s
have just finished a very productive meeting. The Prime
Minister briefed me on his trip throughout the region, soliciting
support for the efforts of the Iraqi Interim Government--a trip
which has so far been quite successful. I expressed our
condolences for the loss of Iraqi life yesterday in these terrible
bombing incidents. And we committed ourselves once again
to the proposition that these terrorists must not be allowed to succeed. These insurgents
must be defeated, and will be defeated, so that the hopes and dreams of the Iraqi people
are not lost and are not blown apart by bombs. The American commitment is steadfast.
We will not weaken in the presence of this kind of danger. Rather, we will redouble our
efforts working with our coalition partners and with the Iraqi Interim Government.
We discussed the Saudi initiative, which you have now read about--an interesting idea, a
welcome idea from the Saudi government as to how to generate additional Muslim forces
to participate in the work in Iraq, either as part of the coalition or as a separate
organization that would be within the framework of the coalition effort, but would be there
perhaps to provide security of facilities or provide protection to the UN. These are
preliminary ideas that the Saudis have given to us. Theyve shared the ideas with the
Prime Minister, with us, with Secretary-General Annan. And we welcome the Saudi
ideas, and well be examining them in the days ahead.
Mr. Prime Minister, all of us in the United States and as the President has said to you,
we are admiring of the courage that you have shown, the dedication you have shown
and the good start you are off to with your government. Its a great pleasure to have this
opportunity to speak to you, Mr. Prime Minister, and I'd invite you to say a word.
PRIME MINISTER ALLAWI: (in Arabic) Id like to welcome the opportunity to meet again
with our friend, the U.S. Secretary of State. We have talked about a number of mutual
issues. I thanked the Secretary of State for the U.S. support to Iraq and this longstanding
support from the United States, which will continue. We also talked about a number of
other issues, among them the multinational forces. And we talked about the issue of
Arab and Islamic troops participating, excluding the neighboring states. We also talked
about a number and a variety of other issues, in terms of activating the economic
relationships, the trade relationships, and the U.S. support to Iraq. This relationship will
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continue, and will be sustainable, and will continue in the future.
I also accepted with gratitude the invitation that I received from President Bush to go and
visit the United States. And I will be doing that in the near future. I found it important to
start my travel in the region, in the Arab world, to help the issue of having Iraq being
incorporated into the region and deal with our friends in the region.
SECRETARY POWELL: We'll take a couple of questions. George?
QUESTION: Mr. Secretary, the coalition is about 15 months old now. Why do you
suppose there has been such scant support from Muslim and Arab countries? And
Minister, could you talk about any concrete support you have received from Arab
countires on your present tour, for example, extension of diplomatic relations?
SECRETARY POWELL: There are some 31 nations in the coalition. I believe its a
strong coalition. For a variety of reasons, sound reasons, it was decided that it would be
better if the neighbors of Iraq did not participate in the effort. Various Muslim nations
around the world have been considering participation. Many of them said they needed to
see a UN mandate. There is now a UN mandate under 1546. They also said they wished
to see a sovereign government--there is now a sovereign government that is up and
running. And so, those basic conditions have been met.
Now we will be in more intensive discussions on the basis of the Saudi initiative with
Muslim countries to see if more support cannot be generated. And the Saudis have
indicated some conditions that would have to be met, as they see it, with respect to chain
of command arrangements, with respect to what the troops should be doing, whether its
an offset to existing coalition troops in the country. So there are many questions that
have to be answered. But we do welcome the Saudi initiative and well be examining it
very very closely.
PRIME MINISTER ALLAWI: This is the first time really that a high-level Iraqi delegation
has visited the region. We have prepared the grounds for concrete coordination between
the various countries in the Middle East, the ones that we have already visited. We have
had the pledge that the countries would help us and the leaders would help us to secure
Iraq. And, securing Iraq is really securing the region. They now do understand that what
is raging in Iraq really is a fight against terrorists, a fight that we are going to win at
ultimately. And, this is the only way forward. We think that the scene has been set
toward much more structured and constructive dialogue to be ongoing with the nations
that we visited.
The issue of multinational force and increasing the capacity by incorporating other
Islamic nations and Arab nations to participate is still on the agenda. And we will work
towards this objective. We want to enlarge the participation of the international
community to help Iraq as the international community, led by the United States, now is
helping Iraq. This is a fight that is not only a fight for Iraq--it is global fight, really, against
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terrorists. And the participation in the multinational force is a commitment of the nation to
fight evil wherever this evil prevails. Thank you.
QUESTION: (in Arabic) The question is to the Iraqi Prime Minister. In light of what
Secretary Powell said about the Saudi initiative, have you discussed this issue in detail,
seeing how this particular force can contribute to Iraq's security without dragging the
region into more violence? And, especially that you mentioned that neighboring states
will not participate in that.
PRIME MINISTER ALLAWI: (in Arabic) This is a very important issue the region faces.
The forces of terrorism, they exist in this part of the world. They threaten a number of
countries and states. They have threatened here, the Kingdom, Iraq, they threatened
Iraq and other countries, like Syria and Lebanon. And the leaders of this region must
unify and must stand as one group against those gangs, against those terrorists and
those criminals who are threatening and causing a great deal of harm to the Arab World
and the Islamic world. This is an issue, that it is important that these groups and these
terrorists and their conduct is far away from the values of Islam and from the Arab
values. The participation of Arab and Islamic states is an important issue, not only to
support Iraq. Iraq will be able to overcome its difficulties, but it is important for the region
and the leaders to stand and have a decisive position and a decisive role against these
groups, that threatens the security of their countries and the region. We have to stand
together in confronting those groups. The conscience of the Islamic world and the Arab
world should be the motive and the power behind that. These are challenges and these
challenges are harming the security of the region and theses countries. And, we must
confront them. We look forward to the contribution from the Arab and Islamic states, with
the exception of the neighboring states, in order to continue this work and secure the
region.
SECRETARY POWELL: Robin?
QUESTION: Prime Minister Allawi, first of all, you have written to several Arab and
Muslim countries asking for their participation. Have you had a positive response from
any of them? And, second, given the experience of Pakistani hostages recently, and the
Egyptian diplomat being taken hostage, what guarantees do you have that their
experience of the Arab and Islamic forces would be any different from the coalition? And,
Mr. Secretary
SECRETARY POWELL: Robin, that's two.
PRIME MINISTER ALLAWI: I have sent letters asking leaders to participate and some
of them have replied favorably to expand the discussions on what kind of commitment
they should have. This is something that we will pursue in the weeks ahead. I'll be talking
to some of them in the next few days to try and find a common ground that these
countries should participate really on the assurancesreally, we don't have any
assurances. This is a war, again, this is a global war. These are forces of evil who are
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acting against us. We are going to suffer casualties, we are suffering casualties. We are
going to and we have to end their terrorism route. And I call upon the leaders of the
countries, Arab countries, to close ranks. This is really, basically, our fight. Those are
people who claim to be part of Islamthey are not. They claim to be part of the Arabs
they are not. The values of Islam and the values of Arabism is different. And really the
assurance is that we all close ranks and fight and defeat these evil forces. And this is
what is going to happen.
SECRETARY POWELL: One more from the Arab press.
QUESTION: (in Arabic) Since the initial problem with Iraq was Saddam Hussein and his
sizeable armed forces, is it one of the conditions in the reconstruction of the Iraqi armed
forces to limit the number