Interview With Leonardo Valero of Reforma

MR. VALERO: Okay, Mr. Secretary, one of the few coincidence among political forces here is that the Mexican democratic transition is not complete. What are the main challenges that the U.S. identify for Mexico from now till the next general election in 2006?

SECRETARY POWELL: Well, I wouldn't presume to tell the people of Mexico how they should advance their democracy. I am very pleased and proud of what Mexico has done over the last 20 or so years to advance democracy to the point where it's now resting on a stable foundation, a multiparty democracy, a democracy that has to reach out and find the desires, needs and aspirations of the people, and reflect that in the political structure.

How Mexico moves in the future, this is a matter for Mexicans to decide, not the visiting American Secretary of State.

I know that there is discussion, because I've heard, and President Fox and I touched on this, that maybe Mexico is going to be moving to the left as it moves forward. Well, we'll wait and see. That's what they thought in the United States last week. I don't know. It's one of those things.

But as I've also said to a number of audiences here today, the American people, the American Government, President Bush especially, is prepared to work with any government in our hemisphere that is freely and openly and democratically elected.

Whatever the flavor of the government -- center, center right, center left -- they all face the same problems within the society: jobs, an economy that grows, education, health care, housing. You do that, you'll get elected.

MR. VALERO: Okay. On your flight to Mexico City, I was just reading this morning, you talk about the U.S. priorities in foreign policy for the Mr. Bush second term, and Mexico was not included in that list. Is there something that Mexico can do to return to the priority, as it was, in Mr. Bush first days?

SECRETARY POWELL: It's a priority. There's always a limit as to how many things you can cover in a short interview, and in the interview on the airplane the reporter, after a while, said, "Enough, enough," as I was going down the list.

Mexico is a priority. But with Mexico, we are not in the kind of challenging situation that we are in, say, with the global war on terror or with Iraq or with the Middle East peace process. Those things really do dominate your daily life. Mexico is a case of a friendly country that we have strong relations with, have had strong relations for decades, that we have a thriving economic relationship with. You've become our second largest trading partner, and in the ten-year period of time since NAFTA we've seen a tripling of trade between the United States and Mexico.

The only real disappointment or disagreement that I have experienced with Mexico over the last several years since I've been Secretary of State was over Iraq last year in 2003, and we had a disagreement. But as you know, the best of friends and the members of the best family have disagreements; and as somebody told me when I was a young officer, the best thing about disagreements is you get over them. You get over them and you move on.

MR. VALERO: Right.

SECRETARY POWELL: So in no way would I suggest that Mexico was anything but a priority. It is a priority for the United States. My presence here today, with all of the Cabinet officers who came with me -- there is no other country in the world that I go to where I take five or six Cabinet officers with me. And I think that should be an indication of the value that we place on this relationship.

MR. VALERO: Okay. In order to heal the diplomatic wounds, as you were saying, after the war in Iraq, what should President Bush do and what he shouldn't do, talking globally?

SECRETARY POWELL: Well, globally, he intends to continue to pursue the war on terror, he intends to keep consolidating the achievements that we have seen in Afghanistan with the election of a president, and he intends to put down this insurgency in Iraq working with the Iraqi Interim Government and Iraqi forces.

MR. VALERO: Right.

SECRETARY POWELL: He hopes to mobilize the whole international community to help with the reconstruction of Iraq. We are seeing success here. NATO will be training Iraqi leaders. There's a whole alliance, to include France and Germany, participating in the training of Iraqi leaders.

When the Prime Minister of Iraq was in Europe last week, the European Union made a financial commitment to assist him and his government. We'll be meeting in Sharm el-Sheikh, Egypt, next -- in a couple weeks' time now, two weeks from now. All of the neighbors of Iraq, to include Syria and Iran, and all of the G-8 members and the Perm-5 members will all be assembled to talk about how we can help Iraq.

It's through events like that, meetings like that and activities of the kind I just described that President Bush is reaching out to the international community and saying to them, "Let's help this country reach a democracy and let's help them put down the insurgency." The insurgency is being fueled by terrorists, people who have no interest in democracy, people who want to bring back Saddam Hussein. And so we all should be joined together in this effort and I think we're having success in bringing the international community back together.

MR. VALERO: Aren't these kind of meetings the kind, the ones that Mr. Kerry talked about through the campaign?

SECRETARY POWELL: Well, yeah, he did. But while he was talking about them, we were having them.

MR. VALERO: Right.

SECRETARY POWELL: We were scheduling them and we were holding them.

MR. VALERO: Right. Would you say that the second term will be President Bush second term of reconciliation?

SECRETARY POWELL: I wouldn't accept the premise that we weren't reaching out to countries during the first term. The President went to the United Nations on the Iraq problem. We have worked with our partners in Asia on the North Korean problem. We're working with the European Union on the Iranian problem. We have tremendous relations with all of our friends in the Western Hemisphere with the possible exception of Castro's Cuba, which is not a democracy. And we have excellent relations with our Asian allies. We're working hard in Africa to help a number of countries to reconcile their differences in the Sudan and Cote D'Ivoire with our French friends, in Liberia; in Haiti, we are trying to bring the parties together to give the Haitian people peace.

So we have done a lot that is reaching out and trying to get people to reconcile with each other. To the extent that we have had bad feelings with some of our friends over the last several years -- France, Germany, for example -- we are working hard to make sure that we patch up any differences that exist. This doesn't mean we will never have any disagreements in the future. We will have disagreements in the future. We're all sovereign nations. We all can't think the same. We think differently. And every sovereign nation should express its interest, and the United States should take it into account, listen to it, try to accommodate it and try to work with our partners and not just go off unilaterally.

We are always accused of being not interested in reconciliation and unilateralist, but if you look at what we've done with Korea, with Iran, with Libya, getting rid of its nuclear weapons, with all the other things we have done, this is the action of a nation, a superpower nation, that doesn't have to talk to anybody -- yet we do. We talk to everybody.

When we had a proliferation security problem, we thought we ought to do more about nuclear and missile proliferation, the President took it to the UN and got a UN resolution that we are now operating under.

When we decided there was a problem with HIV/AIDS that the world wasn't addressing, he worked with Secretary Annan and created the Global Health Fund, and then he went further and unilaterally added another $15 billion to that.

And so, we are reaching out in every way we can to reconcile those who think we need to be reconciled with and to show that America wants partners and friends.

MR. VALERO: Going back to those days at the UN, is it correct to say that you were used at the time that you went to the Security Council and presented evidence that later proved to be false?

SECRETARY POWELL: We had evidence that turned out not to be accurate, completely accurate. The evidence I presented was the best judgment of the intelligence community. And so, since it was their best judgment, they couldn't be using me. It was the best judgment that was accepted by our Congress, it was accepted by President Clinton in his administration when he used that same evidence to bomb Iraq in 1998, and it was evidence that was available to many Western intelligence services.

What turned out to be correct is that Saddam Hussein had the intention. He had not answered questions with respect to his missing stockpiles and stocks of bacteria and other dangerous chemicals. We also are quite sure that he had the capability, the dual capability, to produce more. We also thought he had existing stockpiles. We found evidence of continuing intention, he had a history of doing this, we found evidence of dual capability. We did not find existing stockpiles.

Why didn't we find existing stockpiles? Were they never there? Were they destroyed years ago? Might be they were destroyed years ago. We don't know the complete answer to that question. But it wasn't as if we knew the answer to that question and we nevertheless said those stockpiles were there. We said those stockpiles were there, I said those stockpiles were there, because our intelligence community believed they were there and had the evidence to suggest that they were there.

MR. VALERO: All right. Last Thursday in Brazil, President Fox offered to mediate between the U.S. and the rest of Latin America during President Bush second term. Did the Bush Administration knew before about this? Does the U.S. need this mediation?

SECRETARY POWELL: No, we are pleased that President Fox wants to play a helpful role in working with us and the other nations of Latin America. Of course, I think in almost every instance we have good relations with the nations of Latin America and we work with them on a regular basis. I have a steady stream of visitors who come to see me and President Bush has a steady stream of visitors who come to see him from Latin America. This is my 14th trip to the southern part of our hemisphere since I became Secretary of State. But President Fox is a regional leader, and to the extent that he could give us new perspectives on the needs and aspirations and feelings of our friends in the hemisphere, that would certainly be appreciated.

MR. VALERO: All right. What would be better for the UN reform, I mean, to have a permanent member, a Latin American permanent member in the Security Council, or have more rotated members?

SECRETARY POWELL: Well, we're waiting to see. We haven't formed a judgment on this because we're waiting to see what the panel of experts comes up with. There is some suggestion that they want to add some permanent members who would not have veto power and some rotating positions, or perhaps a regional rotational system. But all of these are guesses at the moment, are ideas at the moment. We're waiting to see what they actually come forward with, and when they come forward with a specific proposal, then we will take a position on that specific proposal.

MR. VALERO: All right. And when you went to Brazil, you said to President Lula that you wouldn't see, I mean, with bad eyes that Brazil goes into the UN --

SECRETARY POWELL: What I said was I would certainly see Brazil as a candidate for any expansion. And if you ask me the question, I would say, with Mexico we'd give every consideration, because we don't have a model yet that we're acting on and so it's an open question.

Now, there are some nations who have already announced that they believe they should be in the front of the ranks for any expansion, but we don't have a model yet from the panel that's looking into this and so we are not taking a position on any additional countries that we think should or should not be in, because we have to see what the model is that they recommend.

MR. VALERO: All right. And whoever becomes President of Mexico in 2006 will have to -- will have Mr. Bush on the other side for at least three years. So what characteristics should a president of Mexico have to better suit Mr. Bush's style?

SECRETARY POWELL: The only thing Mr. Bush asks for is a president who is freely elected by the Mexican people, whoever the Mexican people believe is best able to carry out what they want. Foreign policy belongs to the people. Presidents of a country capture the views of their people and then convey that to the rest of the world.

So whatever the Mexican people decide in the way of who their leaders should be to carry their foreign policy forward and to carry their hopes and dreams forward, President Bush will greet that Mexican leader as warmly as he would greet any other Mexican leader.

MR. VALERO: Everyone in Mexico hopes that now in Mr. Bush's second term the immigration reform will be an easy cake. Would it be that easy to get?

SECRETARY POWELL: Well, it depends on what kind of a cake you're baking.

MR. VALERO: Right. (Laughter.)

SECRETARY POWELL: Some cakes are easier to bake than other cakes. And the President has made it clear in the speech he gave on January 7th that he wants to move forward with the temporary workers program. We have a new Congress that was just elected. They will come in early January. I told Secretary Derbez today that we wanted to take this temporary workers program idea, proposal, and get an assessment with the new Congress as to how hard it would be or how easy it would be, what kind of cake we could get out of this.

It's important for us to go after that which is doable and not go after something that we know it is beyond our reach or we don't have a hot enough oven to bake it in. And so we don't want expectations to be too high, but we do want to make progress. The President has made clear to me, and he has certainly shared his view with President Fox, that we want to see progress on migration. We didn't see the kind of progress we hoped for in his first four years because of 9/11, because of the difficulties we faced in our Congress, to be frank.

But 9/11 is behind us now. We want to move forward. The President has a mandate as a result of the election and he wants to move forward on migration, and we had a good conversation about that today, President Fox and myself and Secretary Derbez, and I and Secretary Creel and Secretary Ridge.

MR. VALERO: All right. And in your world, is there something specific that the U.S. would like about Mexico?

SECRETARY POWELL: I think Mexico is seen more and more as a major regional power and increasingly seen on the international stage, especially after its UN membership, and I think there will be increasing interest in Mexico now playing a more expansive role on the world stage. I am pleased that Mexico is looking at ways to help train Haitian police officers here in Mexico. That's a small step, but those kinds of things where, if you are going to be on the regional stage, on the world stage, then there will be expectations that you will do more in the region and in the world.

But this is totally in the hands of the Mexican people and the Mexican leadership. But I think as we go into the future, this is a question they will have to deal with. If we want to play in the UN or in other major regional fora, then there are responsibilities one has to be prepared to assume and obligations one has to be prepared to participate in.

MR. VALERO: Right. And my last question, what are your plans for the next four years? You were on the list of people that they say that may not be --

SECRETARY POWELL: Whose list?

MR. VALERO: Well, American papers, mainly.

SECRETARY POWELL: Aha. (Laughter.) There's only one list that counts, and he hasn't read that yet. (Laughter.) I work one day at a time.

MR. VALERO: Okay. Thank you very much.

SECRETARY POWELL: Thank you.
2004/1214
[End]