Hearing of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee

September 9, 2004 Thursday

HEADLINE: HEARING OF THE SENATE FOREIGN RELATIONS COMMITTEE

SUBJECT: CURRENT SITUATION IN SUDAN AND PROSPECTS FOR PEACE

CHAIRED BY: SENATOR RICHARD LUGAR (R-IN)

WITNESSES: SECRETARY OF STATE COLIN POWELL

LOCATION: G-50 DIRKSEN SENATE OFFICE BUILDING, WASHINGTON, D.C.

Senator Biden.

SEN. JOSEPH BIDEN (D-DE): I came late. I will yield to the senator from Connecticut and wait my turn after the next Republican speaker.

BREAK IN TEXT
SEN. JOSEPH BIDEN (D-DE): Mr. Secretary, thank you for your statement today in calling the situation for what it is. No matter what, no matter what the Sudanese government would or wouldn't do, we have an obligation to do that, at a minimum. And I complement you for being so straightforward.

As I understand it-and by the way, I'd like to ask unanimous consent that a much longer -- (chuckles) -- opening statement be placed in the record as if I --

SEN. LUGAR: It will be placed in the record in full.

SEN. BIDEN: Thank you.

I'd like to focus on two things if I may, Mr. Secretary.

One, because I think it confuses the American people and a lot of our colleagues as well, how much of what we're attempting to do to save thousands and maybe tens of thousands of lives over time relates to the need to have the approval of Khartoum? Right now the AU is in there in limited numbers as an observer with no mandate and no authority to protect civilians, but to observe and report. And as I understand, this beefed-up effort that we are looking for through and with the African Union observers mission is that we are having committed to play some part in preparing them-that is, the African Union observer group-to have the capacity to do a better job; that it still doesn't envision the possibility of this military force protecting civilians; and that if we were to go to that step-if the world was to go to that step, if we were to push that step, it would require Khartoum's sign off. Is that factually the situation?

SEC. POWELL: Sudan is a sovereign country with a government, and what they have agreed to and what they have cooperated in is the deployment of a monitoring group and protection force for the monitoring group so the monitoring group can do its work. Now there's an effort to expand that significantly. The Sudanese have said, you know, you can't just come into our country as a peacekeeping force and as an intervention force, totally indifferent to the sovereignty of the nation and the sovereignty of the government. And what the African Union is doing now is working with the government of Sudan and working with others to determine how large a group should go in and what should they be called and what will their mission be. Right now the --

SEN. BIDEN: The bottom line is-please, I don't mean to interrupt --

SEC. POWELL: The bottom line is that it is going in --

SEN. BIDEN: Is Khartoum has to sign off.

SEC. POWELL: It is-yes, Khartoum has to cooperate with the effort.

SEN. BIDEN: Right.

SEC. POWELL: Now, Khartoum has been uncooperative in earlier episodes, but were brought around to cooperation because they found that it was in their interest to cooperate, and that's essentially the process that we are in and the AU is in.

SEN. BIDEN: It's not precisely analogous, but we went through a similar thing with Milosevic in Kosovo, not Bosnia, and this notion of sovereignty; that we could not-notwithstanding the fact that he was fully engaging in genocide, we could not move in Kosovo without-this is early on-without the consent, in effect, of the government of Belgrade. This is different, I acknowledge. But the fundamental concern I have here is as we sort of work out a new-and this is a little off point-as we work out-as the world must work out, we and our friends in the Security Council and our European friends, the new rules of the road of the 21st century.

It seems to me-and I'm not asking you to respond, but something I'd like to have some time with you about at some time-well, maybe it's going to be kind of complicated the next five weeks, but sometime-and that is, there seems to me a desperate need for us to come up with new rules of the road internationally to have some legitimate recognition that there's other circumstances in which a nation forfeits its sovereignty short of going to war.

I'd respectfully suggest we should consider the notion-it doesn't mean what our action would be, what action we would take-that as a practical matter and as a matter of international law, when a nation engages in genocide within their borders, cooperates with it, they forfeit their sovereignty.

I found it counter-intuitive to suggest, as the first Bush administration did and some in the Clinton administration, that we could not intervene in Kosovo because of the sovereignty of Serbia, notwithstanding the fact we had a genocidal SOB who was clearly-clearly-engaging in genocide.

And I thought with Kofi's statements over the last-the secretary-general's statements over the last year and a half, we're sort of beginning to work out new rules of the road. For example, we made it clear that if, in fact, a nation state that's sovereign harbors terrorists and those terrorists clearly, in fact, inflict damage upon us and there is no action taken by that government to deal with them, they forfeit their sovereignty.

I'd respectfully suggest we should be debating whether or not Khartoum has forfeited their sovereignty under the traditional 20th- century notion of what outside interests and countries are able to do within their territory based on this doctrine of sovereignty.

That's way beyond this, I know, but it leads me to this question. And it's no surprise to you where I come from on this.

But one of the suggestions-and maybe this has such-for me because-maybe is I was so invested in the Balkans. The U.N. secretary-general's special representative reminded me-his recommendation reminded me slightly of the plan that the Brits came up with for Bosnia, in the cantonization notion they had, when he suggested to establish safe areas for civilians who have been driven from their homes.

Now my question is, if that ends up being part of the total package here-that is, the AU goes in, with the permission of Khartoum, in larger numbers, slightly expanded mandate, and safe-I think the phrase, these are "safe areas for civilians" are set up-and this is genuinely a question-doesn't that plan threaten to consolidate the ethnic cleansing?

SEC. POWELL: Yes.

SEN. BIDEN: And are we-do you have a view on that plan?

SEC. POWELL: We have concerns about the concept that's being used, that came out of the Darfur Action Plan, as it's called, about safe areas, because it essentially says that once you're outside the boundary of a safe area, you're not safe and it's a free-fire zone. So we have concept (sic) about the practicality-have concerns about the practicality of the concept.

SEN. BIDEN: Have you told-I don't mean you personally. Have we told the U.N. that this plan might be unacceptable to the United States?

SEC. POWELL: We have expressed our concerns about this concept. I haven't talked directly to Secretary-General Annan about it.

SEN. BIDEN: And very obviously, Mr. Secretary, I have no doubt where your heart is in this. I don't have the slightest doubt where your heart is. And you've made it clear where your head is as well.

I'm not asking you to answer this question, but the question I'm so tempted to have answered-I'd love to get you aside and say, "Okay, you're still chairman of the Joint Chiefs of State, and Lugar's president-or Bush is president, and he says to you, 'What could I do-don't give me this sovereignty crap. What could I do that could save, in the next two, three, five, seven, 10 weeks, thousands of lives, while we are-while we are-beefing up the AU? What could I do that would not lock me in so that I am-I'm already overextended. Would it matter, General, if you were able to commit to me rapidly 3,000 forces to go in and stabilize the area now while this is taking place?'"

What would-and again, I'm not asking you. I just want you to know that I think a lot of people are asking the same question I'm asking, in my own head. What-is there anything-it comes off of what Senator Corzine, I thought-I caught the tail end of his comments. You know, nobody wants us to get, quote, "bogged down" in another place. We haven't finished Afghanistan. We haven't finished Iraq. We have Korea looming-not necessarily war, but I mean, Korea is a giant problem. Nuclear threshold, questions in Iran, the Middle East-I got it all.

But I wonder-I would be asking the question of you or General Myers: What could I do if it's going to take me a month or two with the international community to put the AU in a position they could do more, that would result in saving that-what could we do like we did-like we did in Liberia, like we did in a few other places where we went in and we were out, we made no long-term commitment, and stabilized?

I'm-you know, I realize it's not above your pay grade or competence. It may be beyond your willingness or brief to speak to that. But I hope someone has asked that question and has gotten an answer, so the man sitting behind that desk knows what options are available.

And if you conclude that sovereignty is the ultimate issue, then, you know, this is all moot.

But anyway, I thank you for what you've done. If you want to respond, I welcome it. But I will not ask you to. You don't have to.

SEC. POWELL: Let me say a word on first part of your presentation, Senator, and that is that sovereignty may not have the same meaning in the 21st century that it might have had in the past or it had back in the days of Kosovo.

But if-sovereignty isn't surrendered, usually; you've got to go take it away.

SEN. BIDEN: Right.

SEC. POWELL: And so one has to be very careful.

You said-you presented your case. Then you said, "I won't tell you what action we're going to take." But you can't stop there, because if you're-you've got to-if you --

SEN. BIDEN: Well, actually-and with all due respect --

SEC. POWELL: Yeah. Yeah.

SEN. BIDEN: -- just so I'm not misunderstood, you can stop there.

We've made it really clear we don't like what North Korea is doing. We made it very clear they're a grave danger to us. We made it very clear they're not doing-they are-we are in jeopardy as a consequence of them, otherwise we wouldn't be talking about spending hundreds of billions of dollars on a "Star Wars" program. We made it clear we think they are potentially a mortal enemy, and we're not doing a damn thing about threatening to use force. I'm not suggesting we should.

So you can make a judgment like the president did early on and say they are-what was it? -- axis of evil, and these are evil states, and then conclude that you are not prepared at the moment, given the circumstances, to be able to do something.

And the only thing I'm saying is the first step always is, what is the declaration relative to the argument that you cannot cross my border because I'm a sovereign country? And I would just-that's all I'm suggesting.

So you can make that judgment. You've forfeited your sovereignty. "We ain't doing something now, but we're looking." The world's looking. So I just want to make clear. I'm not-I do not believe, and I think our present actions demonstrate that we can make judgments about how evil, how dangerous, how threatening a nation is to us, and not conclude we should use force.

SEN. LUGAR: Thank you very much, Senator Biden.