PRESS CONFERENCE WITH COLIN L. POWELL
SECRETARY OF STATE

U.S. STATE DEPARTMENT

February 23, 2003

Excerpts

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QUESTION: I'm Sato Suzuki with TV Asahi of Japan. Mr. Secretary, the people in Japan have been watching the Iraqi situation with great seriousness. Despite our government's basic support for the U.S. position on Iraq, the evidence that you presented to the Security Council has failed to convince the majority of the Japanese people that you need to go to war now. So do you have anything new, anything different, that you can present to the Japanese people, and could you please try again here today and explain to us why a war is necessary right now?

SECRETARY POWELL: To go to the last part of the question: A war is not necessary. It is Saddam Hussein who is putting in place conditions that will perhaps result in war. It is Saddam Hussein who has accumulated these horrible weapons. The presentation that I gave to the Security Council on the 5th of February was a summary of evidence that we have and it was a summary, really, of evidence that has been known for a long period of time. I tried to put it all together in a way that people could see it. But it is not just an idle accusation or a lack of evidence; the evidence is there. If the evidence was not there in the beginning, Resolution 1441 wouldn't have passed in the first place. If you read the resolution, the resolution begins saying that Iraq is in material breach of its obligations - remains in material breach - and for years it has been denying the truth. We know that they have been experimenting with weapons of mass destruction of a nuclear kind. We had to catch them in lies to prove that they had certain chemical facilities and chemical materials available. We had to catch them in a lie to show back in the mid-nineties that they had biological materials - they were working with anthrax and boutulinum toxin. All of these have a singular purpose, and that is to destroy large numbers of human beings. So this evidence is not new evidence. What more evidence does one need? We know they have this material. This issue before us is they have not accounted for the material - they won't tell us what has happened to it. We have evidence that, and I tried to put forward some of that evidence on the 5th of February, that this material remains within Iraq - and we must assume it is there until they can demonstrate to us that it's not there.

If they were serious about disarmament - and this is right to the Japanese people - if Iraq was serious about disarmament, if they were not trying to deceive us as they have for the past twelve years, they would be doing everything in their power to bring forth all the documentation, all the information, let us interview anybody that we wanted to interview, and interview them anywhere that we wanted to interview them to make sure they were not being intimated. If Iraq was serious, they would be showing us where all the missiles are and not wondering whether the inspectors would find something or not find something. If Iraq was serious, this matter could be over in a short period of time. We would see full cooperation. If I was in the position of Saddam Hussein and I was trying to persuade the United Nations that I had no weapons of mass destruction, you would not have to ask me to bring forward scientists and engineers. I would bring them all forward; I'd line them all up in front of UNMOVIC headquarters and say: "Here they are. Take them anywhere you want. Ask them any questions you want. We will have nobody minding them. We will have no tape recorders so that we could get retribution later. Go take them and find out all you want. What documents do you need? We will bring back documents from all the places we've sent them in the homes of scientists."

We would not see this continued pattern of deception, which has not changed in twelve years. And it's time for us to stop saying, "Well, gosh, give us new evidence." The evidence is there. The evidence is clear. The evidence has been there for these past dozen years, and especially we have evidence up to 1998 when they threw out the inspectors. And so, it is not enough any longer to say, "We don't want to take action because we don't see enough evidence or more evidence." It is time to take action. The evidence has been clear. They are guilty; 1441 says they are guilty, and 1441 said if they don't fix this, if they don't comply now, if they don't cooperate now, then serious consequences must flow. We are reaching that point, where serious consequences must flow.

QUESTION: Mr. Secretary, from CBS News. You know, just following up that question for a moment, after 9/11, the whole world turned to us and said, "We're Americans like you," including the French. Last weekend we saw the largest series of antiwar, anti-American protests - in London certainly in its entire history. This follows what you have talked about at the Security Council; it follows what's happened with the inspectors; it follows what's happening in Iraq. There seems to be a disconnect, I guess, between what America believes it should do, and what the rest of the world is perceiving. And I wonder why that is and if it isn't just a touch frustrating for you, since you're the man who is presenting and preparing this policy, and you've stood in front of the Security Council and tried to convince the world.

SECRETARY POWELL: Yeah, I would prefer it if there were rallies saying that Iraq must disarm, but I have also seen previous situations in my professional career where on the eve of potential conflict there was a strong outpouring of support against that conflict. Nobody wants to see conflict. And when conflict is potentially in the near future, there will always be an outpouring that says, "Isn't there some other way?" I wish there were some other way. I have worked hard throughout my career to find ways other than conflict to solve problems, but sometimes you can't avoid it, and you must continue to do what you believe is the correct thing to do and the correct policy, even in the presence of demonstrations. People are free to demonstrate, and they don't see the danger the way we see the danger. We've studied this information for years. We've studied the evidence for years, and we continue to see Iraqi deception, Iraqi diversion of inspectors, Iraqi efforts to hide, Iraqi efforts to confuse. And all that does is persuade us that they continue to have these weapons and they are trying to hang onto them, and they have lost none of their intention to develop these kinds of weapons. And even though it might not be in all places the most popular thing to do, there are a number of world leaders who have stood up - such as Prime Minster Blair, such as Mr. Aznar of Spain, Mr. Berlusconi of Italy - a number of leaders who have stood up in many, many nations of Europe. Yes, there is public resistance in Europe and elsewhere. It's a difficult call for many people, but these leaders are standing up because they know they don't want to wonder a couple of years from now, when Iraq suddenly pops out and demonstrates in a way that can convince everybody that they had these weapons. They don't want to be in the position, and President Bush has made this clear - he doesn't want to be in the position of saying, "Why didn't we do something about this when we had mobilized the whole world?"

I also need to point out that 15 members of the Security Council sitting in session on the 8th of November, knowing what they were doing, said that Iraq is guilty, Iraq has to come into compliance, and if it doesn't, Iraq must face serious consequences. And that was not an idle statement on their part. We debated that statement for seven weeks, in the knowledge that the day might come when we have to make a judgment that Iraq has not complied, is not cooperating, and it is time for serious consequences.

QUESTION: I'm Ogata from Kyodo News Washington. I think you'll put the resolution on the table Monday or Tuesday, but how long can you wait for the vote? Can you wait for a matter of weeks, or it's a matter of days? That's the first question. And what kind of support are you looking for from the Japanese government? Are you asking Mr. Koizumi to support or push or put pressure on the (inaudible) countries? That's the second part of the question, thank you.

SECRETARY POWELL: On the second part of your question, the Prime Minister and I discussed this last night, as I did also with the Foreign Minister, and we hope that the Prime Minister and the Foreign Minister, because they have been supporting our efforts, will continue to support those efforts. And as part of that support, in their conversations - normal diplomatic and head-of-government/state conversations - they will continue to support our efforts. And I hope that once they see the resolution, they would find it the appropriate thing to do to show support for that and to contact members who might be voting one way or another and express their support. That's part of diplomatic effort. There will be other nations, I'm sure, that will be calling around with a different message. And so, yes, we are into a period of intense diplomacy beginning after the tabling of the resolution next week, and we would hope that those who support our efforts would use their good offices to show that support. It isn't going to be a long period of time from the tabling of the resolution until a judgment is made as to whether the resolution is ready to be voted on or not. And I don't want to speculate as to how long that period of time might be, but one can see that Dr. Blix will be reporting to the Council on the 7th of March, and I would assume that once he has made that report, everybody will have one last opportunity to make a judgment. And shortly after that judgment will have to be made as to what the Security Council should do.

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