Senate Appropriations Subcommittee on Foreign Operation Holds Hearing on FY2004 Appropriations

FDCH TRANSCRIPTS
Congressional Hearings
Apr. 30, 2003

Senate Appropriations Subcommittee on Foreign Operation Holds Hearing on FY2004 Appropriations

DEWINE:

Mr. Secretary, thank you for being with us. And thank you very much for your good comments about the men and women who represent us in the foreign service. It's been my experience, as I'm sure it's been members of the committee and Congress as we've traveled around the world, these are our best and brightest. And they are very dedicated people. And thank you for commenting about them, and thank you for leading them.

Let me also say it's always a privilege to deal with Secretary Armitage as well. He is a pleasure to deal with as well.

Let me say it was good to be at the White House yesterday. And thank you for your leadership and thank you—thanks to the president for his leadership in regard to the AIDS issue.

I want to ask about that. I want to ask about the new special coordinator for international AIDS assistance that you are going to appoint at State. And let me ask you how that's going to work, how that person is going to coordinate his or her work with HHS, CDC, NIH? How is that all going to come together?

POWELL:

The coordinator will be in the Department of State. And I am still looking at the best organizational arrangement, whether it remains a special office or it actually becomes a bureau. There's a lot of money here, and I have to make sure I have the right kind of organizational structure for it. But even though the person is lodged in State, the very title of special coordinator, suggests that he has a much broader role. And I would expect that I would enter into memorandums of understanding and agreement with Secretary Thompson and with all of the other agencies of the administration that have an equity and an interest in how this money is used.

POWELL:

And I don't think there will be any coordination problem.

But this individual would be have the one—would be the one who would have the authority to allocate the funds to USAID, to HHS. And he would also be tasked with developing partnerships between government, private sector and international organizations, whether it's UNICEF, WHO, UNDP as to how the money would be spent.

DEWINE:

What's the timetable on that?

POWELL:

As soon as I can and as soon as we have the necessary authorities and appropriations from the Congress, we're on it. We're looking through the organizational arrangement—we're trying to establish the organizational arrangements now, and we're looking at candidates for the job.

DEWINE:

Good.

Let me just turn, if I could, to this hemisphere, and I appreciate your emphasis on this hemisphere. It's vitally important, particularly meeting with the president of Colombia. I wish you well. I had the opportunity to travel to Colombia about a month ago and meet with him. And the president is just a courageous individual. We need to hang in there.

POWELL:

I was there a couple of months ago myself.

DEWINE:

I know you were. I know you were.

Let me ask about Haiti. Continuing—my impression is the situation continues to deteriorate. Assuming the OAS mission is unable to facilitate a political situation, where do you think we go from there?

Let me just say I support the administration's position. We cannot—with the current political situation in Haiti, we cannot channel money through the government of Haiti.

Let me also add before you answer the question, I believe for humanitarian reasons, with as poor as the country is and what I have seen in Haiti—and I've travelled there, you know, many times—I believe we need to consider increasing the humanitarian assistance through the NGOs. A lot of places that we can put that money to do a lot of good down there. And that would be my...

POWELL:

No...

DEWINE:

... pitch for the day. But I would ask you, where do we go politically?