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Jeremy Paxman interviews Colin Powell 21/9/01
General Powell, last night the
President talked about justice
being brought to the terrorists
if the terrorists were not brought
to justice. Do you have enough
evidence against Osama Bin Laden
for a conviction in an American
court of law?
I think so. He has been indicted for previous
offences against the United States, previous
offences against humanity. We have enough
intelligence information as well as legally
sufficient evidence to bring him before an
Would you prefer him dead or alive?
I would prefer him brought to justice or
justice brought to him. I wish nobody
dead just for the sake of being dead. I
think justice is the issue here, and not
whether he is alive or dead.
What is taking justice to him going
It might mean that we're going to have
to go find him rather than have him
delivered by the Taliban. We will find
him. We will use all the resources at our
disposal, not only to go after him. We
shouldn't just personalise it in him. The
President only mentioned his name once
Sure, but he was the only person mentioned.
True, but he talked about a very
broad network that he heads called
Al-Qaida which is located in
countries all around the world.
It's that network that we have to
go after because you can't leave a
part of that network untouched to
perpetrate another terrorist attack
at some point.
Do you know where Osama Bin
Laden is now?
We presume he's in Afghanistan
under the protection of the Taliban.
But you don't know?
We presume that and have good
reason to believe that. I can't be
absolutely sure, but I think that's
where he is.
When the President talked about a war
against terrorism and mentioned 60
countries, we're talking about
something vast, aren't we?
It's vast. It doesn't mean a huge
presence in each country, in some
cases it may be financial presence
or just a presence that is intended
to draw support from that country
as opposed to a terrorist cell. But
it is a very broad network. I've
likened Al-Qaida to something like
a holding company. Mr Osama Bin
Laden is the chairman and chief
executive officer and treasurer of
Is this war against all terrorism?
Yes. The President sees this as a
campaign that goes after terrorism
as a curse on the face of society -
as a scourge of civilisation.
That would include Irish terrorism,
Kashmiri terrorism, Basque terrorism?
That's correct. Any organisation that
is interested in terrorist operations to
overthrow legitimate governments or
democratically elected governments
or governments that represent the
will of their people is a threat and
we should go after them. This
is not new for the United States.
We recently designated the Real IRA
a terrorist organisation. We've done
the same thing with three
organisations in Colombia - the
FARC, the ELN and recently their
paramilitaries, the AUC. The USA
has been in the forefront of going
after terrorism, but after what
happened on the 11th September we
now need a world-wide campaign, not
just the United States or the UN,
but everybody coming together.
How will you judge when that war
has been won?
We can make a judgement that
the war is being won or has been
won when we don't see that kind
of terrorist incident occurring
anywhere. Now, will we ever get
there? I don't know. But can we
reduce the likelihood of these
incidents if we go after those
terrorist organisations? The
answer to that is clearly yes.
But you're embarking on a war
you're not sure you can win.
We're embarking upon a long
campaign that we will win if we
start to see these incidents
disappearing from our public life.
Will we ever get to the situation
where there's not one terrorist
left? I can't answer that. I can't
say that we will.
Iraq wasn't mentioned in the President's
speech. Is that a target country?
Iraq is a country we have had on our
list of nations that sponsor terrorism.
It's an enemy we keep well contained
with the strong support of our British
friends and others. We have contained
them for ten years and we'll continue to
do so. We will watch them. We have hit
them before and if it's necessary, we'll
do what is necessary.
When the President says that all
necessary weapons will be used,
does that include nuclear-armed
I don't think nuclear weapons would
be a necessary weapon against
You can give a guarantee on that?
I think I just answered the question
When you look at a country like
Afghanistan, realistically, the poor
people of Afghanistan don't have any
choice in their government. They don't
live in a democracy, the country is
being bombed to pieces. What good
does it do for the world's richest
country to rain bombs down on
people like that?
What good does it do for a regime like
that to go after civilisation and kill over
6,000 innocent people, who include
people from some 80 countries
throughout the world, who include
several hundred Britons? There's an
outrage about this. We are not
going after the Afghan people. We
will be very careful in whatever we
do, whether it is diplomatically,
economically, with the use of
sanctions or military force,
we will be very careful to make
sure people see, in our action,
that we are not going after the
Afghan people, we're not going
after Muslims or after Arabs, we
are going after terrorists.
There will be civilian casualties?
We don't know what we will do yet.
I can't say there will or there won't
Do you know of a war where there
It depends on the kind of war you're
talking about. You're suggesting one
kind of war and we haven't yet
identified what kind of actions
we'll be taking. There is always
the danger of civilian casualties.
It is better that you not use
military power if you can find
another form of power to achieve
your objective. We can avoid
casualties of all kinds if the
Taliban regime will do the right
thing and turn over these terrorists
all of them - not just Osama Bin
Laden but all of those who are using
Afghanistan, using the poor, poor
people of Afghanistan as a sea to
swim in. If they will move out of
Afghanistan, turn themselves over,
and let's see whether they are guilty or
not - turn themselves over to justice,
and then we can do lots of things to help
the people of Afghanistan. The USA has
been the biggest donor of humanitarian
aid to Afghanistan and we'll continue to
But when you hear someone, like the
widow referred to by the President in
his speech last night, when you hear
her say, "When I think of a mother
in Afghanistan, I don't want her to
go through what I'm going through",
it must give you pause for thought?
We don't want any mother to go through
what she went through. So we are going
to be very, very careful about what
we do and we hope there will be a
way to get these people to justice
that does not use force of this kind.
But as the President said, we will
prevail - we will be persistent, we
will use the power at our disposal
and if it requires military power,
we'll go in and use it, but directed
against the terrorists not against innocent
But that force will be applied on the
basis of intelligence estimates and
we have just seen the most
catastrophic failure of intelligence
in American history.
It was a failure in the sense that
we did not anticipate this kind of
attack on that particular day. We
were quite aware that there was a
heightened level of interest in
American targets around the world,
but, obviously, we were not able to
predict that particular incident on
that particular day. When you have
an organisation like this that's
spread itself all over our country
- they didn't come from somewhere
to do this, they were in the USA -
I wouldn't call that intelligence
failure. We knew something was
happening, though we couldn't
predict that particular one. We
have to do a better job of trying
to get inside their networks. What
we are doing now in building this
coalition, we're all coming
together, with the EU, bilaterally
with the United Kingdom, with
organisations all over the world,
so we can get into their financial
systems, their information systems
and their propaganda systems. This
will give us the intelligence to help
us predict activities or at least get
greater insight as to what they might
be getting ready.
But you can understand some people
who might well say we've got to act
upon intelligence which we have just
Intelligence is never perfect.
I've been around a lot of military
operations and anybody who expects
perfect intelligence is incorrect.
But you can't just stand back and
do nothing because you don't have
perfect intelligence. You get as
much intelligence as you can, you
make an informed judgement as to
what it is you're facing and then
take appropriate action. So the
lack of perfect intelligence is not
a reason for not acting.
In sum then, we are embarking
upon a war against possibly a
vast number of targets on
imperfect intelligence and of
whose outcome you cannot
We are embarking on a campaign
with a great deal of information
and intelligence. It is not just a
war in a sense of military conflict.
It is a campaign that is as much
financial, political, diplomatic,
public diplomacy, infrastructure
ripping up. We have quite a bit of
information and intelligence and
we'll gather a lot more. It is a
campaign that will be successful
in the end because we will dry
up their havens, we will ostracise
those countries that have been
providing support. It is a
campaign that will go on as long
as it takes to be successful.
Success may never come in the
form that there is never another
terrorist incident. Success may
well be in the form that we bring
this under control and make it far
more difficult for such
organisations to exist because the
civilised world has made a judgement
that we cannot tolerate it any
longer. It wasn't an assault on
America. It was an assault on
civilisation. It was an assault on
democracy. It was an assault on the
right of innocent people to live their lives.
Are you suggesting American foreign
policy, the behaviour of the USA
in the Middle East and elsewhere in
the world, has nothing to do with
the selection of American targets?
Oh, I'm sure it has something to do
with it but we must remember that
the greatest target they have been
going after are American values -
that we stand for democracy and
representative government and a
value system that they find
threatening to theirs and one that
they have to destroy for their own
When you think about how this war
can be prosecuted, how long a time
frame are you thinking about?
I can't predict that. I think that it will
certainly be years. I think it is a
campaign that will probably
continue for as long as I can
imagine - you will always have to
have police working this, have
intelligence organisations working
it, justice departments will have
to work it, for as long as there are
people who are willing to take
these risks and cause such damage.
We have seen it within our own
nation - you don't have to be an
outsider, we've seen in our own
nation - terrible things happening.
The Oklahoma City bombing was here
in the States. No outsider came to
do that, we did that to ourselves.
So all nations that face this kind
of threat will have to be ever
vigilant from now on. We have to
be vigilant, but not terrified. We
have to have security but not live
in bunkers. We are free, open
societies and we have a
constitution that guarantees
freedom and openness. We're not
going to do anything to violate our
constitution but we are going to be
smart and do everything we can to
protect our societies and work with
many countries around the world,
especially with the UK, in helping
to protect our societies, our
people and our cities and the place
in which we live, work, play and
enjoy the blessings of freedom.
Secretary of State, thank you.
Thank you, Jeremy.