Remarks With Indonesian Students Televised By RTCI Televison With Host Yulia Supadmo

MS. SUPADMO: Secretary Powell, now, I know that the United States Government has always stated that it will not interfere in the election process and the democratic process that is now going on in Indonesia, as well as its outcome, but maybe you can tell us a bit or maybe describe the characteristic, or maybe the profile, of the President that would be more advantageous in cooperating with the U.S. Government?

There’s a lot of anti-Americanism in the world today because people, I don’t think, fully understand what we are trying to do in Iraq or with respect to the Middle East peace process. I can tell you we’re hard at work. In Iraq you will see a democracy emerge. It’s starting to emerge now. You see these new leaders. What are they talking about? The new Interim Iraqi Government under Prime Minister Allawi. What’s he talking about? He’s talking about elections. He’s talking about democracy. He’s talking about human rights. They put in place a law that will become their constitution, where women are given rights, where every minority in the country is given rights. And this is what we are supporting.

And I hope that the people of the world, especially my Muslim brothers and sisters, when they see this development, they will understand that we have gotten rid of a dictator and we put in place a government that will be responsive to the people of Iraq. The same thing in the Middle East. We want the Palestinian people to have their own state. That is my goal. I work every day with President Bush on that goal. And it is a difficult goal to achieve because of the violence, because of the animosity between the two sides. But we’ll keep working on it, and we had good conversations here in Indonesia with all of the other foreign ministers who are here for these meetings. And when I go back to Washington I will engage again on the process of getting the Israelis to leave all the settlements in Gaza and some of the settlements in the West Bank, so that we can get back onto what’s called the Road Map and find a way to achieve our mutual goal of a Palestinian state that is living side-by-side in peace, with no violence, with the State of Israel. That’s our goal.

You were second. Okay. I got you third.

QUESTION: Okay, the question – Supreme Court decides that detainees even in wars have civil rights, and how would that affect the people now being held in Guantanamo?

SECRETARY POWELL: The people in Guantanamo do have rights. We treat them humanely in accordance with our obligations under international law and our obligations under the Geneva Convention, even though they are not classified as prisoners of war under the Geneva Convention. These individuals who were picked up on a new kind of battlefield, a battlefield that is not like the battlefields of WWII or the war in the Pacific or anything like that. This is a terrorist war. They don’t wear uniforms. And they are not necessarily citizens of the countries in which they were fighting us -- Afghanistan.

And so it’s a new kind of war. We’re learning how to deal with the situation. These individuals were detained because we believe that they had committed acts against us or they might have intelligence information that would help us stop future terrorist attacks. But we’re very mindful of our obligations, and notice how we have been handling this recently. Not only has our Administration been involved, our Congress has been reviewing how we have been handling all these detainees; and in the last few days if you’ve noticed, our Supreme Court has come in with an opinion on how we should handle this, which is a little different from the way the Administration was doing it. And what are we doing right away? We are listening to our Supreme Court, because in our system of democracy the Supreme--supreme, they picked a good word to describe themselves--the Supreme Court…or the Constitution did. The Supreme Court is the law of the land and they tell the Executive and the Legislature what is consistent with our Constitution and what is not. So you are seeing our system in action and you can be sure that the rights of these individuals will be protected.

QUESTION: Thank you, Mr. Secretary. Thank you. Mr. Secretary, in the strategic plan of the Department of State and the USAID there are four points regarding the Muslim world, and as exchange students we know that the U.S. has allocated millions of dollars to support U.S.-Muslim relationships. But there seems to be a double standard about that which makes it not effective, because its hard for Muslims to get into the U.S. to learn the culture. So what actions about, what actions are you going to take about this double standard?

SECRETARY POWELL: Yes. When 9/11 hit, it was a terrible shock to us. And we had to respond quickly because we discovered that people had come into our country to attack us in this way and used our own airplanes and killed thousands of American citizens--all in one hour. So we had to respond. And since all of them had come from, for the most part, almost all of them from Saudi Arabia, and it was a Muslim connection because they were Saudis. There was an immediate reaction that said we have to know who is coming into our country and we have to put in new rules and regulations. It is not unreasonable for us to know who is coming into our country, who is still there, when they should have left, and who has left the country.

Many countries in the world have similar constraints. We have been a much more open society, so we put in place these constraints. President Bush made it clear though, within a few days of 9/11 he went to a mosque and he spoke there and he made it clear that this wasn’t anti-Muslim. This was just a way to protect ourselves from a threat that we saw. Over the last several years we have been improving upon these procedures, because I am concerned right now, as is my colleague Secretary Tom Ridge, who is responsible for visa policy--he runs the Dept of Homeland Security, securing the homeland--that we have put in place too many restrictions and now we have to start backing off on them, we have to move the visa process along.

We suffer when I don’t have students such as you wanting to study in the United States because we’ve made it too difficult. We suffer when Indonesians are reluctant to come and go to Disneyland or Disney World or use our hospitals or just to go see Grand Canyon or visit Washington D.C. as tourists. We suffer. And so we don’t want to suffer and we don’t want you to be inconvenienced. And so, you will see in the months ahead that our visa policies will get back to more normal set of standards but we have to know who is coming into our country. We have to run some checks, we have to do interviews in order to make sure we understand the purpose of the visit. But we want to speed it up so it doesn’t take that long and so that you are encouraged to come, rather than discouraged from coming.

It is not anti-Muslim. It was simply something we had to do to protect ourselves and now that we have a better understanding of our systems and we’ve improved them. We will do everything we can to lower the barriers, to make them as low as possible, because I want you to come to the United States. I want you to go to our schools, I want you to come enjoy, I want you to come see what America is all about. I want you to come experience our values and who we are as a people.

For those of you who haven’t been to the United States, when you do come, don’t just come for two days, come for a couple weeks. And don’t just go to New York or Washington. Go out into the countryside, and you will, you will see a people kind of like you, so diverse so different in terms of color, in terms of religion, in terms of background, in terms of where they came from, in terms of all the languages that are in the United States. And you will see how we have made it all work. And we are proud of it. We don’t want to impose our system on anyone else, but, we think our system is pretty good and we would like people to come and learn about our system. I can’t do that if I am making it too hard for you to come. So my bias, my prejudice, every day is to make it easier for you to come to the United States not to make it more difficult.

I had two over here so I have to do two over here. No… ladies, so I’ll keep it very balanced here as we go along. You are not going to get me in trouble.

QUESTION: Mr. Secretary, what is the reason of the United States for not ratifying the Kyoto Protocol and what will the United States do in order to cut it’s emissions of greenhouse gasses with this non-ratification?

SECRETARY POWELL: We didn’t ratify the Kyoto Protocol because we didn’t think it was the right solution to the problem of global warming and greenhouse gas emissions. We also felt that its effect on our economy and the economies of the world was such that we couldn’t sustain any commitment we made to the Kyoto Protocol, because of the economic consequences of it.

We also didn’t think it was balanced and fair. There were a number of countries within that protocol who were given quite a bit of discretion to keep on pumping out greenhouse gasses because they start from a very low base and therefore they can do a lot more before they had to start complying to the Protocol. It doesn’t mean we are not interested in reducing emissions. We are. The President has invested a lot of money in technology programs to reduce greenhouse emissions. More and more American cars are being made that are hybrid electric-gasoline cars. We are doing everything we can to use our technology to get into our factories, to get into our power-generating facilities in order to reduce emissions. We have an energy plan that is going to try to get us moving more in the direction of nuclear energy, if we can ever get that going again in the United States, in order to reduce the emissions that come out of our power plants. So, the President knows that climate warming is a problem. And he is determined to work with the international community to solve it. We just didn’t believe that Kyoto was the right answer for it.

Okay, back here in the -- that young lady. We’ll let women get ahead here.

QUESTION: Mr. Minister. What makes US government think -- sure, sure, I mean sure -- that the United States can create governance in other countries, for instance Iraq.

SECRETARY POWELL: I don’t think we can create good governance in other countries. Other countries have to make an individual judgment or determination that they want good government. And if they make that determination, we want to move in this direction, the United States can help that. The United States can provide assistance, we can provide examples, we can provide investment, we can provide development assistance. But we don’t want to impose good government on anyone. Nations, I think, learn that if they have good government, if they put themselves under the rule of law, if they end corruption, and if they do the right things for their people, then their people benefit and the whole society benefits. Did I get your question? Is that it? Not quite.

QUESTION: But from what we read in newspaper and from what we watch on TV, we know that America chooses the people in Iraq governance now.

SECRETARY POWELL: We choose --

QUESTION: Yes, the people in good governance. Iraq government.

SECRETARY POWELL: We choose your government?

QUESTION: No.

SECRETARY POWELL: No.

QUESTION: In Iraq.

SECRETARY POWELL: Oh, in Iraq. Oh, I’m sorry. Excuse me, I missed it a little bit. We helped the UN. The UN, in the person of Ambassador Brahimi, and Ambassador Bremer -- we selected, you're quite right, we selected the new leaders of the interim government. We had to start somewhere. And we thought that a process that included the United Nations, the United States, and Iraqi leaders who were consulted and the Governing Council, those 25 Iraqis who were in the Governing Council, to give us this new interim government.

The reason it is called an interim government is that it is only going to last for about six months to seven months. Their sole mission is to run the country for the next six or seven months and get the country ready for elections. The elections will be held at the end of this year or the end of January of 2005. And that will produce an assembly, a transitional assembly. That assembly will select another transitional government--a transitional government. And through 2005 that government will write a constitution and prepare the nation for full elections at the end of 2005.

So, the United States and the UN played this starting role to get something going but this government will only be there for six months until the elections are held and then the Iraqi people will decide who will be in their legislature and who will be in their transitional government.

Ok, I’m sorry. Yes sir.

STUDENT: Thank you, Mr. Powell. My name is Riski, from Trisakti University. And I would like to ask: as you recall there are, there were, some people who disagree about the invasion in Iraq in the Bush Presidency. And we are aware that you are one of the persons that disagrees. Can you make certain comments on that particular question? Thank you.

SECRETARY POWELL: Yes, sure. When we examined the situation in Iraq the first couple years of the Administration, when, after President Bush came in, we saw a serious problem: a dictator and a regime that had violated UN resolutions for 12 years, would not answer questions with respect to its involvement in the development and ownership of weapons of mass destruction. We saw a nation that was involved in terrorist activities, and we had so designated it. And it was a rogue regime that simply was not responding to the legitimate demands of the international community.

When we were examining what to do in a situation we thought was becoming worse, my advice to President Bush--advice that he accepted and all of my other colleagues in government concurred in--was that before we do anything, we should take this matter to the United Nations. The United Nations is the offended party, representing the international community. And its 12 UN resolutions -- or 16 resolutions over 12 years, something, those are about the right numbers -- that Saddam Hussein had ignored. So take the problem to the United Nations. That was my recommendation to the President and that’s what we did.

He spoke to the United Nations on the 12^th of September, 2002. And so we took it to the UN--that was my advice. But when I gave that advice, I knew that when we did that and when we got a resolution from the United Nations, which we did, a day might come when we would have to make a decision. Saddam Hussein is complying with the UN resolutions, he is doing what he is supposed to do and therefore we have solved this problem peacefully. But, I also knew that maybe he wouldn’t, maybe he would give us a false declaration, maybe he would continue to deceive people and use deception; and if that happened, then I knew we would use military force.

And so when we started down that road, I was determined that this problem should be solved just as the President was. It was my hope, it was the President’s hope, that the problem could be solved without the use of military force. That turned out to be not the case. The President decided that military force had to be used because Saddam Hussein was not complying. And when the President made that decision, I knew it was a decision he might have to make and I fully supported it. I fully supported going into the conflict. I fully supported our troops who went in to perform this operation along with the coalition troops.

I am delighted that Saddam Hussein is gone. I am delighted to see him now facing the justice of his own people. And there was no debate in the Administration about whether that was the right thing to do at that time. I was hopeful for a diplomatic solution. I don’t like war -- I know war better than anyone else in our Administration. I was a soldier for 35 years. I do everything to avoid war. I have seen people die, and I have sent people to their death. I don’t like it. But there comes a time when, in order to do the right thing, it may be necessary to use force. When that time comes, then let’s use it, get it over with, and get back to peacemaking and democracy building; and that’s what we’re doing in Iraq now.

Let this young man lead.

STUDENT: Okay. Mr. Secretary, you attacked Iraq and Afghanistan without United Nations approval, so what does United Nations means to America?

SECRETARY POWELL: In terms of Afghanistan, we went into Afghanistan because of the people who came and attacked the United States. We didn’t attack al Qaeda. Al Qaeda had been attacking us repeatedly, and then finally on 9/11 they destroyed two buildings, the biggest buildings in New York, full of tens of thousands of people. They wanted to kill that day, tens of thousands of people. They were hoping the building would be full and they could kill 40,000 people. That was their goal. And then they hit the Pentagon, and then there was another plane that crashed in a field, that was either coming to the White House or to the State Department to kill more.

This was as bad as Pearl Harbor many times over. We were attacked. We went to the government that was harboring these people. We went to the Taliban and said, "turn them over." The Taliban said, "no," and so we attacked. And we took out the Taliban. We took out a good part of the leadership of al Qaeda. And now Afghanistan has a leader who is dedicated, committed, a Muslim leader who is taking his country into democracy and elections. Afghanistan is going to have elections this fall, and they are going to be able to choose their own leaders. And when that happens and the country is secure, the United States is coming home.

Just as in Iraq. You know why went into Iraq, and our only goal is to finish the job, turn over everything to the Iraqi people and to bring our troops home. The United States does not go overseas to take anyone’s land or take anyone’s oil or to stay anywhere. Look at the history of the last 15 years. We went into Kuwait, right? Why? Was it to take over Kuwait, or was it to remove a dictator who had attacked a fellow Muslim nation?

When we went to Kosovo, was it to take over Kosovo, when we had that operation in Kosovo? Or, was it to protect the Muslim population in Kosovo?

When we went to Afghanistan, it was to get rid of this regime that essentially had become a terrorist regime. For the purpose of us owning Afghanistan? Or for the purpose of letting President Karzai hold elections so that the Afghan people would own Afghanistan and not al Qaeda. So, if you look at our history over the last 10 or 15 years and you see how we have been involved in countries that have Muslim populations, it has always been for the purpose of putting down a wrong and to stay just long enough until we can stabilize things and give it back to the people.

Muslims are as entitled to a system that is free of dictators and free of terrorists as any other people on the face of the earth. And you can be sure that United States does not go out for adventure, does not go out for colonies, does not go out to suppress any people. We go out to help. Our reform efforts, our modernization efforts that we are now engaged in with the greater, or the broader Middle East nations, across North Africa and through the Middle East, has that same purpose. We want to help you as you reform modernize your society to make them more able to deal with 21^st century globalized world. We want to help you, not impose on you, not tell you how to do it, but to offer suggestions, and to be a partner with you.

MS. SUPADMO: Mr. Secretary, I am afraid the time is a bit up, unless you want to continue?

SECRETARY POWELL: I think I have another, another interview I have to do, so I'm afraid I will have to leave. Can we take one more? Who wants to be the last one?

MS. SUPADMO: One last question.

QUESTION: Thank you, Mr. Secretary. My name is Alvi from Trisakti University, and my question is, what is the result of the negotiation in North Korea? And what it the next step to stop the nuclear weapon in North Korea? Are you going to attack or invade, invade the North Korea like you do in Iraq?

SECRETARY POWELL: The latter part of your question: we have no intention, desire, plan to attack or invade North Korea. None. The President’s made it clear that he wants a diplomatic solution to the problem of North Korea having nuclear weapons. And he is engaged with a six-party framework arrangement now. The Chinese have played a helpful role, the Russians are involved, the South Koreans are involved, the Japanese are involved, the North Koreans are involved, and we are involved.

Isn’t that the way to do it? Everybody wants the United States to be multilateral. That’s multilateral. And with all of those nations involved, I think we will ultimately get a diplomatic solution. Everybody has agreed -- to include the North Koreans -- that we want a denuclearized North Korean, or Korean, peninsula.

The North Koreans have said they are prepared to give up their nuclear capability. We are now in a process of intense negotiations to see under what circumstances, and under what conditions, and with what assistance, the North Koreans need in order to bring this about. I think that we will just keep pressing ahead with out six-party negotiations.

We have already scheduled in the early fall another round of discussions, and in my discussions today, my brief discussions, today with the North Koreans, they reaffirmed that they want to continue with the six-party framework and they reinforced the positions they gave to us last week, and we reinforced our position. So, these are difficult negotiations. It just doesn’t happen overnight. There is a great deal of mistrust between the United States and North Korea. We will have to work our way through this and we are pleased that we have the other friends in the region, the neighbors of North Korea, participating with us in this process.

Okay? Thank you all, and keep working hard. And remember, I’m gonna be retired soon, and I’ll be in a -- I’ll be in a rocking chair watching you guys become the leaders of Indonesia. Thank you. Thank you.

2004/744 (revised)