MR. BRILEV: Mr. Powell, because it's 11th of September today, may I start with a security-related question? I'm a frequent visitor to your country. I've noticed how fear of terrorism has infiltrated, not just New York, but places as remote as rural communities in Ohio. Now, your security concerns are absolutely understandable. Impressive is the degree of cooperation between the two governments.
Now, having said that, at least 35 journalists are going to America with Mr. Putin for the summit and are subject to additional interviews at the U.S. Embassy in Moscow. Why is that? Don't you trust the Russians?
SECRETARY POWELL: It's not a matter of trust. It's a matter of knowing who is coming into our country. And in light of what happened on 9/11, our Congress passed additional legislation that put the responsibility on the State Department and our Department of Homeland Security to know who is coming into our country.
These interviews shouldn't be seen as some means of keeping people out of our country. It's a means of protecting our borders, and at the same time, making sure we have open doors. I'm confident that all 35 of those columnists will get the visas that they need to accompany President Putin.
We have had some problems with visas in recent months as a result of additional procedures that we have put in place.
MR. BRILEV: My department says refusals.
SECRETARY POWELL: Yes. I hope that my Russian friends will understand the necessity for these actions, and we are working our way into new computer systems, new information systems to make it easier to process these visas. And I hope they will be tolerant of these delays until we get them all sorted out. But it will take a little more time than in the past to get a visa. So I would encourage anyone who is planning to travel in the United States or to attend a conference, don't wait until the last minute, or even a few weeks before the last minute. As soon as you can, apply for that visa. Make yourself available for the personal interview. And please, do come to the United States. We want visitors from around the world. We want Russian visitors, especially. We want to learn from you and we want you to learn about us.
MR. BRILEV: Right, back to the hot issue of today. Why, exactly, do you need a new UN resolution? You didn't -- you managed without one when invading Iraq.
SECRETARY POWELL: We had a resolution when we went into Iraq to liberate it. 1441 was passed unanimously last fall, to include the Russian Federation voting for it. Now, a difference of opinion arose as to whether that was sufficient authority or not. But there was no question under international law that it was sufficient authority.
We went for a second resolution because a number of our friends thought a second resolution was necessary for their domestic purposes. We didn't think we needed it, but we tried for it. We weren't able to get it, and we used the authority of the first resolution. But that's behind us now. The real issue is how do we move forward?
And we are all agreed -- there is no disagreement -- that we want to give sovereignty back to the Iraqi people as soon as possible, responsibility for their own country and for their own people and their own resources. We don't want to stay any longer than we have to.
America has never been a nation or an army of occupiers. We have been a nation and an army of liberators. That is our history and our tradition, and that's what we've done here. But you can't just simply give it over to, to whom? You have to create a government. You have to create institutions of government. You have to have a constitution. You have to have elections. All of these things --
MR. BRILEV: And the Americans skills of nation building are not sufficient in that case, then?
SECRETARY POWELL: The Americans are very good at nation building. But this is an issue that the whole international community should be interested in. In fact, so many people in the international community have said to us, "You really should get more involved. You should seek additional authority from the United Nations so that more can participate."
We did that. We passed a Resolution, 1483, which authorized a presence of Coalition Forces. We then passed Resolution 1500, which welcomed the creation of a Governing Council consisting of Iraqis, and now we think a broader resolution, which would give a greater mandate for those who might want to make a military contribution or a financial contribution, or participate in the reconstruction effort, or give a greater mandate to the International Monetary Fund or the World Bank to make their programs available.
MR. BRILEV: Because we're running out of time, just one last question. Let's wait for the decisions made in Geneva. There is a comment in the European press that the Americans are pushing this resolution because they want to have, sort of, a retroactive support for their actions back in spring. Would you agree with that?
SECRETARY POWELL: No. We don't ask for any retroactive approval of our actions. We don't think our actions require any retroactive approval.
We did what we did. We did it with a coalition of other countries who felt the same way. We are now in Iraq with a coalition of some 29 countries and the United States, and we hope more countries will join.
What we should be focusing on now is not what happened this spring, but where are we going to be next spring? And by next spring, I think the people of the world who are now wondering about the injuries and the deaths that are taking place now, the ambushes that they see every day -- they're wondering what it's going to be like next spring. And next spring, you will find that a government is rapidly forming, that constitutions have been written or are in the process of being written, and that the Iraqi people will be living in a more secure environment than they are now, and will be taking and have more responsibility than they have now for their own future and their own destiny.
Now whether the whole transition will be finished by then, I don't know. I don't think so. It may take more time than that. But you know who we're asking how fast they could do it? We're asking the Iraqi Governing Council in that resolution, not the United States to decide, not Russia or France or Germany. We're asking the Governing Council to tell us how quickly you can grow your government and the institutions of government, and create a constitution and hold elections so that we can take our soldiers and go home?
That's what we have done in the past. We left Germany. We left Japan. We left Italy. We left France. We left all the places that we liberated in World War II, in order to come back to our own shores. We are not occupiers. We are liberators. We don't take sovereignty. We return sovereignty.
MR. BRILEV: Mr. Powell, thank you so much, indeed. Your press people are going to punish you rather than me.
(Laughter.)
SECRETARY POWELL: No, no. No, you always get the punishment. Fly safely.
MR. BRILEV: I will.
