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Powell Says U.S. Determined to Oust Saddam Hussein

Powell speaking to the youth forum

WASHINGTON, Feb 16 (IslamOnline & News Agencies) - U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell reiterated that the United States is determined to topple Iraqi President Saddam Hussein and will act alone, if necessary, to change the regime in Baghdad.
"We have a clear understanding of the despotic nature of this regime and we believe that the regime ought to change or ought to be changed," Powell told a global youth forum to be broadcast internationally by MTV.

"We have to preserve all options, and we have to preserve the option to act alone,” Powell said Thursday. "The president is working diplomatically toward that end, politically toward that end, but is also ... preserving all his options." Among the options Powell said the United States would consider is a military strike.

U.S. President George W. Bush has placed Baghdad in what he called the "axis of evil” with Iran and North Korea.

The tough stance Bush administration officials have taken in recent days on the Iraqi regime has raised concern among many U.S. allies in the Gulf, the Middle East and Europe, but Powell insisted that the United States would go it alone in pursuit of its goals if necessary.

"Hopefully, we can work with all of our friends in the international community, but the president doesn't rule out the option of having to act alone if it becomes necessary," said Powell. "We're not looking for wars ... we're looking for peace."

However, Canadian Foreign Minister William Graham sounded a note of caution a short time later in comments to reporters after a meeting with Powell at the State Department.

"Nobody is supporting Saddam Hussein, but everybody recognizes that in international politics you have to have a process ... before you invade a sovereign country," Graham told reporters. "There has to be a reason for it or [it's] going to lead to international chaos."

He said Canada could see two viable reasons for such a move: a link between Iraq and the September 11 terrorist attacks in the United States, or evidence that Iraq was preparing to use weapons of mass destruction. "A link to the September 11 attacks has "not been shown," Graham said.

"But if it is shown that they are massing their weapons of mass destruction with a vision of using them against someone in the immediate future, that's a clear and present danger that we and all the world have to address, and we'll address it."

Switching to French to answer a question from a francophone reporter, Graham said Canada did not yet believe there was a "clear and present danger" from Iraq.

"It is not there for the moment. One should not exaggerate the situation at the moment," he said.

Powell on Thursday also lamented not having acted earlier against the Taliban, saying the world had been slow to recognize the true nature of Afghanistan's former rulers.

Powell said that until the deadly September 11 attacks, the United States and others had not fully realized the extent of the relationship between the Taliban and Osama bin Laden's al-Qaeda network.
"We were slow getting off the mark, recognizing the nature of that regime,” Powell told the MTV global youth forum.

"But that regime is now gone and there is now a new hope in Afghanistan for a better future for all of the people of Afghanistan," he said, referring to the militia's collapse in the face of the U.S.-led “war on terrorism”.

Powell's comments came in response to a question from a young Afghan man in New Delhi who said his mother had been killed by the Taliban and wanted to know why it took the world so long to realize what was happening in Afghanistan.

The secretary noted that after the Taliban seized power in Kabul in 1996, the United States had taken some steps - including military action and sanctions - to root out bin Laden and al-Qaeda and moderate the Taliban, but had been unsuccessful.

"The full degree of knowledge with respect to the Taliban regime and what it was doing to its own people perhaps didn't get the level of consciousness it should have gotten throughout the world," he said.
However, Powell said the past should not be dwelled upon considering the challenges Afghanistan now faces despite the full commitment of the United States and others to rebuilding the country.

"Whatever we should have done before, what wasn't done, we can't turn the clock back, but we can now look forward," he said.

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