but what we first want to see is evidence and we should look for evidence and once there’s evidence we Europeans will cooperate with you, the Americans, to put him to justice and also we will go to war with you then. Thank you.    (Applause)

SECRETARY POWELL: I think the evidence is there and I think the evidence is clear. The inspections that ended in 1998 under the auspices of the IEAE and UNSCOM made it absolutely clear that there were weapons of mass destruction and there were programs to develop more weapons of mass destruction. That is not speculation, it is fact. It’s a given.

The inspectors, for the seven or so years that they were there, uncovered many holes and there were many gaps that were not closed with Iraqi answers. The Iraqis tried to deceive and lie during that entire period of time. They said they had no biological programs but then a defector gave us additional evidence that proved that in 1996. We have seen evidence, we’ve listed some of it here and we’ll be presenting more in the days and weeks ahead. So I don’t think the case is unconvincing, I think it’s quite convincing. And the question before us is, are we unwilling to acknowledge the evidence because we’re unwilling to take the action that the evidence may require us to. And I think that’s the debate we’re going to have after the two inspectors give their report tomorrow, and then we’ll have to make a judgment on what steps are appropriate.

The President will be listening carefully to Dr. Blix and Dr. El Baradei tomorrow. And we will have consultations between the President Bush and other heads of state and government and I will do the same with my foreign minister colleagues and we’ll have discussions within the United Nations, and then we will have to make a judgment as to how to move forward. But I think the case is persuasive unless you don’t want to ever see a case because that requires you to take action.

But 1441 was clear. It didn’t say there was no case. It started with a case. The very first operative paragraphs of 1441 made it clear that Iraq was in material breach of its previous obligations and remains in material breach. And then it said you’ve got one last chance to come clean. It doesn’t say you’re clean, it says come clean, and any further resistance on your part, false declarations, non-cooperation with the inspectors, is further evidence of your unwillingness to come clean. And every member that voted for that resolution understood that in those circumstances it would all come back to the Council and the Council would make a judgment as to what it would have to do and that what it might have to do included the use of military force. So there’s no confusion on that point?

"The most serious consequences" are referred to in one of the final operative paragraphs of the resolution. Everyone knew what that meant. So the issue will come back to the Council and we will see what the Council chooses to do with respect to Saddam Hussein’s uncooperative attitude and with respect to what the inspectors say, what the inspectors say they need in order to get their job done. And what they need is not just time. What they need is a change on the part of the Iraqi government so that they can do their job. And what we’ll have to measure is is that change going to be forthcoming or not.

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