'The UN Has Been Weakened'

Sir David Frost: Mr. Secretary, Saddam Hussein no longer rules Iraq. It must,for you, be a dream, a hope that you've cherished for the past 12 years.

Colin Powell: We have all hoped that Saddam Hussein would leave the scene. Heterrorized his nation for several decades. He threatened his neighbors. He torturedpeople. He developed weapons of mass destruction. He was a source of instability in theregion.

In the Gulf War, we kicked him out of Kuwait -- which was our mission -- contained him,and hoped that he would depart from the scene. But he didn't, and he continued to do thosethings which are absolutely reprehensible.

And so, finally, we took the case back to the United Nations last fall, got a solidresolution, 1441, which gave legitimacy to the use of military force if he didn't complywith his many obligations over a period of ten years. He didn't comply with thoseobligations, force was used, and now his regime is no longer.

Sir David Frost: And what was the worst and best moment of this particularcampaign? There was concern towards the end of the first week, which now looksexaggerated, but people were concerned about supply lines and Iraqis not coming out in oursupport and all of that sort of thing. And was that the worst moment of these last threeweeks?

Colin Powell: I think it was a tricky moment. I never saw it as the worstmoment. I think the best moment was when the statue came down, and that will be in ourmemories forever.

At the end of the first week there was a lot of chatter about the plan wasn't goingwell, but if one stood back and didn't listen to the chatter or watch all of the expertson television, you could see what was happening. There was no organized resistance. Therewere pockets of resistance and there was still Baghdad to be dealt with, but there wasn'ta front line of Iraqi troops.

And General Franks and his commanders were very, very agile and nimble in responding tothe threats to the rear area, threats to their line of supply, fedayeen coming in, andthey dealt with all that in a very, very superb way. And slowly but surely, they isolatedthese pockets of resistance and brought the whole thing down in three weeks.

Sir David Frost: And so with it brought down in three weeks, I mean, all thatadvance criticism before it actually happened, and the million people demonstrating inLondon and so on and so forth, do you feel a sense of vindication this morning?

Colin Powell: I think we should feel a sense of vindication. We should feel thatwe were right. The President was right, Prime Minister Blair and so many other worldleaders were right, that even in the face of protests and demonstrations, we knew thatthis was a regime that had to be dealt with because of its failure to comply withinternational obligations.

And so it showed that the President's leadership was key in all of that and PrimeMinister Blair's leadership was key. And even in the face of those protests and even inthe absence of what some people thought they needed in the form of a second UN resolution,strong leaders committed to principle and doing the right thing were able to take usthrough this and come out the other side, with this regime gone and hope for the people ofIraq now in place.

And the people of Iraq are going to be better off. They will be under a democratic formof government and we will help bring that democratic form of government into being.

Sir David Frost: How important is it that we discover -- I mean, there's been nodefinitive findings reported. How important is it that we do discover weapons of massdestruction? Would it be embarrassing if we didn't?

Colin Powell: Well, we will find weapons of mass destruction. For the last threeweeks we've been fighting battles, and once this combat period is over we can then turnour attention to finding the weapons of mass destruction. And I think they will be found.That was the basis upon which we went in, and I think there is strong evidence. There's noquestion about the fact that there are weapons of mass destruction, and they will belooking for them.

Sir David Frost: And if there are, they would tend to be likely to be chemicaland biological, rather than nuclear, wouldn't they?

Colin Powell: There is, I think, a higher likelihood of there being chemical andbiological weaponry. The nuclear program we also think is there, but we don't think it wasas advanced as, perhaps, their chemical and biological weapons programs were.

Sir David Frost: Have we learned anything significant about the possible linksbetween al-Qaida and Iraq?

Colin Powell: Not so far because of --

Sir David Frost: As you --

Colin Powell: -- what we've been watching is ground -- we've been watching anair-land battle for the last three weeks. But I think as we capture people, as people turnthemselves in, as we get into records, and as we're able to interview people, I think wewill learn a lot more about what Iraq has been doing for these many years, and I think wewill learn a lot more about how they have been supporting terrorism. And I would not be atall surprised if we find a lot more with respect to their links with different terroristorganizations, as well as al-Qaida.

Sir David Frost: When we talked in a memorable conversation last September, youestimated that you thought that the Iraqis had about -- the Iraqi army had about a thirdthe strength or capability that they did at the time of the Gulf War. Were you right orwrong? You were right, or were you too high, too low?

Colin Powell: I think it was about right, and I think Franks would say the samething, that this was not the Iraqi army of 1990. This was an Iraqi army that was smaller,much less capability, and for a period of ten years with the sanctions regime in place,was not able to rebuild its capability.

Nevertheless, we shouldn't underestimate this army. It was formidable. It had weapons.It had surface-to-surface missiles. It had tanks. And it had to be defeated in the field.And the coalition forces, I think, did a brilliant job of doing that.

Sir David Frost: And in terms of what they did and didn't do, I mean, theStalingrad images of people didn't -- turned out just not to be true.

Colin Powell: Turned out not to be true, and we're all pleased about that. Andcommand and control seemed to have broken down early on, so that we were fighting pocketsof resistance, but by the end of the first week it was becoming clear that the regime waslosing control.

We can't tell if that reflected the, you know, the demise of Saddam Hussein. We don'tknow if he's alive or dead. We really don't know enough yet about the command and controlsystem to understand why it started to break down so quickly.

But certainly, by the third week of the war it was obvious that we were fightingpockets and units were anxious to give up, and central command and control of the wholething was no longer there.

Sir David Frost: And the coalition obviously stated at the beginning that it wasgoing to do its best to minimize civilian deaths, and it certainly tried to do that. Butdid it do it better or worse than you feared? Were there more or less civilian deaths thanyou hoped?

Colin Powell: We really don't know how many civilian deaths there have been andwe don't know how many of them can be attributed to coalition action, as opposed to actionon the part of Iraqi armed forces as they defended themselves. But I don't think we couldhave done more to minimize civilian casualties or destruction of property.

I remember on one of the early nights of the war when there was a massive strikeagainst Baghdad, and people were calling me, various foreign ministers were calling mesaying, "You're destroying Baghdad." I said, "Not at all. It may look likeit, but these are very surgically directed strikes."

And the next day, you could see that. The city was intact. Buildings had beendestroyed, facilities had been taken out, command centers had been destroyed, but thepeople were going about their business. They never stopped using busses. They neverstopped using taxis. It wasn't like London in the days of the Blitz where everybody wentinto the basement and hid. They knew that the Americans were going after selected targetsand not targeting the general population.

And, in some instances, this actually caused us to accept a higher level of risk towardour young men and women because we wouldn't use overwhelming force if it could be avoidedon a particular target in order to avoid collateral damage or the loss of innocent life.

Sir David Frost: Right, yes, because we didn't want to destroy things that wewere going to need when we tried to rebuild Iraq. But I mean, the figure, the Iraqifigure, on civilian deaths, only to April the 3rd admittedly, but was, relativelyspeaking, if you can say low about fatalities at all, a relatively low figure: 1,254.

Colin Powell: That was the Iraqi estimate. And for a conflict of this sort, Iwould say that's relatively low. But any loss of life is to be regretted, especially ifit's innocent loss of life, civilians. We try to avoid that. That's not our style of war.It's not our way of making war. And we did everything we could to avoid any loss ofcivilian life, but certainly there was some.

Sir David Frost: Can we have closure of this war without finding out whathappened, or finding or capturing or killing Saddam Hussein?

Colin Powell: Yes. I mean, this campaign, this operation, will come to asuccessful end when there is a new government in Iraq that has been decided upon by thepeople of Iraq, not imposed by the outside forces or the coalition. And when the people ofIraq have foresworn any support of terrorism, when there are no more weapons of massdestruction, and when they are committed to using the wealth of Iraq for the benefit ofthe people of Iraq, and not to develop weapons or to threaten neighbors, then we will haveclosure, with or without Saddam Hussein.

Sure, we would like to know exactly what happened to him, but he is no longer in chargeof anything. If he is alive he is not going to show his face, and if he is dead we maynever know.

Sir David Frost: But he might melt away, as Usama bin Laden seems to have done.

Colin Powell: I don't think that Saddam Hussein has any control any longer, andhe will not be pulling any strings. As you saw the people of Baghdad and the other citiesrespond to the coalition forces, they're glad he's gone. They were the ones pulling downthe statues of Saddam Hussein and tearing up his portrait. And so I don't think he has anyfurther control over the emotions of the people of Iraq.

Sir David Frost: Would we like to see Nuremberg trials for war crimes or forcrimes against humanity, either the 55 generals or other people?

Colin Powell: We believe all of those who are responsible for crimes againsthumanity and crimes against their own people should be brought to justice. And in thefirst instance, hopefully we can put in place a government in Iraq so that they can bringtheir own people to justice, and that would be our preference.

Sir David Frost: And do you think, looking back, I mean, as some people inEurope have suggested, the fact of the way that the French and the Germans, and to alesser extent the Russians, held up proceedings at the UN contributed to the need for war,sustained Saddam Hussein a bit?

Colin Powell: There is no doubt that after 1441 passed -- that was the majorresolution that passed unanimously 15 to 0 that said he is in violation of his obligationand, if he didn't comply now, there would be serious consequences -- that was a strong,powerful message to Saddam Hussein. And I believe if we could have kept that unanimitywithin the Council so that we gave a strong, powerful message to him every step along theway, things might have turned in a different direction.

But once it became clear that some members of the Council would never impose seriousconsequences onto Saddam Hussein in any reasonable period of time -- France especially,Germany and Russia as well, but Germany said under no circumstances did they think theycould support the use of force -- certainly that gave Saddam Hussein some comfort becausehe could see the disunity within the Council.

Having said that, the coalition was able to come together, a willing coalition ofnations now numbering some 49 nations that have been publicly identified with thecoalition, and using the authority of UN resolutions, 1441 and earlier resolutions 678 and687, they had the authority to do what needed to be done, and it's been done very well.

Sir David Frost: And that leads us on to the question of the role of the UN inthe future. And Jacques Chirac said earlier this week, and seems to have repeated roughlythe same thing in St. Petersburg, he said, "We are no longer in an era where one ortwo countries control the fate of another country, therefore the political, economic,humanitarian and administrative reconstruction of Iraq is a matter for the United Nationsalone."

Colin Powell: The United Nations has a role --

Sir David Frost: You did not agree?

Colin Powell: No. The United Nations has a role to play. The President and PrimeMinister Blair and Prime Minister Aznar -- President Aznar -- and Prime MinisterBerlusconi have been united in this one. And as you go to the Azores summit, where Mr.Aznar and Mr. Blair and Mr. Bush were together, they said so in a joint statement. And thePresident has repeated it. As recently as last week in Belfast, he said that the UnitedNations would have a vital role to play -- humanitarian --

Sir David Frost: And that is humanitarian and suggesting names for the cabinet.

Colin Powell: -- and suggesting names. So the United Nations will have a role toplay. The United States is not mad at the United Nations. We believe they have a role toplay.

But, at the same time, it was this coalition of nations that was willing to put itstreasure at risk, take the political risk, and put its sons and daughters at risk, andlost lives in the pursuit of this campaign and the execution of this campaign. And we arecommitted to making sure that the Iraqi people have a democratic form of government, andwe believe we have a leading role to play in bringing this about.

So if "central role" of the UN means that as soon as hostilities are overthat the coalition members just please go away and don't bother any more, and someone elsein the form of the United Nations or the Security Council will take over everything andhave the only role to play, that's not acceptable to us.

And furthermore, the Secretary General, Kofi Annan, has not expressed an interest inplaying that role, nor does he seem to think that's the proper role for the UnitedNations.

Sir David Frost: So the --

Colin Powell: David, this need not be a huge fight. The United States and theUnited Kingdom and --

Sir David Frost: As long as they give in --

Colin Powell: No, as long as we all approach this in the spirit of trying tohelp the Iraqi people, not a fight to be had among Perm 5 members or among SecurityCouncil members; if we all approach this not as a confrontation, but as an opportunity tohelp the Iraqi people. That should be our single goal: to help the Iraqi people rebuildtheir nation after two-plus decades of destructive behavior on the part of a dictator. Aslong as we want to bring humanitarian supplies to the Iraqi people and as long as we wantto help build a stable government that is founded on democratic principles that will livein peace with its neighbors, we can find a way to resolve whatever differences exist inthe United Nations.

Sir David Frost: Basically, what you're saying is that we do not -- thecoalition, at the moment, the United States, does not, at the moment, see a politicalrole, at least in the first few months; no political role for the UN?

Colin Powell: Well, I don't know what you mean by "no political role."The President said at his press conference with Prime Minister Blair last week thathopefully the United Nations, through the Secretary General, might make some suggestionswith respect to who might participate in an interim authority. We are going to --

Sir David Frost: But not decisions, not decisions, at least --

Colin Powell: Well, I think the decisions ultimately have to be made by theIraqi people, not even the coalition. Our whole goal, singular goal, most important goal,is to now bring together leaders in Iraq and Iraqi leaders outside of Iraq who will bereturning -- the external opposition who have struggled so hard for so many years to bringabout this day --

Sir David Frost: You've got a meeting on Tuesday, right, in Nasiriya?

Colin Powell: We're beginning this process on Tuesday in Nasiriya, where GeneralFranks, with the coordination and, of course, the concurrence of everybody back here inWashington, has invited Iraqi leaders to assemble, you know, from that part of Iraq, andbegin discussions as to who should be represented in an interim authority.