Secretary of State Powell Briefing, Feb. 9

U.S. DEPARTMENT OF STATE
Office of the Spokesman

February 9, 2001

ON-THE-RECORD BRIEFING BY SECRETARY OF STATE COLIN L. POWELL

February 9, 2001 Washington, D.C.

Q: So far as the Administration coming down with a policy on missile
defense. Could you give us some indication of how the Administration
is going to proceed, and also especially in talking to the Russians,
and how long might this take?

Mr. Cook, your good friend, talked to us the other day and of course
suggested all of the above, and thought it would take some time, he
thought, before you would choose a defense system.

SECRETARY POWELL: Let me add one P.S. to my earlier statement. The
travel itinerary I gave you, there may be other additions and
modifications as we go along, and we will let you know as they arise
and as we go along.

With respect to your specific question, the first thing we really have
to do is give Secretary Rumsfeld a chance to get his team in place and
to make an assessment of the various technologies that are out there,
to look at the work that has been done in recent years, and to come up
with a concept. I can't tell you how long that will take because that
is Secretary Rumsfeld's decision to make, and he will have to take a
good hard look at that.

While, however, he is making that assessment, it gives the rest of us
the opportunity to discuss with our friends and allies and the
Russians and the Chinese and others what we had in mind, and how it
all fits into an overall strategic framework that involves offensive
nuclear weapons, our nonproliferation efforts, and defensive systems,
both of a Theater Missile Defense nature and National Missile Defense
nature.

So I think the point that Foreign Secretary Cook was making, and I
would like to make, is that there is more than adequate time to
consult with anybody who has an interest in our plans, and to get
their input so that we can use that with Secretary Rumsfeld and his
team as they make their assessments, and have an opportunity to hear
the various views that are out there and try to design a system that
deals with the problem that exists. And that problem is simply that
there are nations on Earth who are developing these weapons that can
threaten their neighbors and can threaten us, and it would be
irresponsible of us not to move forward with technologies that have
the possibility of being able to stop these kinds of weapons.

We think it is, at the end of the day, stabilizing, that it is a part
of an overall deterrent system, and that it will strengthen
deterrence. And so the President is fully committed to move in this
direction, but we will do it in a deliberate way, examining technology
to make sure it works, understanding the cost implications of what we
are doing, and understanding the arms control and diplomatic
considerations that must be taken into account to do this in a way
that will reassure the world that this adds to deterrence and does not
take away from deterrence.

Q: Sir, the view from the Bush Administration on this issue seems to
have been, we are going ahead with this, and our challenge is to
simply convey that to our allies, and then once they realize the
United States is serious, they will go along.

I wonder, is that an accurate assessment of what you are doing? And if
it is, does that fit into the humility approach to foreign policy that
you have talked about? It seems rather blunt, you know, we are doing
it; you better learn to like it. That seems to be the approach.

SECRETARY POWELL: Humility can coexist with principle. Our principle
and our belief is that this adds to deterrence. This is the right
thing to do, and so President Bush has stated clearly, as have all the
other members of this team, that we are planning to go forward with
missile defense because we believe it is achievable; we believe we can
do it in an economical way; we believe it adds to deterrence. And we
are going to consult with our allies to hear their concerns, but we
are not going to get knocked off the track of moving in this direction
as long as the technology points us in that direction.

And I don't consider it as being an arrogant position or one that
we're trying to force anything on the rest of the world. We're trying
to convey the power of our position to the rest of the world, and at
the same time hear from them, hear from our European allies, hear from
China and Russia particularly, and see if we can convince them that
there is a cooperative way to approach this that will benefit all of
us.