Emails between Sara A. Stryker and Brenda L. Greenberg re: Secretary Powell's Interview with the BBC Huw Edwards

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Caddel, Jeremy D
From: Stryker, Sara A
Sent: Friday, May 14, 2004 4:45 PM

To: SA-Staff-DL RELEASED IN FULL •
Subject: BBC TV Interview with S (5/13) - Iraq items
Powell (5-7304)

BBC.doc

Attached is S's interview with BBC-TV (4 page transcript). The first two pages cover our views on the prisoner abuse cases. Pages 3 covers the CPA's transition of power on June 30 and beyond.
Sara
Original Message
From: Greenberg, Brenda L
Sent: Thursday, May 13, 2004 5:20 PM
To: PAPre .ssTranscripts-1; PAPress_Transcripts-2

. Subject: 05-13-04 Interview of Secretary of State Colin L. Powell on BBC TV with Huw Edwards
U.S. DEPARTMENT OF STATE
Office of the Spokesman
For Immediate Release
May 13, 2004
2004/535

INTERVIEW
Secretary of State Colin L. Powell
On BBC TV with Huw Edwards
May 13, 2004
Washington, D.C.
(1:35 p.m. EDT)
MR. EDWARDS: Mr. Powell, it's clear that America has lost a good deal of trust, to put it mildly, not just in Iraq, but across the world, in recent weeks. How do you go about rebuilding that trust?
SECRETARY POWELL: By not losing sight of what we're trying to do, and that's to put in place in Iraq a democratic government, to put in place a sovereign government, to help the Iraqi people reconstruct their lives and reconstruct their country and reconstruct their society.
We succeeded in getting rid of a terrible dictator, and sometimes people forget that. Saddam Hussein, who filled mass graves and was an oppressor of the worst kind, is gone and he's not coming back. And we've run into some difficulty recently with our security situation over there because of former members of his regime and those who don't want democracy.
But, you know, we've fought against those in the past who don't want democracy, and we're not going to lose sight of our mission. And with our coalition partners, we will stay the course, deal with the security

UNITED STATES DEPARTMENT OF STATE
REVIEW AUTHORITY: SHARON E AHMAD 29
DATE/CASE ID: 29 NOV 2004 200303827

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situation, and get on with the reconstruction and get on with returning
sovereignty to the Iraqi people. And we will be standing by them after
we return sovereignty to them until they have put in place an elected
government and the country is secure.

MR. EDWARDS: Well, listening to some members of the Administration in
recent days and weeks, not yourself, you get the impression that some
people in the White House haven't grasped the damage worldwide that has
been done to America's image. Do they realize the damage?

SECRETARY POWELL: Oh, I think we do. We're not unmindful of what these
prison pictures have done. We're not unmindful that the difficult month
we had in April have damaged our impression -- the impression of us
around the world. So we have got to work on that, but it doesn't mean
we turn and walk away or turn and run. That's not the way America does
its business.

With respect to the prison pictures, we're devastated about it. To
think that our young men and women in uniform would do such a thing was
an absolute shock to us. But look what we've been doing in the last two
weeks. We've been examining ourselves. It was one of our young
soldiers who told us about this. We've been investigating it. Our
Secretary of Defense, our Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, other
generals and officials have been up before Congress and we will get to
the bottom of it. And what the people will see is American justice
being done as we bring to justice those who were responsible for this.

We also know that the scenes in Fallujah and in Najaf have not been good
ones, but slowly and surely we're gaining control of those places and we
will move forward for the UN resolution, returning of sovereignty to an
Iraqi interim government and we'll move forward toward having elections
next January.

So this is a tough time, but this is not a time for the fainthearted.
This is a time for those who know what they're doing and believe in what.
they're doing, and that's us and our coalition partners, no coalition
partner stronger than the United Kingdom.

MR. EDWARDS: And when we hear from some of your senior military figures
that it was "a failure of leadership" which led to the abuse of some of
those, if not all of those, prisoners, whose leadership are we talking
about?

SECRETARY POWELL: That's what we're going to find out. It was a
failure of leadership. Something like that should never have happened.
No sergeant should have tolerated it if he knew about it. No captain,
no colonel, no general, no civilian official should have tolerated it if
they knew about it.

MR. EDWARDS: And no Secretary of Defense, surely.

SECRETARY POWELL: Well, let's talk about who's responsible and who's

accountable through these investigations before you run it all the way

up to the top. I can assure you that what we want to find out is who is

responsible. We know that on the scene there were soldiers who

misbehaved. We also want to find out about their immediate supervisors

and whether there were any circumstances that were put in place there

that encouraged this kind of misbehavior.

But the way to go about this is in a sensible, calm way, by conducting
the necessary investigations. And we're not dallying. Some individuals

-are going to be court-martialed for this next week. So our justice
system will work and, as Secretary Rumsfeld has said, our justice system
will not just stop at the privates in that prison, but will go up to see
who should have accountability. Secretary Rumsfeld has accepted
responsibility, but what's more important for us to discover now is
accountability: Who should have known and who should have done

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something about it before anything like this should possibly have

happened?

MR. EDWARDS: It's a very important point, isn't it, that Secretary
Rumsfeld has done that. And if he's done that, surely the logic is that
he can't remain in his job.

SECRETARY POWELL: No, the logic is not that at all. He said he is

responsible as the Secretary of Defense, as I would expect him to have

said. And I know that General Myers and the other generals and leaders

feel the same way.

But the issue is now who knew what was going on, who created conditions
to allow that to take place, and who might have known about it and
should have done something and didn't do something about it. And that's
what our investigations are going to find, and you will find that we
will hold people accountable for their actions or for their failure to
act.

MR. EDWARDS: You've confirmed, Secretary Powell, that the handover of
power will take place, as planned, on the 30th of June. You have no
stable political institutions of any kind in Iraq. You have insurgency
in many regions. What on earth do you think is going to happen when you
hand over power?

SECRETARY POWELL: When we hand over power, we will be putting an Iraqi
face on the political process moving forward. We are not going to
simply hand over power and then withdraw all of our forces. We will be
there to provide a security -- a security blanket, a security framework,
upon which the Iraqi leaders can then begin to build their institutions.

Why are there no political institutions in Iraq? Because Saddam Hussein
would not have any political institutions in Iraq other than his own
evil Baath Party. So he's gone and we've got to start somewhere. No
democratic nation started with full-flower political institutions. So
there's a rebuilding process that has to take place. In some cases,
it's a building process to begin with. Institutions have to be created.
Ministers have to be created. Ministries have to be put in place.
Ministries have to stand up. We need to have elections. It takes time
to design elections. And that's what we're going to be 'doing over the
next year or so.

MR. EDWARDS: A final question then, Mr. Powell. Mr. Blair here, as you
know, has been taking a bit of a political pounding because of his
loyalty to Mr. Bush over these past months, and lots of Mr. Blair's
allies want him to distance himself urgently and firmly from the White
House. And why shouldn't he do that?

SECRETARY POWELL: Because Mr. Blair is committed not to Mr. Bush; he's
committed to the principles that both of them stood on when they took
this case to the British people and to the American people that what we
were doing was the right thing to do, was a noble cause to get rid of
this dictator, to put in place a democracy. That job is not yet done.
And things have gotten tough and both Mr. Blair and Mr. Bush are taking
some political heat for it and they're being criticized. But both of
them, I think, have the commitment to this task and have the courage to
prevail, and with that courage we will prevail.

MR. EDWARDS: Well, thank you very much for talking to us.

SECRETARY POWELL: Thank you.

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