Interview of Secretary of State Colin L. Powell by Sam Donaldson and Cokie Roberts of ABC'S "This Week"

U.S. DEPARTMENT OF STATE
Office of the Spokesman
For Immediate Release
February 5, 2001

INTERVIEW OF
SECRETARY OF STATE COLIN L. POWELL
BY SAM DONALDSON AND COKIE ROBERTS
OF ABC'S "THIS WEEK"

February 4, 2001
Washington, D.C.

MR. DONALDSON: All right. Let's go to the ABM Treaty, and let's go to
Europe. Secretary Rumsfeld has just been there. He has called the ABM
Treaty "ancient history." He has told the European allies that the
United States will continue to develop it.

And let me now remind you of what President Bush said before he became
President. He said, about the ABM Treaty, "If Russia refuses the
changes we propose, we will give prompt notice, under the provisions of
the Treaty, that we can no longer be a party to it."

Will you scrap the ABM Treaty, if necessary?

SECRETARY POWELL: At the moment, we are pursuing, I think, a
deliberate course of action with respect missile defense, with respect
to our offensive strategic weapons, with respect to nonproliferation of
weapons, and with respect to the ABM Treaty. We are consulting with
our allies. That's what Secretary Rumsfeld was doing in Europe over
the past couple of days at the Wehrkunde Conference.

And we are committed to go forward with missile defense because we
think it is in our national interest, and we think it is in the
interest of our allies and the interest of the world. And at some
point we will bump up against the limits of the ABM Treaty. At that
time, we will have to negotiate with the Russians what modifications
might be appropriate, and we have to hold out the possibility that it
may be necessary to leave that treaty if it is no longer serving our
purposes, or if it is not something that we can accommodate our
programs within.

But it's not something that is going to happen tomorrow, and it's not
something that is going to happen without full consultation with our
friends and allies and full consultation with the Russians and, beyond
that, full consultation with other nations that have an interest in
this, in Asia, Japan, Korea and China.

MR. DONALDSON: Well, does full consultation simply mean informing them
at some point?

SECRETARY POWELL: No, no, no.

MR. DONALDSON: Because our allies oppose it, China opposes it, Russia
opposes it. If we find the world is basically against this, would we
then have, in the words of the famous phrase, "a decent respect for the
opinions of mankind"?

SECRETARY POWELL: We will have a decent respect for the opinions of
mankind, and full consultation means that. It doesn't mean we dictate
to anybody. You know, President Bush has been quite clear that he
wants to hear from others. He wants to take what others say to us into
account in all of our actions.

But they also have to understand that as we take their views into
account, we are moving from a position of principle. We believe that
theatre missile defense and national missile defense is in our
interest, and in the interest of our allies in the world. And in these
consultations, we hope to persuade them of that.