Secretary Colin L. Powell Fox and Friends Brian Kilmeade

Interview on Fox and Friends With Brian Kilmeade

Secretary Colin L. Powell Washington, DC December 28, 2004 (6:51 a.m. EST)

MR. KILMEADE: Joining us right now, we're talking to the Secretary of State, Colin Powell. And the focus right now, Mr. Secretary, thanks so much for joining us. We appreciate it.

SECRETARY POWELL: My pleasure.

MR. KILMEADE: I guess the focus right now is the massive devastation which has devastated ten nations, through five time zones, through the tsunami. Can you give us an idea of what the U.S. is already committed to do?

SECRETARY POWELL: Yes. This is an unprecedented catastrophe. I mean, as you noted, five times zones, ten countries involved, tens upon tens of thousands of people lost. The number right now, 26,000. That number will go up.

The United States has already committed $15 million, $4 million initially, to the International Federation of the Red Cross and Red Crescent, another $10 million to other disaster relief agencies. Our Pacific Command has dispatched nine patrol planes and 12 C-130s carrying relief supplies. So it's $15 million initially, plus the work that the military is doing.

But clearly the nature of this catastrophe is such that more assistance will be required, but it will take time to see what the needs of these nations are and how best to help them.

MR. KILMEADE: Well, who are you going to, Mr. Secretary, in terms of getting -- we have to be under one command in this to rebuild the entire area, rather than just flooding in money and operations and people, how are we going about it? Who are we going through?

SECRETARY POWELL: Well, we're going about it in several ways. One, I've been in touch with the Secretary General of the United Nations, Kofi Annan. We spoke last night. And he has appointed individuals within the UN to handle all of the UN's disaster relief activities. And then we're dealing directly with each of the individual countries. It isn't something you can deal with on a regional basis because these are sovereign nations. Some of these sovereign nations are better able to manage the problem without a great deal of outside assistance, and other nations are not as equipped to deal with the problem and they will need more assistance. Sri Lanka, for example, will need a lot more help than, say, India, which is a more sophisticated nation able to manage a great deal of its own relief effort.

MR. KILMEADE: Do you have a sense of the operation, if people watching right now in America -- we're the kindest country in the history of this planet -- where we should go, how we should help, where we should send our stuff and our money?

SECRETARY POWELL: The best way to make a contribution, I would suggest you go to our website, state.gov, state.gov -- very easy -- and on our website you will see addresses and phone numbers of locations where you can make donations or you can make other inquiries as to what is needed.

We have to make sure that we send people what they really need, and not just flood them with things they don't need, which then clutters up the entire transportation system. So if you go to our website, you'll find information that will cue you.

MR. KILMEADE: And, Mr. Secretary, your things-to-do list doesn't just revolve around the tsunami, which would be enough for anybody, we've got to talk also about Iraq and the January 30th elections. Yesterday, at least yesterday, bin Laden factored himself into the fray, saying Zarqawi's my man and Sunnis stay out. What does that do to the election process, if anything?

SECRETARY POWELL: Well, we now have two murderers, two terrorists, two thugs, talking to each other. I don't know what this rhetorical support will translate into, but we're moving right ahead toward elections on the 30th of January. The Iraqi people deserve the opportunity, they have the right to vote, to see who their leaders will be for the future, and we cannot allow murderers and terrorists to deny them that right.

Now, in most of the country the election will go off well; it's relatively secure. In the Sunni area, which is the most populated part of the country, we have an insurgency that is raging and we will be devoting all of our coalition efforts and the efforts of Iraqi military and police forces to bring this under control so that people will feel secure and safe in coming out to vote. It won't be perfect, but I think people want to vote, and they're prepared to take some risk to go out and vote, just as they did in Afghanistan, just as they have done in other parts of the world where terrorists came out and said we're not going to let you vote. The people said we want to vote, we want to have a say in how we're going to be governed and how we're going to be led.

MR. KILMEADE: You're a master diplomat. Who are you going to go to in Iraq, a representative of the Sunni population, to get them more involved in the process, with their largest Sunni party saying, "Count me out"?

SECRETARY POWELL: Well, we're talking to all of the Sunni leaders and we're encouraging neighboring countries that have contacts with Sunni leaders to speak to those leaders and get them to say to the people, "Come out and vote." The party that pulled out, we hope that they will review their actions and take another look at security closer to the event, and perhaps rejoin the process.

But we know there is a concern in the Sunni community about the insurgency, about safety, and we're doing everything we can to allay those concerns so that the people can come out and vote on the 30th of January.

MR. KILMEADE: Mr. Secretary, did you tell Tony Blair and the President of the United States he needs more troops in Iraq?

SECRETARY POWELL: In my conversation with President Bush and Prime Minister Blair at an Oval Office meeting when Prime Minister Blair was visiting the United States last month, we got to talking about the situation and I said that we needed more troops on the ground and the solution to that challenge was to build up the Iraqi forces as quickly as possible.

MR. KILMEADE: Right.

SECRETARY POWELL: And that was the real answer to the question.

MR. KILMEADE: So, in other words, you didn't say, "Get more American troops in there. That's my recommendation as a military guy and the Secretary of State," you just said, "Get more Iraqis ready to go," which seems to be a very frustrating process?

SECRETARY POWELL: It's a process that takes time. You just don't create battalions and divisions overnight. General Petraeus, one of our most skilled commanders, is working on this, and what I said to Prime Minister Blair and to President Bush is that we need more troops on the ground to provide the security that the people expect and that we need in order to get the job done; and since it was unlikely that there would be large numbers of additional coalition troops available, the solution to the problem was to build up the Iraqi forces as quickly as we could. It wasn't a surprising comment on my part because that's exactly what our strategy has been.

MR. KILMEADE: And two real quick issues. As you leave office, two things I want to get your opinion on. Are we in danger of giving birth to another Iran if this -- if Ayatollah Sistani leads a party that now is in control of Iraq?

SECRETARY POWELL: No, I don't think so. This is an election that's being held under a set of rules, the Transitional Administrative Law, which recognizes that the Shia will be the majority in any national assembly but that the rights of minority are protected. And yes, there are Iraqi Shias and Iranian Shias, but they are quite different and I think the Iraqis Shias have no particular love for the brand of fundamentalism that they see across the border in Iran. Yes, they are Shias. Yes, they are faithful. But they have acknowledged in participating in the drafting of the Transitional Administrative Law, that they recognize that religion has a place in society but politics has a place in society, and the politics of the situation means that they will have to accommodate the needs and desires and aspirations of the minorities.

MR. KILMEADE: Yeah, let's hope. And Hamas doing kind of well and gaining a foothold in the Palestinian elections, at least preliminarily, does that concern you?

SECRETARY POWELL: That's something we have to look at carefully. If Hamas continues to support terrorist activity and has elements within Hamas that conduct terrorist activity and they are not prepared to fully enter the political process as a peaceful organization that will have nothing to do with terrorism -- that's what they have to do -- and if they don't do that, then I think it is a problem.

MR. KILMEADE: You going to miss this job?

SECRETARY POWELL: This has been an exciting job and I am going to miss it. I'm going to miss the people I've been working with. But, you know, new doors are out there waiting to be opened.

MR. KILMEADE: So is that your way of saying you'd like to come to Fox News in some capacity?

SECRETARY POWELL: Well, I haven't been given an offer.

MR. KILMEADE: All right. I'm going to work on it, okay? I'll go to your people. Thank you, Mr. Secretary of State, Colin Powell. Thanks for joining us live this morning on Fox and Friends.

SECRETARY POWELL: Thank you very much.
2004/1401 [End] Released on December 28, 2004