SPEAKER HASTERT: Good morning. Secretary Powell was kind enough to come in and brief our drug task force, who is led by Mark Souder from Indiana, today on what's going on with Plan Colombia. I have -- was a previous chairman of the task force in years past. One of our most grave problems in this country is drugs and drug terrorists.
We lose 16,000 young people on our street corners in our toughest neighborhoods, in our most affluent country club neighborhoods in this country every year to either drugs or drug violence. It far surpasses the numbers -- people that we lose in terrorism over a number of years in other places, our citizens. It outnumbers the armed services folks, and all of you know of the importance they are in numbers. We need to continue to work on this problem.
Plan Colombia has been successful with the help of President Uribe in Colombia, we have made traction. The number of acres of coca and heroin have gone down. The drug interdictions have gone up, and we have been able to squeeze down the amount of this terrible, terrible substance that comes into our country every year.
This task force that is in the House of Representatives led by Mark Souder and other members has been instrumental in helping make this happen. We can't do anything though unless we have the very, very sound work and cooperation with the State Department, other areas, the Drug Czar and other members of the administration.
It was a great pleasure to have Secretary Powell with us today briefing us, and I'd like to turn it over to Secretary Powell at this time.
SECRETARY POWELL: Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker. Let me express my thanks to you and to Mr. Souder for the support that you have provided to our efforts. The Andean Counterdrug Initiative is a major initiative of the administration for the reasons the Speaker set out earlier. Drugs are destroying young people in America. They are also destroying most of the Colombian people, who are a stable democracy, and other Andean nations, who are threatened by narcotrafficking. And we have got to come together and fight this problem.
Plan Colombia that is now the Andean Counterdrug Initiative has grown over the years and is now showing substantial progress in a number of fields that have been sprayed, in terms of how some of the violence has gone down, although it is still a serious problem, but especially in the form of new leadership in Colombia.
President Uribe has come forward in the past year and he has made it clear to the Colombian people and to us and to the world that he intends to fight this menace, menace to save his people, menace to democracy, that they are institutionalizing reforms and we are going to help them do what’s possible.
I want to express to the members here this morning my thanks on behalf of the President and the other members of the administration for the work they have been providing to the Andean Counterdrug Initiative. And I hope that we will get a good vote this morning on the floor, and we have no more important task before us. Many challenges before America right now, but this is certainly one of the top challenges, and I thank the Speaker and the other leaders for their support.
Thank you.
SPEAKER HASTERT: Thank you.
QUESTION: Mr. Secretary, if I may, a very hot spot, another very hot spot in the world is North Korea. Some prominent Congressional critics say -- criticize administration policy. Even Senator Biden even says there is no policy on North Korea. How do you react to that?
SECRETARY POWELL: There is a very solid policy on North Korea. We will not accept nuclearization of the Korean Peninsula, and we have very successfully over the last 7 or 8 months brought together all of North Korea's neighbors to provide that same consistent message to North Korea.
We are working closely with the Chinese, South Korea, Japanese, Russians, and with the Australians, with many other nations throughout the world, as well as with the International Atomic Energy Agency and the United Nations to give that consistent message to North Korea.
We have made it clear that we are going to have a dialogue with a multilateral framework to try to find a solution to the problem. I had a very long meeting with Chinese senior representatives on Friday evening. I thought it was a very useful productive meeting. And so we're hard at work on this issue, and North Korea has to understand that it has -- there is no future in pursuing this kind of technology, this kind of weaponry.
The United States will work closely with our friends and neighbors. We'll not allow this to become, as some have suggested, once again a U.S.-North Korea problem. It is a problem between North Korea and its neighbors, who are most directly threatened, and, frankly, who have considerable influence on North Korea.
And some would suggest that we should just go back to the way it was done 10 years ago. The way it was done 10 years ago, left that capability in place, and also allowed the North Koreans to think that they might be able to sell this again, allowed them to go and find another way developing nuclear weapons through enriched uranium technology. We want a permanent solution this time, that will be irrevocable, and we have a very strong, sound policy that was gaining support from our friends in Asia, the people who are most directly concerned.
QUESTION: Mr. Powell, the vote today choosing between the Millennium Challenge Account and money for AIDS for Africa, many of the African-American lawmakers in the House feel that the Millennium Challenge Account won't really go to Africa, and the administration has been very vague about how much money because you have a sort of standardized testing for poor countries.
How much of that money will go to Africa, and can you name any country that you think -- any three or four countries in Africa that will benefit from that program?
SECRETARY POWELL: I think the money is not for an African program. The Millennium Challenge Account is for developing nations who have made a firm commitment to democracy, the rule of law, ending of corruption and dignity of the individual.
We want to help those nations develop their infrastructure so that they can then attract the trade that they really need. And so we will have standards and criteria, and it would not be appropriate for me to tell you which countries will meet that criteria right now, but it is a program that I think is deserving of the support of the Congress, and it should not be seen just as an African program although many of the nations in Africa will meet the criteria required for participation in the Millennium Challenge Account. But it is not my position to designate them now. That will be the responsibility of the corporation that's being formed to administer the program.
QUESTION: Mr. Secretary, what would be your recommendation to the President regarding Liberia?
SECRETARY POWELL: The President and all of us in the administration are monitoring the situation in Liberia very carefully. It's a very serious matter.
In the first instance, ECOWAS has committed itself to put in peacekeepers as a vanguard force going in, and the President has said that we will support that effort and see what else might be appropriate for us to do. And I'm in very close touch with the United Nations Secretary General. Kofi Annan and I spoke just about an hour and a half ago and we have representatives of the State Department and the Defense Department in Dakkar, Senegal this morning meeting with ECOWAS political and military leaders to determine how quickly they will be able to put forces in, and what support would be required from the United States.
