BODY: SEN. HELMS: (Strikes gavel.) The committee
will come to order. And I wish we had a larger auditorium, because there are at
least as many people outside as are inside. So you know how to draw a crowd, Mr.
Secretary.
Having said that, we welcome you, of course,
for this morning's meeting of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. And this
being your first appearance before the committee as secretary of State, we're
pleased and honored to have you with us.
Now we hope
that you'll always feel at home here and that you will visit with us often, not
only when we ask you to come, but whenever you have something to say to Congress
and the American people. So the door will always be open.
Before we turn to you for your testimony, there's one issue that I hope
you will address while you are with us, and that is reforming foreign
aid.
First, the Agency of (sic)
International Development must be folded into the State Department and
brought directly under the control of your own good self, the secretary of
State.
Second, there must be a significant cut in the
size and cost of the foreign aid bureaucracy, and I'll leave for -- to
you to decide how much.
Third, we must take every penny
we save by cutting bureaucracy and invest it in a new international
development foundation charged with delivering block grants to private and
faith-based charities that are saving lives all around the world.
And finally, we must match those savings, dollar for
dollar, with an increased U.S. investment in the work of these relief
organizations.
Specifically, Mr. Secretary, I pledge to
you this morning that for every dollar we take out of bureaucratic overhead, I
personally would support a matching dollar increase in U.S. assistance delivered
through these private and faith-based charities.
In
other words, every one dollar that is cut from the bureaucracy will translate
into two dollars in real relief for the neediest people in this world.
Now, if you reduce the size of the bureaucracy by 5
percent, I personally will help you fight for a 5 percent increase in U.S.
assistance. If you reduce the bureaucracy by 10 percent, I will champion a 10
percent increase; and 15 percent, you know, and on down the line. Mr. Secretary,
let me put it this way: If you want to see how far I will go in working with
you, just test me.
In any case, Mr. Secretary, I hope
that I can have your commitment today to work with this committee to reform the
way that we have been delivering so wastefully foreign aid in the
past.
Senator Biden? Excuse me; I'm sorry.
SEN. JOSEPH BIDEN (D-DE): I beg your pardon, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Chairman, I join you in welcoming Secretary Powell.
Secretary Powell, I just want you to know that you have knowledgeable
people, hopefully, in front of you, but you also have Mrs. Sarbanes sitting
behind you, so -- who is more knowledgeable than we are. So I just want you -- I
just embarrassed her and she's mad I've said that, but -- I welcome you here.
Last week the president submitted his budget, Mr.
Secretary -- his budget outline, I should be more precise, to Congress. A more
detailed budget is still to come. And based on what we know so far, I must tell
you I am disappointed with the international affairs budget. It provides
only a modest increase in real terms over fiscal year 2001, and it's below the
levels provided for fiscal year 1999 and 2000. During your confirmation hearing,
Mr. Secretary, you made clear your belief that you didn't have enough resources
to accomplish your mission. Now, I acknowledge that you're just getting underway
and there's a lot you have to get in place, and -- but I want you to know that
you've not only raised my expectations, but I think you raised, in your first
meetings with your colleagues at the State Department, their expectations as to
how significant an increase may be forthcoming to do some of the very basic
things that have to be done at State to modernize it.
As you well know, you've been put in the dubious position by the press
and in both parties as being the guy who's going to be able to deliver like no
other secretary could for your folks over at State, and so I realize you're in a
bit of a tough position. I'm glad to see the increase, but I'm concerned that
the funding levels in the budget may be insufficient to inadequate to strengthen
our diplomatic readiness. It's a -- I think it's a delusion to believe that we
can protect our numerous interests overseas with diplomatic infrastructure
that's second rate -- I'm not talking about the people, I'm talking about the
infrastructure -- and assistance programs that are underfunded.
As you continue to develop your priorities, I strongly urge you to seek
additional funding for the department and international programs that you
need, notwithstanding the fact you may not be able to get them. I realize every
Cabinet secretary has that difficulty. But we're counting on you to make the
case, the best case possible for the needs of the department.
I hope you can spend a few minutes this morning reporting on your
recent trip, although I know that's not the primary purpose of your visit here
today. And in particular I'm interested in hearing your ideas about reenergizing
sanctions against Iraq. We also must keep the world focused on the key threats,
Saddam's effort to acquire, as you've repeatedly pointed out, weapons of mass
destruction and that can again and are likely to threaten their neighbors.
So I welcome you here. And I particularly welcome your
assurance to our NATO partners. I've had more calls than I can tell you,
including a visit from Lord Robertson yesterday, to tell me how pleased everyone
was with your comment, "We went in together and we'll come out together. " I
think that goes a long, long way to reassuring our NATO allies of our
steadfastness and our commitment.
And finally, let me
say a quick word about the current visit of South Korean President Kim, who is
the author of the engagement strategy and slowly opening up North Korea. I must
tell you I was somewhere between puzzled and disappointment -- disappointed by
what the reports of the meeting with the president were yesterday, particularly
in light of what I read your statements to be of taking a positive but not naive
look at what possibilities there may be.
If President
Kim is correctly quoted or paraphrased, he said he thinks there's a window of
opportunity that's open now that will not stay open very long. As I've said in
response to inquiries in the press, I'm not sure what's on the other side of
that window; I'm not sure that we want what's on the other side of the window,
but I am quite sure we should look through the window.
And so I hope that if you have an opportunity again today -- there's a
lot on your plate here -- but I hope you get an opportunity to maybe --
"clarify" is the wrong word -- explain to us what President Bush -- if you're
able to -- meant by his statement yesterday that there be no immediate -- and I
emphasize I -- maybe because I want to convince myself -- look to the word
"immediate" as the operative word, but I may be wrong -- no "immediate"
interfacing with North Korea. But if you have time, I'd like you to maybe be
able to respond to that in the question-and-answer period.
But again, I welcome you, look forward to working with you. As the
senator said to you, I think you can count on both sides of this panel,
Democrats and Republicans, to, once you conclude what you need -- to help you
fight for the resources you believe you need at State to do the job I think we
all think it need do.
But I thank you very much, and I
thank you, Mr. Chairman.
SEN. HELMS: Mr. Secretary?
SEC. POWELL: Well, thank you very much, Mr. Chairman, and
Senator Biden, for your welcome. It's good to be back before the committee, this
time as the secretary of State. And I thank you for the prompt consideration of
my nomination just a few short weeks ago. I've been the secretary of State for
5-1/2 weeks. I must admit, it's starting to feel like 5-1/2 months, if not 5-1/2
years, as I have begun to deal with the tasks before me.
And I am also pleased that you will be dealing with the other nominees
for the Department of State in a prompt manner, as those nominees come up to
you. It's still a little lonely down there at the State Department, Mr.
Chairman, but I'm looking forward to a great team joining me in the very, very
near future.
I, too, look forward to the opportunity on
a regular basis to come before the committee and to share my thoughts on the
policies of the Bush administration and to answer any questions you may have.
And, of course, I am at your disposal at any time, Mr. Chairman, and members of
the committee, and look forward to seeing you individually and in different
aggregations and not just in the form of hearings.
Mr.
Chairman, I fully take aboard what you said with respect to USAID. I remember
vividly our previous conversation on this. Early on, the second week of my
tenure as secretary of State, I went over to USAID, and with the entire staff
sat and talked and began the process of understanding how they were operating,
making it clear to them that changes would be coming.
I
put in place an aggressive transition team, which is still over there working,
and I'm waiting for their report back on what directions we ought to move into.
And I made sure they understood your interest in this particular matter and said
to the whole USAID team that I have been given an offer from Senator Helms as to
how we can get more resources for these vital programs of ours if we show
movement toward efficiency, toward reducing bureaucracy, and toward making
better use of the nongovernmental organizations, especially faith-based sorts of
organizations, that are available to us.
And so, Mr.
Chairman, we have all that under way. As you know, the president has expressed
his intention to nominate Mr. Andrew Nacios (sp) to be the next director of the
USAID. He brings a great deal of experience and a great deal of leadership
ability and skill to this task. And in my conversations with Andy, I made it
clear to him that I wanted him to be a change agent, in order to make sure that
we are doing the best job for the American people and the people of the world
with the money is providing us to use through the U.S. Agency for
International Development.
So I look forward to
working with you, Mr. Chairman, and the members of the committee and the
Congress on this issue. And I wrote down very, very carefully the deal that we
just talked about -- one for one. It's going to be a lot more than one for one.
And we'll look forward to that, Mr. Chairman.
Senator
Biden, I thank you for your comment on resources. This budget submission is far
from the end of the game; it's the beginning. In the short period of time we had
to make adjustments to the budget submission, I think that the State Department
did rather well, with a 5 percent overall increase in the account and the
function, and with about a 15 percent increase in the Commerce-State-Justice
piece of the account, which gives us the operational money we need to run the
department. And so I think we're off to a good start.
But I am not fearful, at this point, that I'm going to fail the
expectations that you have of me, sir, or that the department has of me, because
I think President Bush also has expectations that we will do better and that he
will help us do better in future budgets.
The out years
are a source of concern, and we'll deal with that as we get into the next budget
cycle. And I'm confident I'll be able to make the case that we'll generate more
resources from within the president's budget and that I can come up in future
hearings and talk about a higher level of resources for the department.
I think, before going into a very short version of my
prepared statement, I'd like to talk to some of the foreign policy issues that
Senator Biden raised, because, for the most part, I'm here to talk about the
budget, but of course we can talk about any issues that members wish to talk
about.
And let me start with Iraq. Iraq and the
situation in Iraq was the principal purpose of my trip throughout the Persian
Gulf and Middle East area the week before last.
When we
took over on the 20th of January, I discovered that we had an Iraq policy that
was in disarray. And the sanctions part of that policy was not just in disarray,
it was falling apart. We were losing support for the sanctions regime that had
served so well over the last 10 years. With all of the ups and downs, and with
all the difficulties are associated with that regime, it was falling apart. It
had been successful. Saddam Hussein has not be able to rebuild his army,
notwithstanding claims that he has. He has fewer tanks in his inventory today
than he had 10 years ago. Even though we know he's working on weapons of mass
destruction, we know he has things squirreled away, but at the same time we have
not seen that capacity emerge to present a full-fledged threat to us.
So I think credit has to be given to the United Nations
and to the Perm 5 and to the nations in the region for putting in place a regime
that has kept him pretty much in check.
What I found on
the 20th of January, however, was that regime was collapsing. More and more
nations were saying, "Let's just get rid of the sanctions. Let's not worry about
inspectors. Let's just forget it." There was all kinds of leakage from the
front-line states, whether it was through Syria, through Jordan, through Turkey,
or down through the Persian Gulf, with smuggling of oil.
And so what I felt we had to do was to start taking a look at these
sanctions, remember what they were oriented on in the first place, and remember
that with respect to the sanctions -- let's call that basket one -- that's what
the United Nations does. It has nothing to do with regime change. That's U.S.
policy. That's U.S. policy that -- let's put basket two, the no-fly zone, or in
basket three Iraqi opposition activities.
My immediate
concern was basket one, the U.N. basket, and how it was falling apart. And it
seemed to me the first thing we had to do was to change the nature of the
debate. We were being accused, and we were taking on the burden of hurting Iraqi
people, hurting Iraqi children, and we needed to turn that around. The purpose
of these sanctions was to go after weapons of mass destruction. That's what they
were put in place for, in the first instance, back at the end of the Gulf War.
So let's start talking about how the Iraqi regime is threatening children, their
own children, and the children of Saudi Arabia and Kuwait and Syria and all over
the region, how they were a danger -- in danger of what Saddam Hussein was
doing, and take away the argument he was using against us.
In order to make sure that that carried forward, we then had to take a
look at the sanctions themselves. Were they being used to go after weapons of
mass destruction, and was that the way they were connected to our original
goals, or increasingly, were those sanctions starting to look as if they were
hurting the Iraqi people?
And it seems to me one
approach to this was to go to those sanctions and eliminate those items in the
sanctions regime that really were of civilian use and benefitted people, and
focus them exclusively on weapons of mass destruction and items that could be
directed toward the development of weapons of mass destruction.
I carried that message around the region, and I found that our Arab
friends in the region, as well as members of the Perm 5 in the United Nations,
as well as a number of my colleagues in NATO, found this to be a very attractive
approach and that we should continue down this line. And so we are continuing
down this line that says: Let's see if there is a better way to use these
sanctions to go after weapons of mass destruction and take away the argument we
have given him that we are somehow hurting the Iraqi people.
He's hurting the Iraqi people, not us. There is more than enough money
available to the regime now to take care of the needs they have. No more money
comes in as a result of a change to this new kind of sanctions policy, but there
is greater flexibility for the regime if they choose to use that flexibility to
take care of the needs of its people.
How do we get out
of this regime ultimately? The inspectors have to go back in. If he wants to get
out of this, if he wants to regain control of the oil-for-food escrow accounts,
the only way that can happen is for the inspectors to go back in. But rather
than us begging him to let the inspectors in, the burden is now on him. We
control the money. We will continue to restrict weapons of mass destruction. You
no longer have an argument, Mr. Iraqi Regime, that we are hurting your people.
You let the inspectors in, and we can start to get out of this. If the
inspectors get in, do their job, we're satisfied with their first look at
things, maybe we can suspend the sanctions. And then at some point, way in the
future, when we're absolutely satisfied there are no such weapons around, then
maybe we can consider lifting. But that is a long way in the future.
So this wasn't an effort to ease the sanctions; this was
an effort to rescue the sanctions policy that was collapsing. We discovered that
we were in an airplane that was heading to a crash. And what we have done and
what we are trying to do is to pull it out of that dive and put it on an
altitude that's sustainable, bring the coalition back together.
As part of this approach to the problem, we would also make sure that
the Iraqi regime understood that we reserve the right to strike militarily any
activity out there, any facility we find that is inconsistent with their
obligations to get rid of such weapons of mass destruction.
That takes care of the U.N. piece.
On the
no-fly zone, we're reviewing our policies to see if we are operating those in
the most effective way possible. And with respect to the Iraqi opposition
activities, we are supporting those. Our principal avenue of support is with the
Iraqi National Congress. And last week I released more money of the money that
had been made available to us by the Congress, released more of that money for
their activities. And we're looking at what more we could support and what other
opposition activities are available that we might bring into this strategy of
regime change.
And so I think it is a comprehensive,
full review to bring the coalition back together, put the burden on the Iraqi
regime, keep focused on what is important, weapons of mass destruction, and keep
him isolated and make sure that he is contained. And hopefully, the day will
come when circumstances will allow, permit, or it will happen within Iraq we see
a regime change that will be better for the world.
And
so I would hope that the members of the committee will examine this approach as
we develop it further, and I hope that you will find the basis upon which you
can support it.
Senator Biden also mentioned NATO. I'm
very pleased that we have solid relations with NATO. There were some irritants
in the relationship, and I think those have been taken care of.
With respect to the president's meeting with Kim Dae Jung yesterday, I
think it was a very good meeting. They had a good exchange of views. The
president expressed his support for President Kim Dae Jung's efforts to open
North Korea. It is a regime that is despotic. It is broken. We have no illusions
about this regime. We have no illusions about the nature of the gentleman who
runs North Korea. He is a despot. But he is also sitting on a failed society
that has to somehow begin opening if it is not to collapse. Once it's opened, it
may well collapse anyway. And so we support what Kim Dae Jung is doing.
At the same time, we have expressed in the strongest
possible terms, and President Bush did it in the strongest possible terms
yesterday, our concerns about their efforts toward weapons -- development of
weapons of mass destruction and the proliferation of such weapons and missiles
and other materials to other nations, not only in the region but around the
world, a major source of proliferation. And as we look at the elements of the
negotiation that the previous administration had left behind, there are some
things there that are very promising. What was not there was a monitoring and
verification regime of the kind that we would have to have in order to move
forward in negotiations with such a regime. And so what the president was saying
yesterday is that we're going to take our time, we're going to put together a
comprehensive policy, and in due course, at a time and at a pace of our
choosing, we will decide and determine how best to engage with the North Korean
regime.
But it was a good meeting and I think the two
presidents had a very candid exchange of views. And we look forward to more
exchanges of views with the South Koreans as we move forward, as well as with
the Japanese, so we can move forward together even though we may be on separate
tracks from time to time.
Mr. Chairman, I will stop
there on foreign policy issues, and just briefly touch on what we're trying to
do in this budget. As you know, there are many ways that the president engages
in foreign policy. Sometimes it's meetings such as he held yesterday with
President Kim Dae Jung or meetings he's held with President Fox and held with
Prime Minister Chretien of Canada. Sometimes it's sending the secretary of State
whizzing around the world, seven countries in four days. That gets a lot of
news.
But the real work of foreign policy is not
accomplished just by presidents or by secretaries of State, it's done by the
thousands and thousands of dedicated Americans who have signed up to serve in
the Foreign Service, to serve as civil servants, to serve as Foreign Service
nationals, for those who are not Americans, representing us around the world.
And it is theirs that is the daily grind of foreign policy, punctuated by the
occasional thrill and excitement of a diplomatic success. And their activities
range from the minor to the sublime; from the courteous handling of a visa
application to the inking of a treaty limiting arms control or limiting
conventional arms in Europe.
And I'm saying to you, Mr.
Chairman, something that you and the members of the committee already know.
There are no finer groups of Americans anywhere in the world who represent our
interests as well. And it is our obligation to give them the resources they
need. I've seen how we try to take care of our military folks. I mentioned this
to you at the last hearing, how places like Camp Bondsteel look so great when
you go over to the Balkans. We ought to make sure that all of our State
Department facilities look as great as those military facilities.
And I think the budget that we have presented to you, with
the increases that are proposed, start moving us in that direction. We are
making strides in classified information technology. We're making sure that our
people have access to the Internet. We're doing all we can to get a handle on
energy -- on embassy construction.
Especially grateful
to a former member of his committee, Senator Grams, for his part in conceiving
the five-year authorization of embassy funds. I'm very pleased that 2-1/2 years
after the bombings in Kenya and Tanzania, we're well on our way to
reestablishing our presence there. We have other embassies that are state of the
art that are coming up out of the ground now.
So we
have a lot going on, but I think we can do a better job of managing our embassy
construction program. It is for that reason that I went out and tried to find
one of the best -- best persons I could find, expert in this, to come in and
help me in the department. I've acquired the services of a retired major general
in the United States Army -- surprise, surprise. But retired Major General Chuck
Williams, Charles E. Williams, is from the Corps of Engineers. He built Fort
Drum, New York. He built the Dulles greenway out here, not far from here. He has
brought projects to life all over the world, and he knows this business. And he
is coming in to serve as the new head of our Foreign Buildings Office. I'm going
to move it out from under its current location so that it can have more direct
reporting responsibility to me and to the undersecretary for Management.
And General Williams' instructions are: Get out there,
find out what we need to fix in the management of this account. And we want to
get rid of the bureaucracy, we want to find private ways of doing things. This
is a first step toward perhaps ultimately going in the direction of the Kaden
Commission recommendation, which would move it entirely out of the department.
I'm not there, yet; got a long way to go. But this, I think, is an aggressive
first step in showing the kind of leadership I want the department to see, that
we have identified a problem in that operation, went out and got a leader who
was skilled, not just a political appointee, but somebody who knows how to get
this job done, given him the political mandate to do it. And I'm sure that
General Williams will do a good job that will make us all proud.
So, Mr. Chairman, that's the kind of thing we're doing, the kind of
thing we're going to do to get our information infrastructure fixed to make sure
that 30,000 desks throughout the State Department are wired for unclassified
access to the Internet. This budget will do that. And then we'll start working
on classified access to the Internet.
We're going to
make sure that our people are state of the art. We're going to make sure that if
an ambassador somewhere out there needs to get something from the Foreign
Broadcast Information Service, he isn't going to wait for something to be faxed
or mailed to him, he's going to be able to bring it out of the ether online,
instantaneously, as he needs it. We're going to get into the state of the art
with the State Department.
Mr. Chairman, I want our
people to be supported, as well as all of our soldiers and sailors and airmen
and Marines, and we're going to make sure that happens in the years ahead.
The president's budget also provides money to hire a
number of new Foreign Service officers. We are below the number we need to get
the job done. One of things we're going to do with this new budget is to create
a float. We don't have a float in the department; we always are robbing Peter to
pay Paul when a new mission comes along. I need a float, just as we had in the
military, so people can go to training, so that there's always a little reserve
capacity where people can go off to school and get the additional skills they
need without us vacating a position somewhere in an embassy or an important
office here in Washington. And so we're going to increase the number of Foreign
Service officers, we're going to create float so they get the training that they
need.
And you're going to see, Mr. Chairman, that the
budget also provides for the kinds of things that really advance our foreign
policy -- programs aimed at restoring peace, building democracy and civil
societies, safeguarding human rights, tackling nonproliferation and
counterterrorism challenges, addressing global health and environmental issues,
responding to disasters and promoting economic reform. The budget expands
counter-drug, alternative development, and government reform programs in the
Andean region. It helps provide military assistance to Israel to meet cash flow
needs. It'll fund all of the scheduled payments that are due in 2002 to the
multilateral development banks and the U.S. commitment to the heavily indebted
poor countries. It increases funding for migration and refugee assistance; for
HIV/AIDS, one of the biggest problems facing the world today; trafficking
in women; basic education for children.
And with respect to trafficking in women and children, let me take this
opportunity to thank Senator Brownback for his work in this effort, and for the
amendment that you offered last year, Senator. That was successful and added $10
million in economic support funds for efforts in the Sudan to protect civilians
from attacks and from slave trades.
Mr. Chairman, the
president's budget for 2002 also provides money to support peacekeeping
operations, supports political and economic transitions in Africa, with emphasis
on countries such as Nigeria and South Africa. As I go into these sorts of
programs, I'm going to be trying to invest in those countries that have made the
necessary changes that put them on the path of democracy and the free enterprise
system, and not keep propping up despots who won't move in the right direction.
The Cold War is over. We don't need to prop up those kinds of institutions and
countries any longer.
And so, Mr. Chairman, I think
it's a budget that moves in the direction of freedom and democracy and
supporting those efforts. It'll help to reduce the risks presented by
international terrorism. It'll help halt the spread of weapons of mass
destruction by stronger -- providing stronger international safeguards on
civilian nuclear activity.
We're also going to increase
funding for the Peace Corps, and I know Senator Dodd has a particular interest
in that.
And as I noted earlier, we're also going to
provide additional money, not for Plan Colombia per se, but to regionalize our
activities, so that Plan Colombia just does not become a snapshot, but it is
part of a broader strategy for the region.
Mr.
Chairman, I can also say to you that I'm going to work hard to carve out
needless layers within the State Department. I know that the committee has an
intense interest in organizational activities and streamlining activities in the
department, and I'm going to be on top of that. But I think that all begins with
leadership. It begins with putting a team together. It begins with communicating
throughout the department that we are a team; we're going to be linked together
on the basis of trust. And when you got that all going, Mr. Chairman, then you
can start to make the organizational changes that I think will be needed and are
needed to make sure that the department is relevant to the needs of the nation
and the needs of the world in the 21st century.
Mr.
Chairman, let me stop there. I'll provide the whole statement for the record,
with your permission. And now I look forward to your questions.
SEN. HELMS: Mr. Secretary, an excellent statement. Your entire
statement, as written, will be printed in the record as if read.
I was sitting here thinking about Saddam Hussein. There may have been
somewhere in history a more brutal guy to his own people than Saddam.
I shall never forget what he did to the Kurds, hundreds of
thousands of them, and so many other instances, and I'm a little disappointed in
my and your friends among the other Arab states. They seem to be a little bit
less than eager to get involved, and in the name of God and everything else
that's holy, whatever their God is, they had better take stock of what Saddam
Hussein is.
Now, let me switch to another -- oh, by the
way, you started the clock on me, and we'll have five minutes on the first
round. And when the red light comes on, please be conclusive in what you say.
In 1982, the Reagan administration made the "Six
Assurances" to Congress on Taiwan, and every administration since then has
declared them to be U.S. policy. And I'm particularly interested about assurance
number three, which was that that United States would not engage in advanced
consultations with the People's Republic of China -- that is, Communist China --
on defense sales to Taiwan. And I'd like for you to comment, if you will, sir,
that all of the Six Assurances will remain U.S. policy and that there will be no
advance consultations with mainland China, Beijing, on defense sales to
Taiwan.
SEC. POWELL: They do remain U.S. policy, and we
are now reviewing the arms sales proposal. We have the list, and going over the
list, from the Republic of China, and I can assure you I have no plans to
consult with anybody in the People's Republic of China on what the relationship
is we have with Taiwan or what their needs should or should not be.
SEN. HELMS: Are you confident that nobody else in the
administration will consult with Beijing --
SEC.
POWELL: Yes, sir, I'm reasonably confident. It's an administration where I can't
think of any of my colleagues who would be so inclined.
SEN. HELMS: They'd better not, or we'll both jump on them at the same
time.
SEC. POWELL: (Chuckles.)
SEN. HELMS: During your recent trip -- you mentioned this in your
remarks -- your trip to the Middle East, you talked about "smart" sanctions on
Iraq. And I guess we all are in favor of smart sanctions, as opposed to dumb
sanctions, but I've got to tell you, I'm a little bit confused about smart and
dumb.
I assume that the United States will continue to
object to any exports to Iraq that will contribute to Saddam's weapons
program?
SEC. POWELL: Absolutely.
SEN. HELMS: All right. And I'm told that there's already $4 billion in
cash available through the United Nations escrow account for Iraq to buy pretty
much anything Iraq needs. Is that your understanding, too?
SEC. POWELL: Sir, as long as the items they wish to purchase are not
proscribed because they are weapons or they might lead to the development of a
weapon, or they may be dual-use of a nature that causes us concern. If that's
the case, then those contracts will not be honored, no matter how much money
there is in that escrow account.
SEN. HELMS: Well, are
you going to monitor that situation personally?
SEC.
POWELL: Very carefully, and one of the advantages of the new system is that we
can sort of sweep out the underbrush of other things that people want to argue
about and make sure we're focusing on the important things that really could add
to his capability.
SEN. HELMS: Just one further
question on this. What might Saddam be able to buy under smart sanctions that
he's not able to buy right now?
SEC. POWELL: There are
probably some dual-use items that we might be holding up. Let me just pull an
example out of the air, which may or may not be correct, but I think it's
illustrative -- and you've seen it in the paper from time to time -- water
pumps. Water pumps can be used to bring water up out of a well, and that would
benefit people. But if it's a sophisticated kind of a water pump, a water pump
that is of a uniquely high tolerance and pressure settings or whatnot that could
be used in a industrial way and perhaps used in the kind of plant that might
develop weapons of mass destruction, I think what we would say is let water pump
number one go, let's not waste time arguing about that, and let's make sure we
take a good look at water pump number two.
The United
States right now holds up about 1,500 contracts, and at the same time we are
holding up those 1,500, the United Kingdom only finds 250 of those troublesome,
and all of our other friends find only 10 or 20, you know, troublesome. So I
think we would take another look at the ones we're holding up to make sure we
are holding them up for the real reasons of weapons of mass destruction and not
just for the real reason -- or another reason, which is we're holding them up to
hold them up because there are some things in there that we're really going to
make a point of that all of our other allies do not make or is worth making a
point of. That's been the problem, and that's why we're getting such pressure.
"Look, if we can't do this in a smart way, as some call it, then let's get rid
of the whole thing."
One other point, if I may, sir. I
understand your disappointment with respect to the Arab states, but I came back
from my trip with all of them saying to me -- and I left one of my assistant
secretaries behind to visit the rest of them -- "We understand the threat
presented by Saddam Hussein, and we are willing to work with you on the weapons
of mass destruction." But we're getting killed in the Arab street, we're getting
killed in the Arab population, who think we are responsible for hurting the
Iraqi people with the sanctions regime. So this is a way of clearing out that
argument and giving them something to stand for with us.
SEN. HELMS: I'll be back.
Senator Biden.
SEN. BIDEN: Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
I'm one of those who's sympathetic to what you're attempting to do with
regard to Iraq, Mr. Secretary, in large part because I believe if something
isn't done, we will be unilaterally imposing sanctions. I'm not going to take
the time now, but at another time maybe I can drop you a note.
I'm very anxious to know what the French reaction is to your initiative
and whether or not -- what they consider to be -- I'm not sure they consider
anything to be smart sanctions right now.
SEC. POWELL:
I had positive discussions with my French colleague, and I'm waiting now for a
further response.
SEN. BIDEN: I'd like to move very
quickly to the issue of the budget, your budget. We're at a slight disadvantage
here this morning, we the committee, because, as you well know, we have the 150
function number, but we don't have the account-level numbers. We inquired of
your folks and they indicated, and possibly with good reason, that they weren't
authorized to release any of those numbers until Monday. And so when you talk to
us about the increase in the State-Commerce-Justice budget, they're really where
those account functions are, and we don't know how they break out.
Could you, in the brief time I have here, list for me what
the priorities are in this sense: you've sought, roughly, a $700 million
increase in the budget, in your budget, which in real terms is about 3 percent,
as I read it, Mr. Secretary. But I don't want to quibble over it's 3 or 5. You,
obviously, made judgments about what are the most important areas you need
immediately to get increases and infusion of dollars. Can you tell us not
necessarily the numbers, but what the priorities are in your first crack at an
attempt to put this department in shape?
SEC. POWELL:
Information technology investment, counselor (?) affairs, embassy security.
There is a -- let's see -- those are the three that immediately come to mind.
I'd like to give you a more --
SEN. BIDEN: Well, no.
I'm sure by Monday -- we've been assured by Monday you will -- your department
will provide those to us. We had your old boss here, Frank Carlucci, last week,
and he made a very, very strong case for additional resources, as well as
reform. And he emphasized very strongly embassy security, technology and
increased investment in personnel, bringing the department up to -- now, it's
one thing to cut the fat that exists in the bureaucracy, and there is a lot
there, in my view, but it's another thing to have the shortfall in Foreign
Service officers who are coming in. And there seems to be an attitude, at least
on the campuses I've been, there's not nearly the enthusiasm for getting into
this line of work that I think there need be -- not only should be, need be. And
so I hope as you develop and lay out these priorities, you'll be willing to
discuss them with us. And I'm anxious to see what the actual account levels are
so we could more intelligently follow up with questions.
SEC. POWELL: Yeah. Recruiting is a part of it. And sometimes it doesn't
take money, it just takes common sense. It's taken us 27 months -- I may have
mentioned this before -- to recruit somebody from the day they say they want to
join the Foreign Service till we get them in. Well, for young people today, they
can't hang around for 2- 1/2 years. So we got that down now to 22 months. And I
want to find ways to change the whole recruiting system so that we can get
people in a lot faster and get them moving into meaningful jobs.
SEN. BIDEN: Let me just say one thing on Korea. You indicated that
there was a time and pace of the administration's choosing. What was missing was
mention of monitoring or verification. I don't think that was missing. In my
discussions with the last administration, they were -- they hadn't reached any
agreement on that, but that was the next stage. When they were deciding whether
or not to go in January -- and they made, I think, a wise decision not to put
your administration in the position in January of having moved -- and you take
time in due course.
Let me just state what worries me,
and if you want to respond, fine. What worries me is, in my experience, which is
not that expansive, but I've been here a long time -- it's been 28 years.
Chinese, North Koreans, even our Japanese allies sometimes have difficulty
discerning the nuanced approaches that we occasionally take, or the blunt
approaches we take.
What I'm very worried about is that
this opportunity to find out whether or not there is any real possibility here
is slipping away, can slip away, and the rhetoric makes a difference. Rhetoric
-- words matter, I think, particularly in this engagement.
I compliment you on the rhetoric you have used, the words you have
used. I just strongly urge you to move along as quickly as you can, due course
being sooner, to decide what your policy is, and move on, because I -- this
could easily move -- escape us.
SEN. HELMS: Senator
Lugar?
SEN. RICHARD LUGAR (R-IN): Thank you very much,
Mr. Chairman.
Secretary Powell, this is a moment at
least for sort of bullet comments, just to take full advantage of five minutes.
But let me say, first of all, that I appreciate very much the rallies that
you've held at the State Department, and inviting the president to come over,
and he responded. I think this is tremendously important, and I just applaud
everything you're doing with regard to the morale, but the substance, really, of
those relationships.
I share Senator Biden's anxiety
that the budget submission may not support all of the thoughts that you have
expressed today, as well as publicly to people there. I just wanted to say that
there are strong supporters of you on the Republican side and the Democratic
side to do a whole lot more and to have an ambitious budget submission. And I
mean that sincerely. I think this is a crucial point at the beginning of this
administration, President Bush and your administration as secretary of State.
And if the moment is not seized now, it's likely to be downhill from there on.
So --
SEN. BIDEN: It may be the only thing there's
absolute, total agreement on.
SEN. LUGAR: We're
hopeful.
Now having said that, specifically, we've had
success, created by our chairman and Senator Biden, with regard to payment of
some of our U.N. dues and arrears.
There is still an
item of the 25 percent cap on peacekeeping that I believe must be addressed. I
hope that you will work with the chairman and ranking member, with members of
the committee, to fulfill what I believe were obligations undertaken by former
Ambassador Holbrooke at the U.N., understood by many of our allies, who are in
fact providing the peacekeeping and whom we owe. And I think this is a very
important point to follow through.
Secondly, last year
we did adopt the African Growth and Opportunity Act. The principal work was done
by distinguished members of the House of Representatives. I introduced on the
Senate side equivalent legislation, joined by many of my colleagues at this
table. A very modest act was passed, inhibited largely by protectionist forces
in our country. But nevertheless, it was a beginning, a minimal beginning, to
some addressing of the economic side of the African equation.
I am hopeful, because I know your intense interest in that continent
and in an unfilled agenda, that there will be a full-blown program, a
comprehensive approach to Africa which I look forward to supporting and, I
think, many others would, around this table.
On
sanctions reform, I have offered, along with many others, for two Congresses,
and am prepared to offer a third, a comprehensive sanction reform that does not
eliminate sanctions, but it gives at least some criteria as to why we ought to
do them and some way of removing them and some way of evaluating whether they're
effective. I know that you're studying the bill that we offered last year
supported by 600 firms -- USA Engage, the American Farm Bureau and others. I
would like to work with you as we introduce that legislation and hope for
greater success on this occasion.
I have worked with
Senator Biden and Representative Portman over on the House side, once again, on
a renewal of the Tropical Forest Conservation Act for another five years. I
think, for a variety of reasons, this makes sense in foreign policy as well as
in the ecology, but nevertheless, it is worth your study, I believe, or those of
your subordinates who are involved in this, to make certain we do it right.
And finally, I would ask that the State Department
position in the past administration with regard to carbon sinks, as the entire
idea of ridding the world of carbon dioxide under any regime, that you study
that carefully. This is something of great consequence to American agriculture,
for obvious reasons.
I was sad at the negotiations that
the carbon sink situation sort of went downhill, after an aggressive posture
initially by State, under a European barrage who really simply want American
industry to suffer. But nevertheless, the carbon sink idea is a good one in
fulfilling a lot of obligations. We ought to do it in any event, whether we have
international obligations. But insofar as we have a negotiating posture
that State has on this subject, why I think it is an important bridge. And I
would say this is one area where American farmers come into very sharp
coincidence with the State Department as supporters of American diplomacy. I'm
looking for those bridges, for obvious reasons, and so I mention it today.
Having said all of that, only a few seconds are there for
you to respond, but I know that you have jotted down a few of these things, and
I'm grateful to you.
SEN. HELMS: Thank the
distinguished former chair. He raised a number of good points, and I wish you
would comment --
SEC. POWELL: Yes, if I just -- can I
have just a few seconds to respond?
SEN. HELMS: (Off
mike.)
SEC. POWELL: On resources, thank you very much,
Senator Lugar, and I hope you will keep pushing me, kicking me, nudging me in
the direction of more resources. It of course helps my case as I make the
argument within the administration as well.
On lifting
the cap on peacekeeping, I have been in contact both with the chairman and with
Senator Biden on how best to do that, and I think it's a matter of how best to
do that, as opposed to doing it.
The Africa Growth and
Opportunity Act; a wonderful piece of work. Now we've got to implement it and
make sure it happens.
Sanctions reform; I look forward
to working with you, and we're examining your proposals. I have found them, some
of the sanctions, to be even more constraining now that I have been in the job
for five and a half weeks than I did when I first mentioned it at the end of my
transition period.
Carbon sinks, if I can just touch on
that one. Understand that the administration is just now coming to grips with
what our policy is going to be on global warming and climate, getting ourselves
ready for the next conference at the end of July, which we hope will not be as
big a disaster as the last one was.
SEN. LUGAR: Thank
you very much. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
SEN. HELMS:
Good work, Senator.
Senator Sarbanes?
SEN. PAUL SARBANES (D-MD): Well, thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. Mr.
Secretary, welcome. Pleased to have you back before the committee.
First of all, I'm just kind of curious. What's it like
driving this gray Mercedes S500 with a 12-cylinder --
SEC. POWELL: It was cool. (Laughs.) It was very cool. It was --
(laughter) --
SEN. SARBANES: I hope the king realized
he was really getting a high- paid chauffeur there!
SEC. POWELL: Well, I felt a little awkward the next day when I realized
it had made the New York Times. That was not our intention. So I called His
Majesty a day later and said I hope I had not caused him any embarrassment. And
he assured me, not at all, and come back any time. And so I look forward to
that.
And then, as another aside, I called another
leader in the region, who I did not have the chance to visit, and we were
chatting about Iraq and the Middle East peace process, and at the end of the
conversation, in order to needle me for not having visited that particular
country, he said, "You know, we have wonderful cars in this country, too."
(Laughter.) So I have to get there very soon.
SEN.
SARBANES: I want to, first, commend you for the effort you're making within the
department itself to draw the career people into the process. It's obviously
been very well received. There are an awful lot of very able and talented people
there whose skills and capacities ought to be drawn upon. And I'm delighted to
see what you're doing, and I'd just encourage you in that regard. I think having
these desk officers brief the president on his Mexico visit was a terrific idea.
And I understand from various reports that it just gave a terrific boost to
morale within the -- well, certainly a boost to the morale of the desk officers
and the more junior people. I'm not all together sure exactly how the senior
people are taking it. But in any event.
I want to echo
my colleagues on your budget. It's kind of strange to come up here and have
members of the Congress telling you, you know, you ought to be seeking more
resources rather than trying to chop you down.
When
George Shultz came in as secretary of State, he met with a number of us, and one
of the pitches he made was the necessity of having adequate resources. Of course
we had a Republican administration, a Democratic Congress. But he got a
reception -- a good reception on the Democratic side to that pitch -- not
unanimous, but a good reception. And, of course, he had the support of
Republican members of the Congress because it was -- I mean, it was the Reagan
administration. And he was able to get a good increase in the resources to carry
out our international affairs function. In fact, the average over those
years, in current dollars, is $27.5 billion, just to put this in perspective.
This is when you were at the National Security Council.
And the point I'm trying to make is, you know, you had more resources
then to work with, in relative terms, than you have today -- significantly more.
I mean, you'd have to have about a 12 percent increase in this budget you've
come forward with to just reach that average figure, let alone some of the
better years.
And I dare say, if at any point our
military budget had ever reached the point where our diplomatic budget is -- it
would never have reached it; the outcry would have started much sooner, and the
response would have been much more intense; it never would have gotten down to
that point. But you don't have the resources, in my judgment, with which to do
the job. And I just urge you to push very hard for that.
SEC. POWELL: Thank you, Senator.
SEN.
SARBANES: Now, let me make one final point, and leave you with this question. At
the end of January, there was an article in the Washington Post. I'm going to
quote from it:
"Two dozen leading conservatives
yesterday sent a letter calling on President Bush to make human rights,
religious freedom and democracy priorities for American foreign policy, and
urging him not to adopt a narrow view of U.S. national interests. American
leadership must never remain indifferent to tyranny, must never be agnostic
about the virtues of political and economic freedom, just always be concerned
with the fortunes of fragile democracies,' the letter said."
And the same letter apparently was sent to you and to the national
security adviser and to the vice president. "The letter also recommended support
for groups promoting democracy and said U.S. non- humanitarian aid,
including assistance given through international lending institutions,
should be used to promote freedom and stop tyranny. When given to governments,
the aid should be tied to countries' performance on human rights,' the
group said."
I just want to make the point for the
record that that's the sentiment and an emphasis on priority that extends well
beyond the conservative part of our political spectrum. And I think it is fairly
widely held here in the Congress and across the country. And I guess my question
is, have you all made any response to this letter, or what is your view on this
emphasis with respect to our foreign policy priorities?
SEC. POWELL: I agree. I believe that our foreign policy should rest on
the bedrock of human rights, respect for the individual, democracy and nations
that are moving in that direction. We should invest in those nations and not
invest in those nations that are despotic or are moving in the wrong direction.
We may sometimes have to do some things with those nations for humanitarian
concerns because there are people under those despots. But for the most part we
should invest in those that are moving in the right direction.
And so I agree entirely with the sentiment. I can't say whether or not
the letter has been answered yet.
SEN. SARBANES: Thank
you.
SEN. HELMS: Senator Hagel.
SEN. CHARLES HAGEL (R-NE): Mr. Chairman, thank you.
Mr. Secretary, welcome, good morning. I believe you are on the right
track regarding sanctions in Iraq. And I would encourage you to continue to
think broadly and deeply as you are. And on that general point Senator Lugar
made some observations regarding trade and sanctions and -- something that he
has been very actively engaged in for many years.
It's
my understanding that you are in some stage of review at the State Department on
all sanctions, on all certifications, on onerous reporting requirements. You, I
believe, have significant support up here to help you clear out the underbrush.
I wonder if you could give us some status report on how you're doing with all of
those reviews.
SEC. POWELL: We are working on that,
senator. I don't have a date I can give you where it will be ready. But we want
to make sure that sanctions, certifications and similar constraints are serving
their originally intended purpose and they're not just burdens for us and no
longer serving the foreign policy interest. And this is not to say that I don't
believe in sanctions; I believe in sanctions that are serving a purpose. And I
will always support those. But where they become a hindrance -- and some of the
drug certification procedures right now I think have become a problem -- then I
think we should aggressively go after them. In many instances there are strong
constituencies for some of these sanctions, and it's difficult to remove the
sanctions language. But as soon as that review is completed, you can be sure I
will be bringing it up before this committee.
SEN.
HAGEL: Thank you.
Senator Lugar also touched on carbon
sinks. And a general question I would have to you regarding climate change, you
said that the administration was now just coming to grips with all the dynamics,
and we understand that. But let me ask this: Is it your intention, is it the
president's intention to continue to keep the climate change responsibility
portfolio within the State Department?
SEC. POWELL:
Yes, although the interagency working groups that come together to determine our
position might well be chaired by the NSC because of the disparate Cabinet
responsibilities. It really is such a complex issue that it goes well beyond the
State Department -- EPA, Treasury, Commerce -- a lot of others in the
administration want to play a role in establishing a new policy. But you can be
sure that State will continue to play a lead role.
SEN.
HAGEL: One of the frustrations that some of us had, if not many of us, in a
subcommittee that I chair on this committee, have chaired the last four years,
was that we could never get a concentrated answer to some of these, as you
suggest, complicated questions to complicated issues. And we would get witnesses
before us who would say, "Well, I don't know; that's the other department" or
"that's the White House" or "that's somewhere else." And I would hope that this
administration, as you develop your process and your policy, is going to be able
to concentrate the responsibility for this issue in the hands of someone.
And I noted the EPA administrator saying some things last
week, and then having to say other things in Rome, which probably didn't reflect
great credit on the administration. But I understand how those things work. But
I would hope that that is done fairly quickly, that you get control of that.
SEC. POWELL: We're trying. We've pulled together an
interagency briefing team that has gone around to each one of the Cabinet
officers and presented them the same briefing, so we can all start off with a
common understanding of the challenge and the dynamics and what global warming
is all about. And now we're starting to get together to come forward with
individual agency positions and how do we move forward, come up with an
administration position.
SEN. HAGEL: Thank you.
Let me ask a broader question, with my last few seconds.
The South American situation in a specific area, the Andean countries, a number
of my colleagues and I have just recently visited Colombia and Ecuador.
Complicated problems, issues, dynamics.
Plan Colombia.
I support Plan Colombia. Could you reflect on that a bit, as to where you are,
the position of the president on that part of the world, what we can look for
and from you in further support and further actions regarding South America?
SEC. POWELL: We, of course, support Plan Colombia, and
think there has been some degree of success in the destruction of some of the
crops in the Putumayo Valley. So we'll continue to support Plan Colombia.
We feel just as strongly that you can't deal with the
problem in one place without it spreading to other parts of the region. So in
subsequent years, we'll be talking about an Andean strategy, and there's money
in the budget for that Andean strategy.
And we'll be
talking about how the Free Trade Association of the Americas plays into this,
how Andean trade preference extension plays into all of this. So we'll try to
come with a comprehensive strategy that deals with the whole region and not just
singularly focusing on Plan Colombia.
SEN. HAGEL: Thank
you.
SEN. HELMS: Senator Kerry.
Before you begin, John, there's a roll-call vote scheduled on the floor
at 11:50 a.m. I just want senators be aware of that.
SEN. JOHN KERRY (D-MA): Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
SEN. HELMS: Thank you.
SEN. KERRY: Mr.
Secretary, welcome. Good to see you.
SEC. POWELL: Thank
you, Senator.
SEN. KERRY: Mr. Secretary, I must confess
to you that I was both puzzled and somewhat troubled by the decision made
yesterday to announce that the administration did not intend to immediately sort
of, quote, "pick up" where the Clinton administration left off, which really
means "negotiate." I mean, that's what was going on. It was a negotiating
process.
On Tuesday of this week, you were quoted as
saying the administration, the Bush administration, did intend to pick up. By
the end of the meeting with President Kim, it was stated that there was some
question about whether or not agreements had been lived up with. There's only
one agreement. And it seems to me the only way to proceed is to negotiate.
What is the -- what changed in those two days? And why is
it that you would not send a signal to North Korea that the direction they've
been moving in is in fact welcomed and that you welcome the concept of a
dialogue?
SEC. POWELL: I think there's less difference
there than meets the eye. Obviously, when you come in from a -- replacing a
previous administration, things are left on the table. What was left on the
table from North Korea was a set of ideas with respect to reducing their missile
production, their proliferation of this kind of system. And Dr. Rice and I were
briefed extensively by the outgoing administration during the transition
period.
What was missing in what had been done was how
one would put in place any kind of monitoring or verification regime. And the
North Koreans had not engaged on that in any serious way in the period of the
Clinton administration.
So where we are is that those
elements are still there. They haven't been dismissed. They haven't been
rejected. But the president said -- and we all agree -- that we want to take
some time in reviewing what was accomplished in the previous administration, in
determining what we think we're going to need with respect to monitoring and
verification, and seeing whether there are other things that ought to be part of
such a discussion.
For example, there's a huge army
poised on the demilitarized zone, pointing south, that is probably as great a
threat to South Korea and Seoul and regional stability as are weapons of mass
destruction. Should that be included in a negotiation with the North Koreans?
And President Bush made that point to President Kim yesterday.
And so what came out of yesterday is that President Bush will continue
our policy review. We will do it in a measured way, with clear-eyed realism with
respect to the nature of the regime and the single individual who has all
authority within that regime, and at a time when we're ready and a time we're
prepared to engage, we will then engage at that time.
But there was a suggestion that we were getting ready to do it
imminently, and it was that suggestion that we were trying to beat down.
SEN. KERRY: Do you -- at this point, can you state whether
or not you support the -- whether or not this administration continues to
support the 1994 agreed framework?
SEC. POWELL: We are
monitoring the agreed framework, and we've continued to support the 1994 agreed
framework.
SEN. KERRY: So the administration will
support the continuation of the shipments of fuel oil and construction of the
light-water reactors?
SEC. POWELL: We will do so as we
also, at the same time, review some concerns that exist with respect to how the
light-water reactors might be used and what kind of supervision it will be
under, and is that supervision adequate to the kinds of monitoring and
verification regime we are interested in.
There are
others who have also suggested that perhaps one might want to substitute
different kinds of energy-generating capacity.
So for
the moment we are in accord with the 1994 agreement, but that doesn't prevent us
from looking at aspects of it that we might wish to revisit or change.
SEN. KERRY: Well, obviously the administration is -- can
and obviously will make up its own mind as to sort of when it feels ready. I
think, given the tensions with respect to China and the questions on the entire
peninsula, the messages we send are awfully important in terms of whether we're
sort of open to engagement. And if we start to -- I think you're free to raise
anything you want at any time you want in the course of that, but I just -- I
have a sense that we may be sending messages that are also subject to
misinterpretation. In that vein I would ask you how you will react to the
military expenditure increase in China, and likewise the issue -- my time is up,
but the issue of whether or not you're satisfied with their answer with respect
to the fiberoptic transfer to Iraq and how that fits in your picture of --
SEN. HELMS: The chair will allow time for you to answer
this.
SEC. POWELL: Thank you, sir.
On Korea, I think the important message that came out of yesterday's
meeting is that President Bush appreciated what President Kim Dae Jung has done
with respect to opening that door, opening that window, as it is often referred
to, and supports him and supports the additional things he's going to be doing
this year with respect to that second summit, while at the same time we'll
review what it is we plan to do with respect to our engagement with North Korea
when we decide that it's the appropriate time to re-engage.
With respect to China, a 70 percent increase is probably leading to a
50 percent increase total -- in total over the next several years. We want to
discuss with the Chinese the nature of this build- up. We are going to encourage
them to have more transparency in what they do with their defense programs as we
have transparency in ours. I don't view it as a break-out investment where
suddenly China is on the march as an enemy, but it is, of course, something we
have to look at carefully, make sure that we keep our forces in the region up to
the best possible standard and we invest in them because we really are the
balance wheel of stability in that part of the world.
With respect to the fiberoptics case, China has now said that they have
told the companies that were in the area doing fiberoptics work to cease and
desist. We're still examining whether or not it was a specific violation of the
sanctions policy, and if it was we will call that to the attention of the
Sanctions Committee so that they can take appropriate action with respect to
China.
SEN. KERRY: Thank you, Mr. Secretary.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
SEN.
HELMS: Senator Thomas.
SEN. CRAIG THOMAS (R-WY): Thank
you, Mr. Chairman.
Welcome, Mr. Secretary.
SEC. POWELL: Mr. Thomas.
SEN.
THOMAS: Let me say that I think it's very appropriate for you and the new
administration to take a little pause in these issues, take a look at where we
are. Times change, and I think we need to take a little shot at some of these
things.
For instance, I'm very encouraged that we have
some openings in North Korea. But I think we have to move fairly carefully and
require some more confirmation that we're having something on the other side
that occurs as we move, certainly to stay with our friends in South Korea and in
Japan as we move forward.
I'm also one that won't quite
join in the chorus for more and more money. I think a 5.3 percent increase is
going to be more than most agencies have in this budget. And I would hope that,
as is generally the case, you take a look at how it's managed now. We can look
for different ways. Times have changed, and efficiencies, and so on.
How many total, full-time employees are there in the --
SEC. POWELL: If you add it all up with overseas, here in
the United States, Foreign Service nationals, it approaches 40,000, roughly.
SEN. THOMAS: Forty thousand.
What
was the dollars on Colombia? There were some commitments last year to billions
of dollars. Where are we on that?
SEC. POWELL:
One-point-three billion dollars was the U.S. contribution to Plan Colombia -- a
roughly $7 billion program. The rest of the money being made up by European
contributors, as well as Colombia's own contribution of close to $3 billion to
the effort. Ours was principally for the helicopters and the training for the
helicopters.
SEN. THOMAS: So there was a $7 billion
effort?
SEC. POWELL: The overall program was intended
to be 7 or 7.5 (billion dollars), as I recall, yeah.
SEN. THOMAS: So have the participants contributed all that money?
SEC. POWELL: No. There has been a shortfall, so far, with
the European contribution. And the Colombians are still striving to make the
contribution they promised to the program.
SEN. THOMAS:
What's the status of appointments, in terms of undersecretaries and --
SEC. POWELL: You are looking at him, sir. (Laughter.)
SEN. THOMAS: That's what I was afraid of.
SEC. POWELL: We talked about this earlier. It's really the ethics and
conflict-of-interest clearance that's taking the time, properly, to make sure
that we put in place a team that is, you know, great, and there are no
problems.
SEN. THOMAS: Yeah.
SEC. POWELL: And the chairman has given me his guarantee that as soon
as I get them up here, he'll get them confirmed.
SEN.
THOMAS: Have you had an opportunity to look at the Indonesia situation?
SEC. POWELL: Just recently I started to turn my attention
there. It's a very troubling situation. And I think it's an area that isn't that
well known in the United States, and the consequences of failure in Indonesia
are very great not only for the region, but for the world.
SEN. THOMAS: I think they are. ASEAN -- much depends on it. I think
you're right, it's been out of -- sort of out of the vision, but it's very
important too, obviously.
Do you -- have you had a
chance to -- with respect to the People's Republic of China and Taiwan, to have
a position on the agreements that have been made, the communications that have
been made with respect to Taiwan, the Taiwan agreements?
SEC. POWELL: Yes, sir, I have. Any specific agreement you have in mind,
sir?
SEN. THOMAS: The communiques, joint
communiques.
SEC. POWELL: I'm familiar with them.
SEN. THOMAS: Do you --
SEC.
POWELL: I think we have a -- I think we will continue the policy that has
existed for a number of years, the one-China principle. And that the ultimate
resolution of how one China evolves is up to the parties in power and must not
be imposed by force. They will have to deal with that amongst themselves over
time. And we maintain our commitment to Taiwan to ensure that it has defensive
means so that this democracy can feel secure behind its armed forces, while also
in the knowledge that it has a friend in the United States.
SEN. THOMAS: Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
SEN.
HELMS: Thank you, Senator.
Senator Feingold.
SEN. RUSSELL FEINGOLD (D-WI): Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
SEC. POWELL: Hi, Senator.
SEN.
FEINGOLD: Secretary, it's good to have you here.
SEC.
POWELL: Thank you.
SEN. FEINGOLD: And let me first
compliment you on your comments on Iraq and the Iraq sanctions. My constituents
will be very pleased to hear such a thoughtful series of ideas and comments
about that policy.
SEC. POWELL: Thank you, sir.
SEN. FEINGOLD: Let me ask you about West Africa. There has
been consistent bipartisan support in Congress for ending the cycle of impunity
in West Africa and for holding those responsible for grave human rights abuses
accountable for their actions. But when I was in Sierra Leone last month, I did
hear a number of people say, Mr. Secretary, or voice concerns about the State
Department's willingness to identify funds for the first year's commitment to
the court.
Now, I do see that in your written remarks
you make a reference to it. So if you could just assure me that this
administration will commit to supporting the special court for Sierra Leone and
also it's Truth and Reconciliation Commission?
SEC.
POWELL: I think I can give you that commitment, Senator. But let me go back and
find out what reticence may exist within the department.
SEN. FEINGOLD: Thank you.
And then, with
regard to the Democratic Republic of Congo, Joseph Kabila's strange rise to
power at least appears to have opened up new possibilities for peace in the
DROC, but some observers have suggested that the United States may not actually
want to see the Lusaka Accords implemented because we are unprepared to support
a peacekeeping mission in this difficult region.
Can
you assure me that that cynical view is inaccurate? And what steps is the United
States willing to take to support peace in Central Africa?
SEC. POWELL: We support the Lusaka Accords. I met with President Kabila
a few weeks ago, and also with President Kagame, and encouraged both of them to
respect human rights, start to disengage their forces and get back to the
process of peace to stop the suffering of the people in the Democratic Republic
of the Congo.
I'm pleased to see that in recent weeks
there has been some movement, some disengagement of forces, and some hope for
the process to begin. And I noticed that Secretary-General Annan is now prepared
to send in some peacekeepers. So we are prepared to back that, but we, at the
moment, do not have a commitment, nor have we made a commitment to provide U.S.
peacekeepers to such forces.
SEN. FEINGOLD: Fair
enough. And I was not asking about actually providing U.S. peacekeepers, but our
support for what the U.N. is attempting to do.
SEC.
POWELL: Yes, sir.
SEN. FEINGOLD: Let me switch to
Indonesia and East Timor, which Senator Thomas mentioned. More than a year after
the 1999 violence in East Timor, the Indonesian government has not indicted a
single person in connect with that violence, despite the fact that all the
suspected organizers are in fact living in Indonesia, most of them in West
Timor, Jakarta. Kofi Annan said, in January 2000, that the Indonesian courts
would be give a chance to handle the cases first, but he did not rule out an
international tribunal if the Indonesian judicial process proved not to
be credible.
As a permanent member of the United
Nations Security Council, will the United States push for an
international tribunal on East Timor now that Jakarta's unwillingness or
inability to prosecute anyone is really quite manifest?
SEC. POWELL: That's certainly an option. I think what I have to do on
that one, Senator, is let me go back and study the ramifications and study the
current state of play, and then you give a more definitive answer for the
record.
SEN. FEINGOLD: I'd appreciate that.
Do you believe it's possible, with regard to China, for
the United States to mobilize sufficient support at the commission in Geneva
this year to overcome a Chinese-sponsored "no action" motion to prevent a debate
on their human rights record? And what other measures will the United States
take to press the Chinese on human rights in the year ahead?
SEC. POWELL: I press a Chinese interlocutor at every occasion. And I've
met with the new ambassador and made sure that he understood that human rights
will remain in a place of honor within U.S. foreign policy goals. And we're
looking forward to the visit of the vice premier in a few weeks' time.
We will be aggressively pushing the resolution in Geneva.
It will be tough. It will be very difficult. The situation is more difficult
this year than it was last year. But we be giving it our every effort. We've
just selected a delegation to represent us there of people who have strong views
on human rights. And I'll be spending a good part of my time from the middle of
March until the middle of April to press the case.
SEN.
FEINGOLD: Thank you, Mr. Secretary.
Thank you, Mr.
Chairman.
SEN. HELMS: Thank you, Senator.
Senator Frist.
SEN. BILL FRIST
(R-TN): Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Mr. Secretary, thanks
for your leadership, your energy, your commitment to foreign service officers
within the State Department. You just travel throughout Washington, you're
running into people who reflect your -- and respect your commitment to them as
foreign service officers, and their expertise and their skills.
I want to turn our attention briefly to what I regard as one of the
most dangerous humanitarian, economic, and development crises of our time, and
that is the global epidemic of AIDS, AIDS/HIV. The facts --
you know them well. They're sobering. AIDS kill 10 times the number of
people in Africa than all of the armed conflicts combined.
In eight countries, at least one-third of all 15-year-olds today --
eight countries -- they will die of AIDS. I have a 15-year-old, and every
time I look into his eyes and I think about this; I think of the 85 percent
chance that he would die from that if he were in one country, Botswana.
Thirteen million orphans already, 40 million orphans over
the next 10 years, all of this dramatically undermining the social structures
and reversing economic development, wiping out a whole era of the most
productive -- or people in the most productive years of their lives.
You look at Russia. They've seen the largest percent
increase in AIDS case. They look at India. That has the largest number of
HIV/AIDS cases in the world, as a country, today. The statistics go on
and on.
David Gergen wrote recently, "The struggle
against AIDS and related diseases in Africa represents one of the
greatest moral tests of our time."
You put all that
together, and we have no choice but to respond. It's the appropriate, it's the
right thing to do. How we do it, where we do it in our government, what entity
-- is it under your department, amidst the 40,000 people somewhere? It's clear
we've got to have a focus, because the medical profession, the public health
infrastructure, the pharmaceutical companies, our government, the NIH -- nobody
can do it alone.
You have reached out from your very
first briefings at State, in that first meeting in Africa, and starting long
before that, have and are rapidly becoming and are, I guess -- already are an
in-house expert on this overall challenge.
I'm
delighted to see in the budget, which is the focus of our topic today, that the
president's budget does provide increases to the Agency for International
Development for activities to combat global HIV/AIDS -- a welcome
development, and I look forward to working with you and the administration on
the details.
The chairman and Senator Kerry and I and
others on this committee put forth the Global Aid to Tuberculosis Relief
Act of 2000, last year past. Congress doubled our foreign assistance
appropriation for AIDS, all of which is real progress. More needs to be
done in terms of funding. We need to redouble those efforts. But funding itself,
as you well know, is only part of the solution. And it is going to take U.S. --
United States -- leadership of the president and other senior officials if we're
going to really adequately deal and appropriately deal with this crisis. The
foreign policy, the international economic implications of the
AIDS epidemic demands high level engagement, and you are at that highest
level. It's going to have to be by the Department of State, elsewhere in the
administration possibly. A specific secretary-supported function might well
serve to focus all of these U.S. foreign policy developments and would help
coordinate the interagency efforts that are being made on behalf of labor, on
behalf of health and human services, DOD, USAID as well as State, all of which
have mandates and budgets.
And that really leads me to
my question. How do you see the administration, and I guess more specifically
the Department of State, dealing with what has to be a coordinated and focused
approach in response to this international HIV-AIDS crisis?
SEC. POWELL: Thank you, doctor, and I agree with
everything you said with respect to the nature of this crisis that is before the
world. It is an economic crisis, a health crisis, a security crisis, it's the
destruction of families, cultures, tribes, nations -- all of that is there. And
the more time I spend on this, the worse it gets.
And
one country that I know just slips you mind, one area where it's going to get
even very, very more difficult is very close to home, and that's in the
Caribbean --
SEN. FRIST: That's right.
SEC. POWELL: -- where the -- you know, it's really starting to pick up.
And so all of that is true.
I am looking at how we are
organized. I have taken one person, a trusted agent of mine, and said "This is
your job. Find out how we are organized to battle against this within the
department. Come forward, show me what we're doing," because it's everywhere.
It's all over the place. "Show me where it is, how do I pull it together, how do
I get it focused so that I can see it all the time." And then from that
launching point I can then figure out how the rest of the administration should
also join this in a very, very direct and coordinated way. I see the problem in
the same terms you do, senator.
SEN. FRIST: Thank you,
Mr. Secretary. I love working with you and look forward. So I think we can make
real inroads about pulling the partnerships together.
SEC. POWELL: Thank you, sir.
SEN. HELMS:
Senator Torricelli, last but not least.
SEN. ROBERT
TORRICELLI (D-NJ): Thank you, Mr. Chairman, very much.
Mr. Secretary, welcome.
SEC. POWELL: Thank
you.
SEN. TORRICELLI: I'd like, if I could, to present
you with three issues and to -- with no thread through them, and then would you
at the end respond to each of the three.
The first to
raise with you, ironically, given that you are America's most famous soldier and
I have never had the honor of wearing its uniform, we all feel very saddened by
what happened with the Greeneville. It was a terrible tragedy with a needless
loss of life. The President of the United States has apologized, the secretary
of Defense has apologized, I know you have apologized, I think all Americans are
very saddened.
I was surprised that added to the board
of inquiry was a Japanese admiral.
If there was fault
by American servicemen, I know they will be held accountable. Every American
would expect no less. I believe the record of the United States for being
responsible for our misdeeds has historically been very good. It is particularly
good in comparison with some other nations that have not ever been accounted for
their histories.
I believe this is a troubling
precedent. And as much as I want to see justice done, I do not believe that
American servicemen and women should ever be cannon fodder for dealing with a
diplomatic problem. I do not know if there is precedent for such actions, but I
believe it is a troubling situation and casts some questions of credibility on
the outcome of these proceedings, given that there was a foreign national who
was participating, even if on a nonvoting basis.
I
leave that with you and would invite your response.
On
two other issues, Senator Hagel noted that we are clearing the underbrush in
dealing with American sanctions. I think we all recognize that in the Congress's
intentions that there be no American financing of exports to Cuba -- this, of
course, not being the underbrush, but a virtual giant redwood -- I assume we
have nothing to fear from the administration revisiting that issue. The Congress
has been clear that while there would be food exports, we would not use American
taxpayers' dollars to help underwrite the Castro government.
And finally, while otherwise pleased with the beginning weeks of the
foreign policy of the Bush administration, I would like some clarification of
the joint press conference with Tony Blair, in which the president said, and I
quote, "I'm going to wait and be asked by the prime minister" with reference to
America involvement in the peace process in Northern Ireland. I would hope the
administration would be considering having an envoy to succeed Senator Mitchell
and have the Unite States fully engaged in that process, because I believe that
we have been so helpful.
And while I promised that was
my last point, I simply want to identify myself with Senator Kerry's comment
with regard to the North Korean arrangements from 1994. I think the promise is
so great with that rather peculiar regime for a breakthrough -- at least there
is a potential -- that our credibility must remain paramount. So, while any
issue can be revisited on a mutual basis, I hope there will be every effort to
make sure that we keep to the letter of the agreement on the '94 understanding
with the North Koreans so they can provide a framework for going forward to
other and even more important arrangements.
SEC.
POWELL: On your first point -- thank you, Senator. On the first point, the
Greeneville, from my own experience, and knowing nothing about how they formed
that court of inquiry, I'm absolutely sure that any accountability or any
judicial action or any non- judicial, administrative, action that would come
from this would be solely in the hands of American officers and not the Japanese
admiral. His exact status there, I really think I need to provide an answer for
the record from the secretary of Defense and not me speculate on his --
SEN. TORRICELLI: Could I, Mr. Secretary -- can we be
assured, however, that this judgment was reached by the military alone, without
State Department or other U.S. government involvement, by the U.S. --
SEC. POWELL: I --
SEN.
TORRICELLI: -- (inaudible) -- the Japanese admiral?
SEC. POWELL: I will ask the secretary of Defense how that judgment was
reached. I was never involved in it, and I don't think any of my staff were
involved in it; or if they were, they didn't tell me about it. We would not have
pressed the case in that way.
But we will give you a
complete answer for the record.
We are not reviewing
our policies with respect to exports to Cuba.
And on
the third point, Northern Ireland envoy, we are following the developments very
closely and identifying somebody in my department who will take this on as a
primary additional duty and be ready to serve in a communication role and keep
us in touch with what's going on. Not clear yet whether we think there will be a
need for somebody like a George Mitchell, but that certainly is something we can
keep under advisement if the situation moves in a way that suggests it takes
that kind of high-level special envoy involvement.
SEN.
TORRICELLI: Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
SEN. HELMS: Mr. Secretary, you've done well.
SEC. POWELL: Thank you, sir.
SEN.
HELMS: It's always good to see you. And --
SEN. BIDEN:
Mr. Chairman, may I have 30 seconds before you close?
SEN. HELMS: Sure.
SEN. BIDEN: Not even
that.
Is it appropriate that we can submit some
questions in writing?
SEN. HELMS: Do you want to bring
that -- I think you expected that.
SEC. POWELL: Yes,
sir.
SEN. HELMS: We have a lot of committee meetings
working on crucial things; otherwise, there would have been a 100 percent
attendance this morning. And I'm sure that there's going to be a lot of
questions filed for you in writing, and I know you'll respond to them
forthwith.
Let me say that I appreciate the
administration's strong comments opposing the International Criminal
Court. And I will have further comment with you about that.
In general, it's been good to have you with us this morning. And if
there be no further business to come before the committee, we stand in
recess.
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