07 March 2002

Powell Anwers House Panel's Questions on Iraq, Mideast Conflict

Washington -- Secretary of State Colin Powell has reiterated firm U.S. support for Israel.

"We are seen as Israel's big supporter and we are, and we always will be," Powell said March 7 in testimony before the House of Representatives Budget Committee.

But while Israel is "faced with a legitimate problem of self-defense," Powell said under questioning by Representative David Price (Democrat, North Carolina), "they have to be very careful as to the means they use to defend their people, because it, in recent months, has just produced a series of escalations rather than bringing things under control."

"Both sides are escalating. And I don't see that the strategies being used by both sides necessarily will lead to a successful outcome," he said.

Powell's remarks came a day after comments he made in another congressional appearance, before the House Appropriations subcommittee, were widely interpreted as unusually critical of Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's policy of large-scale retaliation against Palestinian attacks.

In those earlier comments, Powell said, "If you declare war on the Palestinians and think you can solve the problem by seeing how many Palestinians can be killed -- I don't know if that leads you anywhere." He urged Sharon "to take a hard look at his policies to see whether they will work."

Powell repeated to the Budget Committee what he had said before Appropriations the day before: that "Chairman [Yasser] Arafat has to do more than he is doing, and he can do more than he is doing to get the violence down."

Under questioning by Representative Jim McDermott (Democrat, Washington) at the wide-ranging hearing, Powell denied British press reports that Prime Minister Tony Blair's planned visit to Washington April 5 to 7 is aimed at forging agreement on a common U.S.-British plan for attacking Iraq.

"That certainly isn't my understanding of the purpose" of the meeting between Blair and President Bush, Powell said.

"I'm sure they'll discuss many things. But there are no plans to finalize because the president has no plans on his desk and I don't know of any plans that would be on his desk at the time that Prime Minister Blair visits. So I think that was an incorrect press account," he said.

Speculation about the nature and timing of a possible attack on Iraq has been rampant since Bush, in January, referred to Iraq, Iran and North Korea as an "axis of evil" and U.S. officials have discussed the possibility of "regime change" in Iraq.

Powell alluded to this in his answer to McDermott, declaring, "The United States believes that Iraq will be better off with a different regime, and we're examining options as to whether or not this can be accomplished through the use of opposition elements."

But, he assured the legislators, "There is no war that's about to break out with any of these three countries."