01 February 2002

Powell Pledges Continued Focus on Terror

New York City -- The Bush administration remains focused on fighting global terrorism and is prepared to take its campaign beyond Afghanistan to nations that support terrorist activities, U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell says.

In February 1 remarks at the World Economic Forum (WEF) meeting in New York, Powell said the military campaign against terrorist elements in Afghanistan "is only the beginning" of the initiative launched following the September 11 attacks against the United States.

Nations that provide "aid, succor and support" to terrorists and "states that proliferate weapons of mass destruction" are potential targets, Powell said. "We can't just stop with a single terrorist or a single terrorist organization; we have to go and root out the whole system."

He also drew a connection between terrorism and the despair engendered by extreme poverty. "We have to go after poverty," Powell said.

"We have to make sure that, as we fight terrorism using military means and legal means and law enforcement and intelligence means and going after financial infrastructure of terrorist organizations, we also have to put hope back in the hearts of people," he said. "We have to show people who might move in the direction of terrorism that there is a better way."

The multinational effort to rebuild Afghanistan is driven in part by the understanding that "terrorism really flourishes in areas of poverty, despair, and hopelessness," Powell said.

The secretary of state made the comments during a WEF panel discussion on burden sharing and coalition-building for a stable world. He and other participants pointed to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict as a key source of instability in the Middle East, and Powell affirmed the Bush administration's continued engagement in the region to seek a solution.

Powell pointed out that President Bush is the first U.S. president to go to the United Nations to share a vision of the Middle East that includes a state for the Palestinian people "by the name of Palestine, living in peace and security next to Israel, a Jewish state."

At the same time, Powell made clear that U.S. officials "are spending a lot of time" talking to Palestinian Authority Chairman Yasser Arafat about the need to control violent elements that oppose a stable peace with Israel -- particularly following Israel's capture of a ship laden with weapons apparently destined for Palestinian groups.

The discovery of the ship was "a very damaging event." Powell said. "We've asked Chairman Arafat to account for it, to do something about it," and prevent such events in the future.

"We've asked Chairman Arafat to do something much more aggressive about bringing under control those elements of Palestinian Authority and other elements of the Palestinian society that conduct these terrorist actions that will not allow us to move forward," Powell said. He said that U.S. officials are simultaneously urging the Israeli government to help stop the cycle of violence.

"The problem is that the level of violence has been so high that you can't restore confidence, and you can't get a cease-fire in place," he said.

Powell said the United States seeks and welcomes the support of other countries and organizations that share the goal of Middle East peace. Over the past year, U.S. officials have been in "constant" communication with officials at the United Nations and around the world to coordinate their efforts and "to try to give a consistent, coherent message" on the Middle East, he said.