Following is a transcript of Powell's speech:

Secretary Of State Colin L. Powell
Upon Receipt of the National Committee on Foreign Policy's
Hans J. Morgenthau Award

September 12, 2002
Waldorf-Astoria
Starlight Roof

(9:30 p.m. EDT)

SECRETARY POWELL: Thank you so very much, ladies and gentlemen. It's a great pleasure to be with you this evening and to receive this award. Madame President, excellencies, so many good friends who are here this evening, I am so pleased that you would come out to participate in this event.

And I thank you, Henry [Kissinger], for that warm and loving introduction. It was wonderful to be introduced by a dear and treasured friend. Henry has been the model by which all subsequent Secretaries of State have measured themselves, and when I was in private life a few years ago Henry and I crossed paths constantly, in business and a number of other areas, but especially in the speaking circuit. And I used to make a great deal of money telling Henry Kissinger stories. (Laughter.) And I've got a lot of them, but you're not paying me tonight, so no Henry Kissinger stories. (Laughter.)

My favorite, of course, is the night that the late Princess Diana -- a wonderful, gracious lady -- was here in New York for a benefit and Henry was her host, taking her around. And can you imagine Henry hosting Princess Diana? (Laughter.) He was rather shameless. I mean, it was just awful. He was just showing off everywhere. (Laughter.)

But I had a little game to play on Henry, and so both Princess Diana and I were receiving awards and I was the first to receive the award, and I took note of the fact that Princess Diana and I had something in common, in that as you researched my heritage back into time, through my Jamaican roots and back to England, one of the newspapers had discovered that I was directly related to the Earl of Coote, who lived in the 16th century, and Princess Diana was related also to the Earl of Coote. So, in effect, we had a relationship. (Laughter.)

The crowd was stunned. Henry was appalled that I had stolen his evening. (Laughter.) Henry recovered as best he could. He looked down at me as he took to the lectern, and then he gave this long, flowery, interminable introduction of Princess Diana, trying to recapture the momentum from me. (Laughter.) And he though he had succeeded perfectly -- until Princess Diana took to the lectern and said, "Ladies and gentlemen, and Cousin Colin, good evening." (Laughter and applause.)

It was also a special pleasure to have been introduced by my dear friend Ron Lauder, Jo Carol, his wife, also here -- more than friends, family. I can't say enough about the affection that Alma and I have for both of them and with their children. If I ever got going on the Lauders we'd be here all evening, but thank you, Ron, for those very, very beautiful words.

And thanks to Bill Flynn and George Schwab and the members of the National Committee on American Foreign Policy for honoring me with the Hans J. Morgenthau Award. I am pleased to accept it not only on my behalf, but especially on behalf of all the dedicated men and women in the Foreign Service and in the military, for that matter, who also I have served with over the years who have served their nation so well. It's been my privilege to be in the position of leadership with them in the course of my career.

And I would like to take this opportunity to commend the National Committee for over a quarter of a century, almost 30 years now, of leadership in shaping our nation's foreign policy debate. In the finest traditions of Hans Morgenthau, the National Committee continues to articulate an American role in the world that combines realism with our core values, and never before have our core values been more important.

The ideas that Hans Morgenthau stood for have never meant more to us than they do this evening here in my hometown of New York City. Just one year and one day ago, as we all know, the terrorists of September 11th murdered over 3,000 innocent people on American soil. And since that tragic day, President Bush has led an American response that combines power and principle in the global war against terrorism, a war that the President has said to all of us, a war that we will pursue to the very end with vigor, with determination, with dedication. And I just want to tell you, the President is as committed today as we he was a year and a day ago, and you should be proud of the leadership that he is giving to this campaign and to this crusade. (Applause.)

Our nation can be so proud of what we have accomplished in that one short year. The President succeeded in assembling and leading an international coalition that liberated Afghanistan from the yoke of al-Qaida and the Taliban. For the first time in over a decade, you can look on television and see young Afghan girls going to school. Young people are playing soccer. Television stations are up and running. Commerce is starting again in this country. Music fills the air. We can be so proud of our men and women in uniform, our intelligence services, our diplomats, our AID personnel who have done such a wonderful job in bringing this about.

Now that the Taliban is gone, Afghanistan has a dedicated new interim government under President Karzai, who met with President Bush earlier today and thanked the American people for all we had done to liberate Afghanistan. And he is leading his country on a path to a full representative government when the election is held, in less than 18 months now.

And the whole world community, this coalition, is coming together and working with President Karzai to meet the humanitarian needs of the Afghan people and to begin the very difficult and enormous task of recovery and reconstruction, recreating a society, recreating an infrastructure, billions of dollars committed, more will come in. President Bush was very pleased this afternoon to announce that the United States is committing $80 million toward a $180 million project to improve the major roads system in Afghanistan, working with Saudi Arabia and Japan, each of whom is contributing $50 million. Just a simple road, but a paved road that will begin to connect this country again, and a road that doesn't just connected places but will connect people so that commerce can flow and so that the central government can extend its reach.

We are committed to Afghanistan for the long term. We will not make the mistake that was made some years ago when people abandoned Afghanistan after the Soviets had left. The Afghan people know now that the United States and the international community will be there for them, however long it takes.

The international coalition against terrorism is hard at work, and hardly a week goes by that we don't hear news of a terrorist cell being smashed or terrorist money being seized. More than 90 nations around the world, as part of this coalition, have arrested or detained over 2,400 terrorists and their accomplices. Over 160 nations have frozen terrorist assets worth over $100 million -- $100 million that is no longer available to plot, to scheme, to purchase the materials that could be used to conduct terrorist activities.

Yet despite our success, we have to understand the war against terrorism is far from over. This is a different kind of war against a new kind of enemy, not like any enemy I was ever trained to fight during my years of being a soldier. We are not fighting a state that is within a geographical boundary. We are not fighting an empire that is separated from us by an Iron or a Bamboo Curtain. We are not fighting with the kinds of rules that I knew so well as a soldier. It's a different kind of enemy, an enemy that knows no borders, has no allegiance to no particular state, fluid organization that knows no geographical constraints.

We can break al-Qaida's back in Afghanistan, but we cannot destroy it with bombs and bullets alone. To defeat the terrorists, we have to wage war on many different fronts, all at the same time. We have to wage a war of diplomacy to persuade other nations to work with us and to dry up whatever ponds of terrorist activity might exist within their country. We have to wage a war of politics to encourage leaders to take difficult steps in their own countries in order to beat the terrorists in their countries so they cannot form a network of terrorists in other countries. We have to wage a war of intelligence and law enforcement, to uncover and destroy terrorist cells before they can commit new murders. We have to wage this war of finance to deny the terrorists the money that fuels their plots.

And we have to wage a war of public information to make sure that people everywhere understand our message of democracy, free markets, our message of human dignity. What we are not waging, however, is a war against Islam. We are not waging a war against any culture or creed. We are fighting those who tried to hijack a great religion, religion of peace, a religion of reconciliation. They hijacked that religion for their own evil purposes, to kill innocent civilians.

In this campaign, as the President has often said, we must be steadfast, we must be persistent, and we must be resolute. September 11th leaves us under no illusions. Terrorists will stop at nothing until we stop them. They accept no law, no morality. There is no limit to their violent ambitions.

Today, speaking to the United Nations General Assembly, President Bush spoke of a grave and gathering danger to the world community, the danger that an outlaw regime could supply terrorists with the technologies to kill on an even more massive scale than we saw here in New York a little over a year ago. President Bush urged the world's nations to stand together and to confront Iraq. Its tyrant leader, Saddam Hussein, has long made an unholy alliance with terrorists. He has for a decade defied United Nations resolutions. He has defied not just the United States, he has defied the international community, he has defied the Security Council, he has defied the United Nations, this multilateral organization that for ten years has spoken for the civilized world against his activities.

And he has demonstrated time and again his aggressive intent. One can argue as to what his development activities are. One can argue as to what his stockpiles look like. One can argue at the pace of development within Iraq of these terrible weapons. But what is not arguable is that he is in violation of international law and the international constraints that were placed upon him. And what is also not arguable is that he has the intent -- he has never lost the intent -- to develop these kinds of weapons. That's why he won't let inspectors back in. That's why he has violated United Nations Security Council resolutions.

To assume the Iraqi regime's good faith is to bet the lives of millions of people and the peace of the world in a reckless gamble. And as the President said to the assembled delegates of the United Nations General Assembly today, this is a risk we must not take. We have to respond. The President gave a clear call for response. It wasn't a declaration of war. It was a statement to the United Nations that it is time to act, it is time to do something.

People will say, "Why now? Why this year?" The question could be asked, "Why not last year, the year before, or the year before that? Why wait till next year?" The danger is real and present, and the President gave a challenge to the United Nations today to respond.

In the days ahead, I'll be meeting with my colleagues on the Security Council of the United Nations to explore the appropriate way forward from this point. But the challenge has been put down. If the United Nations is to remain relevant, if the United Nations is to meet the founding purposes of its charter, this is a challenge they cannot turn away from, we must not turn away from.

And I am confident we will be successful in making that case before the international community, and I know that we will have the full support of the American people and peoples around the world once they have paused to examine the President's speech and once they have examined the information that will be made available to them. And I know that we have the support of all of you assembled here this evening.

Ladies and gentlemen, this is a stark choice we are facing with respect to Iraq, and there are many sobering realities that we have to deal with in foreign policy. We worry about many of these issues, but I always make sure that in worrying about these challenges, these crises, I don't let myself -- and I refuse to allow the Department of State -- to be blinded to the soaring opportunities we also see at the dawn of this new century. The President is not blinded to these opportunities. He is embracing them. President Bush and his administration seeks to build a world that is not only safer but better, a world that benefits the American people even as it brings new freedom and fresh hope to men and women on every continent. The spread of democratic and economic freedoms, combined with technological advances, opens unprecedented opportunities to life millions and millions of people around the world out of misery, out of poverty, and we are determined to seize these opportunities.

Before September 11th of last year, President Bush was vigorously pursuing a broad foreign policy agenda. After September 11th, it is equally broad. We haven't pushed it aside. We aren't so focused on terrorism, as important as it is, that we have forgotten these opportunities or what our obligations are. Indeed, the very process of marshaling the civilized world into the global anti-terror campaign has opened the door for us to strengthen international relationships and to explore new areas of cooperation.

For example, Russian President Putin's reaction to September 11th marked a profound shift in our bilateral relationship with Russia, from a relationship that just ten years ago was based on a balance of fear to one that is based on mutuality of interests. It overturned once and for all, and I hope forever, the Cold War chessboard. It used to be divided into red and blue squares on which a gain for Red Communism was a defeat for Blue, the Free World.

When last assembled, we agreed to disagree, for example, with the Russians on our withdrawal from the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty. Everybody was worried: The Americans are being unilateral, they're getting out of this treaty, it's going to create an arms race, it's going to create a crisis in relationships with Russia and other nations in the world.

Quite the opposite. We discussed it with the Russians. We explained why it was necessary for us to leave the constraints of this treaty. We didn't do it in a threatening way. We made sure they knew they would be secure as a result of this and we would develop a new strategic framework. And when last assembled, we did notify the Russians we were leaving. President Bush called President Putin and I then visited President Putin in Moscow to explain it all.

After my conversation was finished with President Putin, as the meeting was ended, he looked across at me and he said, "We think you're wrong. We disagree with you. We don't think you should leave the ABM Treaty. But that's your decision to make. You have the right to leave that treaty. And guess what, we don't feel threatened by it. We will get beyond this. It is now a problem behind us, and let us now work together to create a new arrangement that will reduce the number of strategic offensive weapons, the weapons that kill people, not defensive weapons that defend against weapons that kill people." And we did that. And some six months later, in a gilded hall in the Kremlin, President Bush and President Putin signed the Treaty of Moscow, an historic strategic arms reduction treaty.

And then a few days later in Rome, the President joined our allies and President Putin in forming a new NATO-Russia Council that will bring Russia to the Euroatlantic community and bring the West closer to Russia.

I am astonished. I have to think about these things when I meet with my good friend and colleague Igor Ivanov, the Foreign Minister of the Russian Federation. And American troops are now south of Russia in Afghanistan and we have bases, for the time being, in places like Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan and Tajikistan working with all these Central Asian republics that used to be considered a part of the Soviet Union, an essential part; don't you dare go there.

And we're there now, and you would think this would be such a terrible threat to the Russians. And when my colleague, Igor Ivanov, gets asked about it, "Mr. Ivanov, aren't you troubled that the Americans are in these former republics of the Soviet Union? Aren't they a threat to us?" Igor's answer now is, "Quite the contrary. They're our friends. They're our allies. We're dealing with common threats -- terrorism, fundamentalism, smuggling, drugs. We are allied in a new kind of campaign, in new kinds of conflict against common enemies." This is a remarkable change, a change that has come about just in the last two years and really accelerated after 9/11/2001.

Our relationship with China also has come a long way. Every day I think about China and Russia, these two important countries, former adversaries who are drawing closer and closer to us. Not too long ago, last year, April, we were in the midst of a crisis with China when we had the accident that I think you all will remember when one of their fighter planes ran into a reconnaissance plane of ours. The Chinese pilot was lost and our plane had to make an emergency landing on a Chinese island.

Some wondered, oh dear, there it is again, a crisis. We'll never get through this. But in just two weeks' time we resolved it. We solved the problem and our youngsters came home and we got back to the right direction, the right course of action, working with China. And today we talk to China about shared global challenges, from terrorism to HIV/AIDS, in new forms and in unprecedented ways. We have initiated a dialogue with our Chinese colleagues on terrorism and are working together to promote stability in South Asia.

Next month, our two presidents will hold their third meeting since September 11th. The meeting will be held at a special place, the President's ranch in Crawford, Texas. We are talking to China more than ever before because our cooperative agenda is richer and deeper than ever before. We have many differences. We haven't stepped back from our principles. On human rights, on proliferation, on other issues, on the very nature of their system we have disagreements. We present those disagreements. But we do it not as two enemies facing one another, but as two countries with an interest in the well-being of one another and an interest in seeing that the world moves in a more peaceful direction, where we can trade, where we can break down barriers to understanding, where we can break down barriers to trade, and as a result get to know one another better, and from that knowledge move forward together into a brighter world, never forgetting basic differences on human rights and proliferation.

September 11th also reminded us, however, that, even though with these two former adversaries we have progress, there are still a number of crisis issues that we have to face. India and Pakistan were on the verge of conflict. We have made it clear to both the Indian leader and the Pakistani leader, Prime Minister Vajpayee and President Musharraf, that we no longer see the relationship that we have with each of them through the prism of their own disagreement. We want a strong, powerful relationship with India and a strong, powerful relationship with Pakistan. And it is not zero sum; because we do something for India, it is not against Pakistan, or vice versa.

And because we are succeeding in persuading them and demonstrating the validity of this point of view, we are then able to help them in resolving their conflict. And that was so apparent this afternoon when President Bush met with both of them, Prime Minister Vajpayee, and then later in the afternoon with President Musharraf. President Bush has made it clear that strengthening our relationship with India and with Pakistan, individually, bilaterally, is one of our highest priorities.

Our relationship with Pakistan is a unique one. I will never forget those days immediately after 9/11/2001 when we knew that we had to persuade the Pakistan leadership that they had to abandon the Taliban, their support for the Taliban, the Taliban which was harboring al-Qaida terrorists which had performed such murderous acts against the United States. And President Musharraf, in one of the boldest decisions I have ever seen any leader take, in 48 hours realized that this was a historic moment for him and for his country, and he decided to take that decision and become a partner with us in this campaign against terrorism, this campaign for a better future, a better relationship with the United States.

So it's a challenging new environment that we work in, that we live in, with new friends and new arrangements that would have been unthinkable just ten years ago. President Bush and his administration and your State Department are working hard not only to take advantage of these opportunities but to deal with the thorniest of issues. None is more difficult than the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. The President again today reaffirmed his vision of two states living side by side in peace and security. On the 24th of June, he put down a firm statement of what we wanted the Palestinian side to do with respect to reforming itself, becoming a more responsible partner in the peace process. And he also put obligations on Israel -- the need to end occupation, the need to end the settlement activity that has taken place over the years, the need to do more to help the humanitarian plight of the Palestinian people -- and for both sides to take the risks necessary to move forward on a path to peace.

And next week, here in New York, I will be having a series of meetings with members of what is called the Middle East Quartet -- Russia, the European Union, the United Nations and the United States -- as well as a number of Arab leaders all coming together to try to move this process forward.

As difficult as the Middle East peace process is, we will not turn away. We will not walk away. We will not abandon our quest for peace. It is a fascinating time to be Secretary of State when all the rules of my last ten predecessors worked under have gone away. Russia, China, the United States working together to keep the peace. We're determined that this is not just a pause in hostilities between major powers but really is a new future. A new future that will help all of us come together, all of us with resources, all of us with power, all of us with wealth and find ways to share that wealth, share that power, use that power for good, tell the people all over the world to rise up.

What we see on the political and economic fronts gives us even greater grounds for optimism. Because democracy and free markets are spreading, people are understanding it's democracy combined with a free-market system that is the successful system. And virtually everything meeting I have with foreign officials now, we spend time in political issues, we spend time in geostrategic issues, but most of the time is spent on economy issues, on trade. And the message we give them consistently is the free market works. But the free market only works in a free political system. It only works where corruption is ended, where the rule of law is in place; where capital is respected; where profit can be earned; where profit is a good word, not a dirty word; where you are investing your wealth in the infrastructure of your society, especially in educating youngsters to rise up and have the education they need to participate in the 21st century economy. And that is why President Bush is so determined to push forward with his agenda of free trade, pleased to have received trade promotion authority from the Congress. And we will use that authority to create more and more free trade agreements around the world with nations who are committed to democracy and the free enterprise system.

As you may know, I just returned from the World Summit on Sustainable Development in Johannesburg. And at that conference I reaffirmed President Bush's commitment to include the world's poor in an expanding circle of development; and I spoke of the critical role that public-private partnerships, the public and the private sectors working together. Most of the money for sustainable development will come out of the private sector. And the private sector has such an important role to play in alleviating poverty throughout the world.

You saw my attendance at that summit mostly in television when, in an auditorium with a thousand delegates, 12 hecklers suddenly rose up in the back and started to interrupt my speech. They were Americans, too. (Laughter.) They got the headlines for a few moments, for a few hours, a few turns of the news cycle. But the reality is it was a very successful conference where nations from around the world, 200 delegations came together and committed themselves to sustainable development, the creation of public-private partnerships, a commitment to do something about health, education, clean water, sanitation -- those basic things we take for granted, but cannot be taken for granted in most parts of the world.

Johannesburg was only the latest and not the last stop on a long road to a brighter future for the world. Last November in Doha, energetic American efforts were instrumental in the successful launch of a new round of world trade talks, the first ones that will be focused on development, sustainable development. So I'm pleased that in this administration we are showing the leadership necessary to move forward with trade talks. And just last March in Monterrey, Mexico, at the United Nations conference on financing for development President Bush announced the Millennium Challenge Initiative. This will represent a 50 percent increase in the amount of foreign aid that we give to deserving nations.

For those who look at the United States and say, "You're unilateral, you're insular, you're only worrying about your own problems." They should look at something like the Millennium Challenge Account. In three years it'll grow to a 50 percent increase -- 5 billion additional dollars every year to help those nations that are committed to democracy and good governance -- developing nations who need that kind of assistance, and will only go to those nations that have proven they can use that kind of assistance effectively.

The poor of the world don't need more inflated rhetoric. They need workable plans of action. And that's what Doha, Monterrey, Johannesburg all represented. But all these wonderful opportunities can be undercut by some of the threats that are out there. And one threat that troubles me perhaps more than any other does not come out of the barrel of a gun, it is not an army on the march, it is not an ideology on a march. It's called HIV/AIDS. I've seen it up close. Alma and I have been to Africa and seen the consequences of allowing this disease and the related diseases that come from people who have been weakened by HIV/AIDS more susceptible to malaria, tuberculosis and many other things. We've seen what this disease can do; not only does it kill an individual, it kills a family. It kills a society. It can kill hope for an entire generation. There's nothing more painful than to visit grandparents who are trying to take care of many grandchildren and the parents are gone. They have been taken by HIV/AIDS and the children are infected.

With that kind of a situation -- teachers dying, soldiers dying, guts of the society dying -- we have to do something. And President Bush is also here to show the leadership role, working with Secretary General Kofi Annan, to establish the global fund to fight AIDS, tuberculosis and malaria. We remain the largest contributor -- over $500 million dollars to this fund alone on top of several other billions of dollars that we are dedicating to the campaign against AIDS.

Last June President Bush announced another new initiative, $500 million dollars for international mother and child HIV prevention using antiretroviral drugs to keep the transmission of the disease from occurring from mother-to-child.

Like the global campaign against terrorism, the world's efforts to combat HIV/AIDS must be long-term, it must be comprehensive and it must be relentless. When the terrorists struck on September 11th, their target was not just the United States. Their target was also citizens of the other 90 countries that were affected, but even beyond that, their target was the vision we have of a future -- a future that we share with people all over the world, a future of increasing freedom, the rule of law, accountable governments, open markets and growth generating trade; a future of stability and peace. In short, a future in which no terrorist can survive.

The United States will continue to pursue a full international agenda for our own sake and for the world's. As President Bush said, "...out of evil will come good." Through our tears we see opportunities to make the world better for generations to come and we will seize those. We will seize those opportunities.

Let me close and leave you with a picture of a stop I made on the way home from Johannesburg last week in Luanda, Angola. I attended the meeting of the Joint Commission for the Implementation of the Luanda Protocols that ended Angola's long and brutal civil war. Sitting around that table that day were representatives of the old colonial power, Portugal, as well as our old Cold War adversaries, Russians, and the Angolan Government, which in my days many years ago as National Security Advisor, was supported by Russian troops. We were all there, friend and foe in the past, now united in a common purpose: not only to celebrate the end of this war but to make sure that we would remove the conditions of any future war; to make sure that these former enemies would now cooperate; would now move down a path to democracy; would use the oil wealth that they have for good.

Portugal was there as a friend. Our world has changed so much when I see these kinds of things. The models that we knew from the past are gone, and good riddance. And now we have to create new opportunities. We have to seize upon new models. But I think that Hans Morgenthau would have felt right at home in this new world of ours because he understood the essential partnership between morality and power, which is at the core of American foreign policy.

So as we move forward, it is that essential partnership between morality and power that will see us through the perils that are ahead and that will help us capture the promise that is out there waiting -- the promise that will help us make this a better world for our children.

Thank you so very much.

(Applause.)