Excerpts from testimony of Secretary of State Colin Powell before the Foreign Operations Subcommittee of the House Appropriations Committee, February 13, 2002

Excerpts from testimony of Secretary of State Colin Powell before the Foreign Operations Subcommittee of the House Appropriations Committee, February 13, 2002

As Prepared:

Mr. Chairman, members of the committee, I am pleased to appear before you to testify in support of President Bush’s budget request for FY 2003.

Let me say here at the outset, Mr. Chairman, before I go into the details of the budget and our foreign policy, that President Bush has two overriding objectives that our foreign policy must serve before all else. These two objectives are to win the war on terrorism and to protect Americans at home and abroad. This Administration will not be deterred from accomplishing these objectives. I have no doubt that this committee and the Congress feel the same way.

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In our own hemisphere, Mr. Chairman, we have met with considerable success. Highlights have been the President’s warm relationship with Mexico’s President Fox, the Summit of the Americas in Quebec, and the signing of the Inter-American Democratic Charter in Lima, Peru. Now our focus is to create a Free Trade Area of the Americas – including, as President Bush described three weeks ago, not only our current negotiations with Chile but also a new effort to explore the concept of a free trade agreement with Central America.

Moreover, we have every expectation that the Financing for Development Conference in Mexico next month will be successful. There, the importance of good governance, trade, and private investment will be the focus. We need to keep democracy and market economics on the march in Latin America. And to be sure, there are some dark clouds moving in now, and one of the darkest looms over Colombia where a combination of narco-terrorism and festering insurgency threatens to derail the progress the Colombians have made in solidifying their democracy.

Our Andean Counterdrug Initiative is aimed at fighting the illicit drugs problem while promoting economic development, human rights, and democratic institutions in Colombia and its Andean neighbors. Intense U.S. support and engagement has been the critical element in our counterdrug successes in Bolivia and Peru and will continue to be critical as we help our regional partners strengthen their societies to confront and eradicate this threat to their own democracies and to America’s national security interests.

There is another element to this challenge caused by our intense focus right now and for the foreseeable future on the war on terrorism. U.S. military and law enforcement forces previously assigned to interdict the flow of drugs between South America and the United States have been reduced by more than fifty per cent. Because of this reduction we have less capability to stem the flow of drugs from south to north, thus we will be even more dependent on friendly countries in source and transit zones to help us deal with the drug threat.

For our Caribbean neighbors, the situation was made worse by the end results of September 11 -- lower growth, decreased tourism, increased unemployment, decreased tax revenue, and decreased external financial flows. This economic decline is compounded by high rates of HIV/AIDS infection and financial crime, as well as the traffic in illicit drugs.

President Bush’s Third Border Initiative (TBI) seeks to broaden our engagement with our Caribbean neighbors based on recommendations by the region’s leaders on the areas most critical to their economic and social development. The TBI is centered on economic capacity building and on leveraging public/private partnerships to help meet the region’s pressing needs. I visited the Caribbean at the end of last week and discussed these issues with regional leaders.

In addition to its economic provisions, the Third Border Initiative includes 20 million dollars for HIV/AIDS education and prevention efforts. This represents a two-fold increase in U.S. HIV/AIDS assistance to the region in just two years.

As you are aware, Mr. Chairman, our ties to the Caribbean region are as much cultural and human as they are economic and political. The countries of the Caribbean attract millions of American visitors every year and the region is our sixth largest export market. Large numbers of Caribbean immigrants have found their way to America, including, I am proud to say, my Jamaican forebearers. Here people from the region have found freedom and opportunity and have added something wonderful to the great American cultural mix. But our primary goal must be to help ensure that the peoples of the Caribbean find new opportunities for work, prosperity and a better life at home.

At the end of the day, it is difficult to exaggerate what we have at stake in our own hemisphere. Political and economic stability in our own neighborhood reduces the scale of illegal immigration, drug trafficking, terrorism, and economic turmoil. It also promotes the expansion of trade and investment. Today, we sell more to Latin America and the Caribbean than to the European Union. Our trade within NAFTA is greater than that with the EU and Japan combined. We sell more to MERCOSUR than to China. And Latin America and the Caribbean is our fastest growing export market. Clearly, the President is right to focus attention on this hemisphere and we will be working hard in the days ahead to make that focus productive, both economically and politically.

In that regard, we have a very positive vision for a future Cuba – a Cuba that is free, with a strong democratic government that is characterized by support for individual civil, political, and economic rights. A Cuba in which people are free to choose their own leaders and to pursue their own dreams. And a Cuba that is a good neighbor to all in the Caribbean and in the hemisphere at large. That such a Cuba can exist we have never doubted – just look at the contributions Cuban-Americans have made in our own country and you understand immediately what such people are capable of. Depriving the Castro regime of hard currency resources with which to repress its own people remains a key policy tool, as does our continued support for Cuba’s growing pro-freedom movement.

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Andean Counterdrug Initiative

We are requesting $731 million in FY 2003 for the multi-year counter-drug initiative in Colombia and other Andean countries that are the source of the cocaine sold on America's streets. ACI assistance to Andean governments will support drug eradication, interdiction, economic development, and development of democratic government institutions. In addition, the Colombians will be able to stand up a second counterdrug brigade. Assisting efforts to destroy local coca crops and processing labs there increases the effectiveness of U.S. law enforcement here.

In addition to this counterdrug effort, we are requesting $98 million in FMF to help the Colombian Government protect the vital Cano Limon-Covenas oil pipeline from the same foreign terrorist organizations involved in illicit drugs, the FARC and the ELN. Their attacks on the pipelines shut it down 240 days in 2001, costing Colombia revenue, causing serious environmental damage, and depriving us of a source of petroleum. This money will help train and equip two brigades of the Colombian armed forces to protect the pipeline.

As Delivered:

Moving on in our budget request for Foreign Operations, we are requesting $731 million for the multi-year counter-drug initiative in Colombia and other Andean countries that are the source of the cocaine sold on America's streets. ACI assistance to Andean governments will support drug eradication, interdiction, economic development and development of government institutions. In addition, the Colombians will be able to stand up a second counter-drug brigade. Assisting efforts to destroy local coca crops and processing labs there, doing it there, increases the effectiveness of U.S. law enforcement here.

In addition to this counter-drug effort, we are requesting $98 million in FMF to help the Colombian government protect the vital CLC oil pipeline from the same terrorist organizations that are involved in illicit drugs, the FARC and the ELM. Their attacks on the pipeline shut it down for 240 days in 2001, costing Colombia revenue, causing serious environmental damage, and depriving us of a source of petroleum. This money will help train and equip two brigades of the Colombian Armed Forces to protect the pipeline.

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As of February 14, 2002, this document was also available online at http://www.state.gov/secretary/rm/2002/7990.htm