[ The Atlanta Journal-Constitution: 4/27/03 ] By PÉRALTE C. PAUL in Atlanta and SUSAN FERRISS in Mexico City

Uncle Sam is watching more of you, which may come as no surprise, given the post-terrorist reality of Sept. 11.

What may be surprising is that even before the attacks, the United States was quietly purchasing dossiers on millions of citizens in 10 Latin American countries from an Alpharetta-based firm. The reason: to help verify the identities of Latin American nationals accused of committing crimes in the United States and help in the larger effort to find potential terrorists.

Now, ChoicePoint, the firm that collected the data, finds itself the target of growing criticism abroad and investigations in Nicaragua, Costa Rica and Mexico over whether privacy laws were violated. Latin American media have decried the company's actions, including what Mexico claims was the illegal sale of confidential voter registration records of more than 65 million of its citizens.

At the heart of the controversy is the question of what constitutes a confidential record.

Mexican authorities say voter registration rolls there are not public, and only political parties and election officials are permitted access to them. ChoicePoint executives maintain they have not broken any laws because the information gathered is public.

On Friday, Nicaraguan police raided the offices of two businesses suspected of selling information to ChoicePoint, The Associated Press reported. One of the businesses had a database containing federal voting records, AP reported, citing police.

"This is very delicate," said Gonzalo Altamirano Dimas, the chief of the governance unit of Mexico's interior ministry, which is responsible for security matters. "The identification and the whereabouts of citizens cannot be in the hands of unauthorized persons, much less in the hands of foreign governments."

The affair also has reignited concerns in the United States about parallel regulations. Consumer privacy advocates say American confidentiality laws are much weaker than those of other countries.

"The U.S. is to privacy what Caribbean islands are to money laundering," said Chris Jay Hoofnagle, deputy counsel with the Electronic Privacy Information Center in Washington. "If you want to store personal information in a jurisdiction where there are almost no legal protections, the U.S. is the place to do it."

Besides contracts with the U.S. government, including a five-year, $67 million deal with the Department of Justice, ChoicePoint sells information about consumers to 60 percent of the Fortune 500.

Those files include names, addresses, property ownership and other information that ChoicePoint says can be found in public records.

Many nations involved

ChoicePoint purchased the voter registration data of 65 million Mexican voters and 6 million Mexico City licensed drivers in 2001. It also bought databases containing the names, ages and, in some cases, the physical descriptions of citizens of Brazil, Colombia, Argentina, Honduras, Guatemala, El Salvador, Venezuela, Nicaragua and Costa Rica.

All the data were bought from third-party vendors, said James E. Lee, a ChoicePoint vice president and the company's chief marketing officer.

The sellers certified the information was public and legally acquired, Lee said. ChoicePoint's in-house attorneys cleared the transaction, he said.

"We had a very rigorous due diligence," Lee said. "The contracts that we have with the vendors stipulate that they comply with laws in Mexico."

The U.S. government is interested in the data so it can trace foreigners on U.S. soil and investigate alleged crimes, Lee said. If a foreign national were arrested in the United States, Border Patrol or immigrations officials could use the ChoicePoint database to verify that person's identity, he said.

What Mexico and its citizens would like to verify is how ChoicePoint got the information. The anger in Mexico has been played out in newspapers and on radio programs.

"Legal action must be initiated against those who transferred and sold information, so they must be forced to disclose who gave it to them and for how much," said Ranulfo Marquez, who represents Mexico's Institutional Revolutionary Party at Mexico's Federal Electoral Institute, or IFE.

The IFE is in charge of registering voters and supervising elections.

Wide range of data

In the United States, ChoicePoint gleans personal information from state and federal databases, court records and credit reports.

With that data, ChoicePoint can put together an individual profile that includes a Social Security number, driver's license number, property and car ownership information, date of birth, addresses, telephone numbers and even private club memberships.

An individual's file also contains the same information about relatives and neighbors.

"We don't believe we have too much data," said ChoicePoint's Lee.

Following the sniper shootings in the Washington area last year, law enforcement officials accessed ChoicePoint records to build a list of area residents who owned a white van. At the time, police believed the sniper had escaped each time in a white van.

"These reports are a powerful opportunity to reduce risk," Lee said.

But privacy advocates say public records don't exist to be collected and resold.

That federal law enforcement officials say they have greater security concerns because of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks isn't enough to ignore the privacy issue, experts say.

"You can't just say more information makes us safer," said Ellen Alderman, an attorney and co-author of "The Right to Privacy."

"How is the information safeguarded? Who makes sure the rules are not abused? What kind of punitive measures are there to prevent abuse, and how are those records destroyed when the information is no longer useful?"

ChoicePoint says it does extensive research on prospective clients, limits employee access to consumer files and conducts audits to ensure that its data are used properly. Clients who misuse information risk contract termination, ChoicePoint's Lee said.

Americans have said repeatedly in national surveys that they favor stronger privacy laws, especially with the rise of identity theft. But privacy advocates say the United States tends to be reactive rather than proactive.

That, coupled with strong business and marketing groups who lobby against changes in privacy laws, keeps information open and available, they say.

"Public records were created to ensure that the government is acting fairly," Hoofnagle said.

"The problem is since there aren't restrictions on the use of these files, private companies can go in and suck up as much information as they can and resell them for any purpose they please."

By FILADELFO ALEMAN <a href=www.heraldtribune.com>The Herald Tribune.com Associated Press Writer

Police raided the offices of two Nicaraguan businesses accused of selling government files to a U.S. data-gathering company, and discovered one of them had a database containing federal voting records, authorities said Friday.

Also Friday, the U.S. data vendor, ChoicePoint Inc. said it was preparing a response to an inquiry from Mexico's federal elections agency. The e-mailed request asked ChoicePoint to identify Mexican companies hired to purchase a database of Mexicans' personal details.

ChoicePoint said it bought official registry files from subcontractors in Nicaragua and Mexico, as well as Colombia, Venezuela, Costa Rica, Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador.

The Atlanta-based company sells Internet access to the information to the U.S. immigration service, Justice Department and other agencies.

While ChoicePoint has refused to name the sellers, Nicaraguan authorities believe the businesses Informacion en Linea de Nicaragua and the local rental car company Targa sold confidential records.

Late Thursday, authorities raided both companies' headquarters in the capital, Managua, and discovered electoral records stored on Targa's computers.

ChoicePoint marketing director James Lee said his company buys citizen data from a single subcontractor in Nicaragua which he declined to identify. The file contains Nicaraguans' names, dates of birth, addresses, telephone numbers and citizen ID numbers, Lee said.

The company sells similar details on 65 million Mexicans, along with drivers license data on 6 million residents of Mexico City.

Computers and databases controlled by Nicaragua's Targa and Informacion en Linea contained credit card information, judicial and property records and even cell phone numbers for President Enrique Bolanos and other top-ranking government officials, a police spokesman told reporters Friday.

This week, Interior Minister Eduardo Urcuyo said the government would file criminal charges against anyone who sold government files.

Urcuyo said authorities believe the two companies whose offices were raided as well as six other Nicaraguan businesses sold confidential records to ChoicePoint.

Authorities in Nicaragua, Mexico and Costa Rica started investigating the data sales after The Associated Press revealed the U.S. government's purchases of the information earlier this month.

In Mexico last week, Interior Minister Santiago Creel said sales of Mexican voter rolls to ChoicePoint would be investigated as a "criminal act."

A leader of Mexico's former ruling party acknowledged that political parties had access to the voter rolls but said paid political consultants - not politicians - may have been responsible for the data transfers.

In an interview Friday with The Associated Press, federal prosecutor Maria de los Angeles Fromow said officials from ChoicePoint had not volunteered information on how they purchased the Mexican data.

She added that officials planned to try to subpoena Choicepoint officials, with the help of the U.S. Justice Department and possibly the Mexican foreign relations department.

ChoicePoint insists it purchases the data legally through local subcontractors who certify the files are being sold for permissible uses. Lee said ChoicePoint researches privacy laws in each country to abide by prohibitions on data sales or uses.

Other than the inquiry from Mexican elections authorities, Lee said ChoicePoint has received no correspondence from other governments in the region. He said the company would cooperate with any investigation.

ChoicePoint would consider requests by Mexico or other governments to halt sales of its citizens' personal details during an investigation, Lee said.

"If it's determined the information isn't validly obtained, then we'd certainly pull it back. But we have absolutely no reason to believe that," he said.

Lee noted that ChoicePoint doesn't purchase Mexico's full electoral database. He said the company does not receive voters' fingerprints or photos.

Over the past 18 months, the U.S. government has bought access to data on hundreds of millions of residents of 10 Latin American countries, allowing myriad federal agencies to track foreigners entering and living in the United States.

ChoicePoint sells the information to U.S. government officials in three dozen agencies, including federal immigration investigators who've used it to arrest illegal immigrants.

Most of the files appear to originate in agencies that register voters or issue national IDs and drivers licenses. The company's contracts require data sellers to declare they obtained the information legally.

AP Technology Writer Jim Krane in New York contributed to this report.

Last modified: April 25. 2003 9:41PM

<a href=www.voanews.com>VOA News17 Apr 2003, 16:41 UTC

Colin PowellU.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell has called on Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez to hold a free and fair a referendum on his presidency later this year.

In an interview Wednesday with Associated Press Television, Mr. Powell said he has "concerns" over Mr. Chavez's commitment to key democratic institutions.

Hugo ChavezBut he said the referendum will be a test for Mr. Chavez to show a commitment to what Mr. Powell called "the correct form of democracy for our hemisphere."

The Organization of American States last week helped broker a deal between Venezuela's government and opposition to pave the way for holding a midterm referendum on Mr. Chavez's rule.

Mr. Chavez has noted Venezuela's constitution requires the opposition to collect 2.5 million voter signatures to hold the referendum. If approved, the vote is expected to take place after August 19.

<a href=www.vheadline.com>Venezuela's Electronic News Posted: Thursday, April 17, 2003 By: Patrick J. O'Donoghue

US Secretary of State Colin Powell has been turning his attention south of the border and says Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez Frias has an excellent chance of showing that he is indeed a democrat if he commits himself to a recall referendum. 

Powell admits that he has had doubts about the Venezuelan President's democratic record, and wants to make it quite clear that when he talks about democracy, he means US democracy. 

If Chavez Frias is ready to submit to a recall referendum and accept the active role of the Organization of American states (OAS) and the Carter center, Powell hammers home, the Venezuelan President would be "demonstrating a commitment to the kind of democracy that we consider correct in our hemisphere." 

Ignoring the 1999 Constitution's emphasis on participative democracy, Powell adds that it's up to the Venezuelan people to decide the type of democracy that it wishes to develop in Venezuela.

Forums

Referendum 2003 discuss the pros and cons of a revocatory referendum

President Hugo Chavez Frias express your opinions on the Presidency of Hugo Chavez Frias and his Bolivarian Revolution

Bolivarian Circles Are Bolivarian Circles a Venezuelan form of Neighborhood Watch Committees or violent hordes of pro-Chavez thugs?

Venezuela's Opposition What is it? Is a force to be reckoned with or in complete disarray?

Our editorial statement reads: VHeadline.com Venezuela is a wholly independent e-publication promoting democracy in its fullest expression and the inalienable  right of all Venezuelans to self-determination and the pursuit of sovereign independence without interference. We seek to shed light on nefarious practices and the corruption which for decades has strangled this South American nation's development and progress. Our declared editorial bias is pro-democracy and pro-Venezuela ... which some may wrongly interpret as anti-American. --  Roy S. Carson, Editor/Publisher  Editor@VHeadline.com

Associated Press Thursday, 17 April 2003, 2:18 pm Press Release: US State Department Washington, DC April 16, 2003

QUESTION: Mr. Secretary, to start with an easy one, Saddam Hussein. It's been awhile since we've heard whether the U.S. knows if he's dead or alive or -- is there any new information on that?

SECRETARY POWELL: No, not that I have. We don't know if he's dead or alive and we're not making any claims or statements until we actually do know.

The fact of the matter is, though, he is gone. Whether he is dead or alive, he is gone. He is no longer in the lives of the people of Iraq. The dictator has been removed and his entire regime has been removed, and you can see the joy on the faces of the people of Iraq when faced with the absence of Saddam Hussein and his regime.

QUESTION: Now, the notion that your suspicions that Syria has given haven to some Baath Party people, some Iraqi Government people, is there any more evidence of that? Because I don't think they've ever been directly accused of it, but the U.S. was concerned they might be doing it.

SECRETARY POWELL: We have provided some information to the Syrians that there are individuals that we believe are in Syria who should be returned to Iraq so that they can be held for the justice of the Iraqi people. And we have been candid with the Syrians and we have also made clear to the Syrians that we don't think it would be in their interest to be a draw for people who are trying to either get out of Iraq or get out of other places in the world and find a safe haven. Syria does not want to be a safe haven in the aftermath of Operation Iraqi Freedom.

QUESTION: Apart from this touchy issue, is there a discourse already going on? The Syrians were saying today in Damascus that they're having quiet diplomacy with the U.S. I don't know if it's an intent or an actual beginning of something, because you have said you would hope there is a place for them ultimately in an overall settlement. Are we doing anything with them directly at this point?

SECRETARY POWELL: Well, we're doing quite a bit. If you recall earlier in the year, every time I went to New York for a UN meeting I had occasion to meet or say hello, or at least have words, with my Syrian counterpart, Foreign Minister Shara, and we have spoken on the phone a month or two ago with respect to UN resolutions and other matters. We have a very vigorous diplomatic exchange with them through our Ambassador in Damascus, Ambassador Kattouf, and lots of messages have been passed back and forth in that channel.

In addition, I've used visits of some of my fellow foreign ministers. Foreign Minister Straw, Foreign Minister Palacio, Foreign Minister de Villepin, have all been to Syria in the recent past; and coming up, Foreign Minister Palacio will be there this weekend, and I spoke to her today about messages she might deliver.

I have been to Syria twice and I would expect to travel to Syria again to have very candid and straightforward discussions with my foreign ministercolleague and with President Bashar Assad.

QUESTION: On these talks that have begun of the Iraqi groups, opponents all of Saddam Hussein, are you satisfied that we've launched a good process? There have been some grumblings that not all Iraqi groups are represented, and I wondered if this -- long question, but is this a lead-on, a lead-up to some sort of a U.S. military occupation, or do we get out of the way as quickly as we can?

SECRETARY POWELL: No, there will have to be a governing authority in Iraq for this initial period after hostilities are declared over, and that will have to be a military authority. We have obligations under Hague and Geneva Conventions to act as that kind of authority.

But, as quickly as we can, we want to transition this more and more to civilian authorities, as represented by General Garner and the civilians who are working for him from a variety of government agencies, and as quickly as we can after that, move it to the Iraqi people themselves, initially with an interim authority that we hope will be able to take on government-like elements to it and government-like activities, while waiting to become the government.

And so we hope that the process that was started this week, with people coming together representing different factions within Iraq, was a good start. They all came together. They talked about democracy. They thanked the coalition. They're glad Saddam Hussein is gone. They want to build the right kind of country and the right kind of government.

I think it was a very promising start. Now, the fact that there were some who were happy with it or demonstrated, that, in and of itself, is a remarkable thing when you consider when we're in beautiful, downtown Iraq, that people can actually do that and demonstrate and protest without fear of any repression. This is a change, and a healthy change.

QUESTION: A quick one on the Middle East and I'll give way to my colleague here. You've spoken many times of the U.S. announcing the roadmap once things were in place on the Palestinian side. I just wonder if you're going to do the announcing on the trip to the Middle East, if you care to tell us whether we should pack our bags.

But you spoke just a moment ago about Syria. Will you get into this thing personally on the ground there pretty soon?

SECRETARY POWELL: The term of art we use with respect to the roadmap is that we will release it to the parties. And the President has made it clear that as soon as there is a Prime Minister in the Palestinian Authority who has been confirmed by a vote of confidence by the Palestinian Legislative Council, we will release the roadmap to the parties. That is almost an administrative action; it doesn't require me to do it.

But I think as soon as that has happened and both sides have accepted the roadmap and the rest of the world has seen the roadmap, we will see a more -- a much more active American engagement, for the simple reason we now have a Prime Minister on the Palestinian side that we can work with. And so you will see us become much more active, both with my own involvement and travels, as well as in other ways. The President will be much more deeply involved and much more active.

With the confirmation of a Prime Minister on the Palestinian side and with Prime Minister Sharon, through his elections and the formation of a new government, we do have a new situation. And the most dramatic part of that new situation, the most dramatic element, is the Palestinian Prime Minister, because the President said in his speech on June 24th last year that we needed new transforming leadership to arise out of the Palestinian Authority; Yasser Arafat was, frankly, a failed leader. And with a new Prime Minister, we have that transformed leadership, and with other ministers that we know about already, such as the Finance Minister Mr. Fayyad, who is doing such a good job.

QUESTION: Mr. Secretary, North Korea. Could you talk about your hopes and aspirations for the Beijing meeting, the three-way meeting?

SECRETARY POWELL: Well, as was reported today, we have been in intense consultation with our friends in the region and we have now put in place arrangements for a multilateral meeting, initially consisting of the United States, North Korea and China. And we hope this meeting will take place in the near future, we hope it might be next week, but we'll have to see the reaction we get from the news of this arrangement.

The Chinese are playing a very active role and they will be there as a participating party, not just as a convener of the meeting. And we will keep the South Koreans and the Japanese and the Russians and other interested nations in the region, the Australians, completely informed on what we are doing.

So I think this is good news. This is good news for the region. It is good news for North Korea, frankly, because it gives them the opportunity to present their positions, to come into this trilateral meeting and speak candidly in front of the United States and the Chinese with respect to their concerns; and it gives us the opportunity to do the same; and it gives the Chinese, who have a commitment to a non-nuclear Korean Peninsula, to express their point of view as well.

We hope that this initial meeting will be just that, an initial meeting where positions are discussed and explained, and where there will be a basis created for follow-on meetings. We're not looking for a solution in one meeting of a couple days' duration. We believe this is a beginning of a long, intense process of discussion.

We will lay out clearly the concerns we have with respect to their nuclear weapons development programs and other weapons of mass destruction, their proliferation activities, missile programs, and all the other issues that I think they are familiar with already.

QUESTION: Are the North Koreans doing anything else besides agreeing toattend the meeting that you find interesting? Have they lowered their rhetoric? Are they rethinking their nuclear program in any way that you're aware of?

SECRETARY POWELL: We've made it clear that we were placing no conditions on the meeting. We are not afraid of talking. We're not reluctant to talk to those who wish to talk to us, and this was a case of just coming up with the necessary arrangements. We are hopeful, however, that nothing will happen that would make the political environment difficult for such meetings, and right now I think the political environment is relatively calm and satisfactory and lends itself to such a meeting. We hope it stays that way.

I will not speculate on what they might or might not be thinking about with respect to the future of their nuclear weapons programs. The programs are important to them, but the programs are also a hindrance to them in their desire to create better lives for their people.

QUESTION: When you're saying the political environment is calm, it seemed like daily, for months on end, they were issuing provocative statements. Has that stopped, more or less?

SECRETARY POWELL: Well, they always have a way of delivering provocative statements on a daily basis, but they seem to be not particularly more provocative than usual. And so by the standards of normal discourse between us and the DPRK, it is a relatively calm period right now and I hope it stays that way.

It's important to note that the President is looking for a diplomatic solution. The President has said repeatedly that we will stand on principle, we will express our concerns candidly and clearly, but there are many tools available to the United States to deal with these kinds of proliferation problems and issues. And in this case, he is anxious to find a political solution, a diplomatic solution.

QUESTION: Your friend Jorge Castaneda, the former foreign minister of Mexico, has written in Foreign Affairs Magazine some interesting things about U.S. relations with Mexico and with Latin America. A brief quote. He says, "The United States has replaced its previous, more visionary approach to relations in the Western Hemisphere with a total focus on security matters. This disengagement is dangerous because it undermines the progress made in recent years in economic reform and democratization. Rarely in the history of U.S.-Latin American relations have both the challenges and the opportunities for the United States been so great. It is certainly not a time for indifference."

What do you say to that?

SECRETARY POWELL: Well, I have great respect for former Foreign Secretary Jorge Castaneda. We became close friends and associates while we worked together. But I disagree with his analysis.

The United States, of course, has security concerns. Every nation in the world, and especially in this hemisphere, after 9/11 should have security concerns about defending yourselves against terrorists who might come across your border; but at the same time, we're working hard to make sure the United States remains an open society. We want to see an open hemisphere from Canada all the way down to Chile, and that's why we have committed ourselves to a Community of Democracies that was identified at the Quebec Summit at the beginning of President Bush's administration; that's why we're committed to a Free Trade Area of the Americas; that's why we're working on bilateral trade agreements with nations throughout the hemisphere; it's why the President had the Central American Presidents, the five Central American Presidents, up here just a few days ago to talk about progress toward creating a Central American Free Trade Area.

That's why the President created the Millennium Challenge Account. And a lot of the monies in the Millennium Challenge Account, which is new aid money that will go to those nations committed to democracy but who are in need, I suspect will benefit some of our Caribbean American friends.

So we have a rich agenda that includes security as an item, but also economic development, social development, counterterrorism activity, counter-drug activity.

I spent a good part of my time up before Congress this hearings' season talking about our counter-drug initiatives and talking about what we want to do with the countries of the Andean region to help them with alternative forms of economic development and alternatives to drugs, and all sorts of things. So I think our agenda is a rich one and it's a full one. And it certainly goes far beyond security.

QUESTION: On Venezuela, do you think that President Hugo Chavez is a reliable democrat who can be counted on to preserve democratic institutions built up over 40 years in Venezuela?

SECRETARY POWELL: We have had some concerns about President Chavez and his commitment to the kinds of democratic institutions that we believe are vital within a democracy, as we know democracy to exist in this hemisphere. And he is going to be given a test in the very near future, and a test is before him now.

Representatives of his government and representatives of the opposition have come up with a constitutional solution to the current crisis, putting in place a referendum -- a recall referendum -- to be held later this year. And it is now before President Chavez. And I think if he accepts this referendum and comes into agreement with the opposition and allows the Carter Center and the OAS and others to put this all in play, and to allow the Friends of Venezuela, of which America is one, a group called Friends of Venezuela, to help bring this referendum about later in the year, then he will be showing a commitment to democracy of the kind that we believe is the correct form of democracy for our hemisphere.

But it's up to the people of Venezuela to make that judgment, and this referendum will allow the people of Venezuela to make that judgment as to what kind of democracy they want to see in their country.

QUESTION: Thank you. If I can stay in the region for a minute. The UN Human Rights Commission put off the vote on Cuba today and the debate is, the curtain is collapsing. And I'm wondering -- your tone has been consistently harsh. You've called it horrible, this situation. What else can the U.S. do to get a meaningful censure, one that isn't too watered-down nor too stiff that it can't get passed?

SECRETARY POWELL: Well, as you know, the vote's been put off until tomorrow, the 17th, and I have been calling foreign ministers in various parts of the world this afternoon to encourage them to vote for a resolution that would point out Cuba's terrible human rights record.

The Costa Ricans have come forward with an amendment that toughens the original Latin American Resolution -- and that toughening takes account of some of Cuba's recent actions against dissidents, against people who are just speaking out and trying to exercise their democratic rights -- human rights -- of free speech, and they are being thrown in jail for 10, 15, 20 years.

So I think the Costa Rican amendment is appropriate, and I hope that those voting will recognize that it is in the interest of human rights for the Cuban people for them to vote for that resolution with that Costa Rican amendment.

The Cubans, predictably, tried to undercut it all with two killer-amendments, and if you voted for the Cuban amendments, you would essentially be destroying the resolution. So, once again, the Cubans are doing everything they can imagine to try to keep the Geneva Human Rights Commission from speaking the truth with respect to the situation in Cuba. And I hope that by tomorrow the nations in Geneva will come together and vote in a way that shows that this august body in Geneva finds the Cuban human rights situation to be deplorable and worthy of censure.

QUESTION: Okay. If we look at -- more than a year has passed after taking control in Afghanistan. The U.S. is still engaged in a process of helping with an effective government, but they've been plagued by problems. So if you look at Afghanistan and you look at Iraq and meeting our -- what lessons do you think we've learned from that process in Afghanistan that maybe can be applied to Iraq?

SECRETARY POWELL: Well, you say we've been plagued by problems. I would also submit that we have been blessed with success.

Afghanistan is now being led by a President who represents all of the people. We are seeing a government grow and become more effective with each passing day. A national army is being created and growing and is committed to the nation. We are seeing some economic activity really start in the country. However, there's still some instability within the country and there are some dangerous areas throughout the country.

I would submit that it is an incredible record of success. We are now using our military forces to provide a presence in the outlying provinces that will give more confidence to the people and we're going to chase down al-Qaida and Taliban outfits. The campaign isn't over in Afghanistan, but I think that we have seen a great deal of success.

In Iraq, you have an entirely different country and it's obviously in a different situation. But I think the experience that General Franks and his commanders obtained in Afghanistan with respect to the use of special forces, with respect to the providing of security in cities, with respect to integrating their work with that of the United Nations and other agencies, all of the lessons that were learned there will be applied to Iraq.

QUESTION: But Iraq is different.

SECRETARY POWELL: Iraq is not a broken country. Iraq has a great deal of potential. This war did not destroy Iraq to the point where reconstruction is necessary. Saddam Hussein destroyed Iraq to the point that reconstruction of the kind we're talking about is necessary, and that reconstruction will be financed, for the most part by the Iraqis because they have oil. They have the wealth of oil that will allow them to rebuild their country and not build weapons of mass destruction.

And so we have different situations and I think we will use the lessons of Afghanistan, but not misuse the lessons of Afghanistan. I have enormous confidence in General Franks and his commanders, in General Garner and his people, and all of the State Department people that I've sent over to work with General Garner.

Thank you very much.

[End]

Released on April 16, 2003