Speech before the Los Angeles World Affairs Council on March 28

Speech before the Los Angeles World Affairs Council on March 28, 2002:

The Honorable Dianne Feinstein
United States Senator from California

Global Poverty and the War on Terrorism

Thank you very much, Dr. Rice. I’m really very pleased to be back at the World Affairs Council.This has indeed been an interesting week.As you know, we passed campaigning spending reform and the President subsequently signed the Bill.I came back to California, and on Monday I spent the day in Fresno speaking to a large Chamber of Commerce group, Tuesday speaking at the Silicon Valley manufacturing group on water, on Wednesday in Riverside County speaking to a large civic audience and today in Los Angeles.Tomorrow, my husband and I go to China to meet with the leadership, including the President of China, and hopefully the new leadership, then on to Taiwan where I hope to meet with the President of Taiwan as well.So, I’m just very pleased to be here to talk a little bit about foreign policy -- and because he’s put up with a great deal from me, I’d like you all to meet my husband. I’m very proud of him -- my husband, Dick Blum.

I’d like to talk about three things today, if I could. The war against terrorism, what’s happening in the Middle East, the poverty in the developing world that I believe is a breeding ground for terrorism and finally some critical issues facing us in the Pacific Rim and specifically with Asia.

It took December 7^th to bring the United States into the Second World War.To a great extent the attack on 9/11 brought this nation together. It unified us and began the launch of a war that really is unprecedented in the history of the world – a war specifically against terrorism and specifically against those who conspired, who worked and who perpetrated these very evil and barbaric acts. The symbolism of those acts was not lost on us as Americans. The two World Trade Center Buildings, why?Because they were the economic symbols of democratic America.The attack on the Pentagon, because it was the main symbol of America’s military power.Many of us believe that the fourth plane involved that went down in a field in Pennsylvania was really headed either to the United States Capitol building or to the White House. So as Americans we have come together, united behind our President, to fight this war on terrorism. We in the Congress gave the President of the United States not a declaration of war in the traditional methodology – because, as you know, the duty in the Constitution to wage war and declare war is exclusively a Congressional duty and we take that very seriously -- we gave the President a resolution authorizing him, and in a sense limiting it, but authorizing him to take necessary military action against those who perpetrated the 9/11 events.Having said that, that began a major military operation in Afghanistan.

Well, the operation has gone well, but no one should believe that it is over.I, myself, think it is far from over.Much of the Al Qaeda forces and the Taliban forces have escaped. We suspect that they will reconnoiter, we expect now that the snows are melting that they will begin to attack our forces billeted in various areas in Afghanistan.We also know that Osama bin Laden and Mullah Omar are at large and we know that we may have taken out a few of the Al Qaeda leadership, but it runs around a quarter of the top 24, no more.And we also know that Al Qaeda is probably the best financed, most organized and smartest-run terrorist operation in the world today.There are sleeper cells in anywhere from 40 to 60 countries and those include our own. So this is an organization that is capable of delivering a trained, armed and expensed fighting force of terrorism numbering in the thousands, particularly in the Middle East, at any given time.

So, the United States really needs to be prepared and Americans need to be prepared to stay the course and to remain engaged in this long and difficult task of peacekeeping in Afghanistan. Currently our forces are in the main located in Kabul.That’s really now enough.The government of Hamid Karzai, a transitional government in there for a brief six month period of time, already having two of its ministers killed, has a very difficult time in being able to transition this country which has a series of warlord and a history of fighting.The settlement of disputes by fighting it would be very difficult to transfer this very undeveloped country into a thriving democratically-centered economy. It won’t be done overnight, but it needs our attention, it needs our constant care.We cannot do what has been done before -- move in there and move out -- because history will then repeat itself.So the message I want to leave with you today on the war on terrorism is that we must continue to be vigilant overseas and at home.

One of my assignments in the Senate is to serve on the Senate Intelligence Committee, and it is this Committee that oversees the secret aspect of our government which is our intelligence-gathering in the government by the CIA and by the intelligence community. It is fair to say that we have a long way to go to bring our intelligence efforts, which were really based on an old Soviet Union dynamic, into this new dynamic of terrorism, of being able to produce the data, identify the suspects and see that all of the data bases in the government are inter-operable: State Department, CIA, FBI.That is not now the case, and it has produced real problems in the sense that all 19 of the highjackers had legitimate visas.In the span of six months after 9/11, visa extensions were sent out to at least two of them who were dead; [it was] on the front pages of the newspapers. That tells you something about the work that has to be done in our Immigration and Naturalization Service.

I want to touch for a moment on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict because the more I look at matters in the Middle East the more I really believe that this conflict is seminal and settlement of the conflict is seminal to our ability to be able to have other Arabic nations on our side in this war against terrorism.Unfortunately, yesterday, on the first day of Passover, another suicide bomber struck in Netanya.Netanya is a small beach city.It is six miles from the West Bank and it is north of Tel Aviv.So far the damage is extensive.It is comparable in Israel to what 9/11 was to us with our population. So far, twenty families, some entire families, have been destroyed, over one hundred people are badly hurt, forty-eight of them are in critical condition today. And this was done at a religious dinner of people coming out of synagogue going into a room and sitting down to have Seder dinner. Ladies and gentlemen, Yasser Arafat must shut down these suicide bombers or else I believe there will be no opportunity for peace in the Middle East.

Yesterday at the Arab Summit we all heard where the plan of the Crown Prince of Saudi Arabia, Prince Abdullah, was essentially accepted.We also know that Egypt wasn’t there.We know that Jordan wasn’t there.We know the Palestinians walked out, but essentially there is a very small window of opportunity in this peace vision submitted by the Crown Prince. There are a lot of issues that need to be settled. Jerusalem is a very thorny issue; the right of return is a very thorny issue; the settlements on the West Bank as well.But they can be settled, I think, along the lines that President Clinton had proposed. I would have to say that the bombing yesterday was precisely calculated by Hamas to destroy any chance of peace. The bomber, ladies and gentlemen, was on a list submitted by Israel asking the Palestinians to arrest this individual, and yet they did not make that arrest.And so the result was this Passover massacre.If the suicide bombings are not stopped, Israel has every right, I believe, to defend herself and she should do so.I’ll never forget Golda Meier saying something when I was a small child. What she said was “We Israelis refuse to lie down and die just so the world can think well of us.” It’s very apt today, decades later.

Now, what can the United States do? If there is an acceptance or a legitimate negotiation of the Saudi peace plan, or any other plan, and the stopping of the bombing within a reasonable period time, I think progress can be made. If this doesn’t happen, on my return we are going to begin to push a piece of legislation that Senator Mitch McConnell of Kentucky and I offered last year.At the request of Secretary Powell, we held it in abeyance, but this legislation essentially would deny visas to this country to the PLO and Palestinian Authority officials.It would close down the PLO office in the United States, it would designate the PLO and specific military arms of the PLO like Fatah and the Al-Aqsa Brigade as terrorist organizations and it would prohibit and stop all American assistance to the West Bank and Gaza Strip.Someone said something to me in Riverside yesterday, supervisors, for whom I have a great respect, and he said, “You know, most real peace seekers have been willing to die for their vision of peace.”That was certainly true of Anwar Sadat in the first Camp David talks, it was certainly true of Yitzhak Rabin, it was certainly true of Prime Minister Barak, who put everything on the line, giving the Palestinians virtually everything they had asked for, so much so that he lost reelection as Prime Minister. This is not the case with respect to Yasser Arafat.I think as a nation we really need to begin to come to terms with that if we’re going to develop the correct solutions to be able to solve this dilemma.

Let me speak also about Iraq because there is a great deal being said about it.Over the past two decades, Saddam Hussein has sought, no question about it, to develop a nuclear program.He has used chemical and biological weapons against his own people and he has invaded his neighbors and threatened others in the region, including Israel. Furthermore, he has an estimated 400 weapons of mass destruction sites in Iraq, some under schools, some under mosques, some under his many dozen palaces, some in hospitals and some in underground bunkers. I have to believe that unilateral action by the President against Iraq right now is very poorly advised. The challenges of taking action against Iraq underscore, I think, the need for the United States to work with our friends and allies in the region if we are able to take any effective action against Iraq.Nor is the President authorized by the Congress to wage war in Iraq. The War Powers Resolution is very specific in that regard.

In concert with the United Nations, the United States must therefore seek additional inspections to provide Iraq with one last chance opportunity to either work with the international community or to admit to guilt and let the international community impose the sanctions. Ultimately, if we decide that military action is appropriate, we should consult with our allies and build the kind of coalition that supported our efforts in the Gulf War – especially those countries that will be impacted directly by this effort.

As we begin to fight this war against terrorism, we really can’t overlook the fact that poverty is really a contributing factor. Poverty is well established as producing hopelessness.It is also a breeding ground for terrorists.When I often ask people how much of our budget do you actually think goes for foreign assistance, they often respond, “10 percent, 12 per cent, 15 per cent of our budget.”In fact, United States foreign assistance spending is just 8/10ths of one per cent of the budget, with less than 6/10^thsof one percent going to development assistance -- and yet 2.8 billion people on this planet, Earth, live in abject poverty, getting by on $2 a day or less.That’s less than a cappuccino at Starbucks.Close to one billion people are undernourished, 1.2 billion lack access to even safe drinking water and 2.9 billion do not have access to adequate sanitation. Deep poverty breeds religious fanaticism and this is the breeding ground that produces the terrorists of today. Yet as a country, the strongest, most economically developed, most powerful country on earth, we do so little to eradicate these conditions.

Several months ago, I introduced legislation to triple our foreign aid budget over the next five years, so I was extraordinarily pleased when President Bush committed last week to increasing United States foreign aid by spending an additional $10 billion over three years, beginning in 2004. This additional $10 billion represents a significant increase in resources devoted to foreign assistance aid, although it is still well short of our historic levels. In 1946, right after World War II for instance, the United States devoted some 3 percent of its federal budget to foreign assistance. A high-water mark was again reached under the Kennedy Administration, but since then it has gone steadily downhill. A tripling of our foreign aid budget would simply bring us up to post-World War II levels. The argument for increasing aid holds as true today as it ever did before.I believe very deeply that it is within our country’s national interest to bring aid and functioning democratic institutions to regions that might otherwise wallow in poverty, involve themselves in religious fanaticism, provide safe havens for terrorists and, yes, ladies and gentlemen, grow a generation of terrorists that will even plague our grandchildren.

I also find it very amazing in Washington to see how much time our policymakers tend to gaze East into the European theatre and the NATO nations across the Atlantic.To paraphrase Secretary of State John Hay, the Mediterranean was the ocean of the past, the Atlantic was the ocean of the present and the Pacific, he said many years ago, was the ocean of the future. Well, that future is here today. More than 60 percent of the people on Earth live on both sides of the Pacific Ocean.The Pacific is the world’s largest trading basin.It is our largest trading basin.Trade with Asia accounts for well over 30 percent of the United States’ exports and well over 40 percent of our imports.In total, trade with Asia today is 500 billion dollars a year. With Europe it is about 150 billion dollars a year.I do not mean to say we should in any way, shape or form neglect our European allies. They have been a bulwark of strength and support for us.Nor should we ignore our NATO commitments.We were the major founding nation of NATO and we must maintain that and see it improve and even, yes, expand.However, as our ties with Asia become stronger the regional issues there take on an increased importance. So, let’s talk about a few of the hot spots briefly.

Two of the most chilling events at the close of the last century were the Indian and Pakistani nuclear tests in 2000, reminding us that the world, indeed, remains a perilous place. It is fair to say that either nation in a matter of days can deliver several nuclear devices, at least the size of the atomic bomb at Hiroshima, and we know that they are bitter enemies. We know that they have been engaged in a decades-old dispute over Kashmir.I believe very strongly that our administration must devote the time and attention necessary to see that the nuclear arms race in South Asia is contained and that both India and Pakistan have the opportunity to reap the benefits of democracy and free markets. We are all very grateful to President Musharraf of Pakistan for his support, and he has taken extraordinary steps to safeguard their nuclear sites.We are also grateful to the democracy of India that has been a longstanding ally of our country.So I would suggest that South Asia offers a major opportunity to both the United States and, yes, to China, to work together to develop the security partnership that serves the interests of the parties involved and also, for once in fifty years to solve the Kashmiri issue.

Now, so long as North Korea maintains its conventional military strength and missile technology and continues to seek nuclear, chemical, or biological weapons, any crisis on the Korean Peninsula has tremendous regional and global effects. For us, we have over 35,000 American men and women in our Armed Forces based on the border between North and South Korea. Now, this does not necessarily make North Korea part of an axis of evil, but it does make a deeply troubling challenge that must be dealt with by the United States and the international community. It is my hope that North Korea will adhere to the agreed formula worked out during the Clinton Administration and that South Korea will continue the Sunshine Policy, of gradually opening her borders, begun by President Kim Dae Jung.As you know, South Korea is involved in an election, the presidency will be turning over, and this becomes a very pivotal time.The best of all worlds would be to see this Sunshine Policy continue and, if North Korea stays with the agreed formula -- which means giving up their pursuit of nuclear weapons -- there will be a light water reactor provided to them by South Korea.

Japan has always formed the bulwark of our strategic alliance in the Pacific, and I’m one who agrees that a very strong United States-Japanese partnership is critical to peace and stability in Asia. It’s really the bedrock on which all our other policies are developed in the region. So, our ties with Japan should not take a secondary role as our Sino-American relationship develops. Japan can play an important role as an engine of economic growth, particularly once it makes its necessary economic reforms and decides to open its markets to free trade.

Finally, let me say a few words about China on my way there.I believe very strongly that the American relationship with China is the most critical bilateral relationship in the world today for the United States of America. How we develop that relationship will determine whether we have a stable bloc for peace in the world or a very unstable bloc that could create a third world war.Next week I’ll have the opportunity to meet with the President of China, Jiang Zemin, the opportunity to meet with the President of Taiwan, Chen Shui-bian, and the opportunity to meet with the Chief Executive of Hong Kong, Tung Che-Wa. I believe very strongly that how we approach this relationship with China is critical to both our countries. I deeply believe that we must engage China, and that’s why I’ve been such a strong supporter of its entry into the World Trade Organization.

I don’t believe for a minute that we could contain China.It’s simply not possible, it isn’t realistic and, thankfully, it is not the policy of the present administration in our country.Instead, I think we must fully undertake a program of constructive engagement, which I believe will help develop due process of law, improve human rights and certainly result in modern legal institutions. President Bush has already been to Beijing. That’s a very good sign. Both President Jiang Zemin and the future president, Hu Jintao will likely visit Washington and also San Francisco later this year. This is a great sign, because if the past thirty years of Sino-American relations have taught us anything, it’s that high-level attention on both sides must be paid to this relationship and the relationships at the highest levels will produce the most problem solving and the most constructive attitudes.As one who has watched China closely over the last 30 years, studied its history and its culture, I deeply believe that this relationship demands and deserves constant ongoing high-level attention.

But as we look at issues that remain between our countries, we see a great deal of progress and much of what remains to be accomplished.America’s main concerns still continue to be missile proliferation and the trading of missile materials to other countries.Our main concern continues to be the relationship with Taiwan and Human Rights. I deeply believe that, as China opens to the West, as its standard of living for her people improves and her economy and education develops, that individual and human rights will also improve. As Jiang Zemin said to me, “You can’t take a country that has seen the rule of man for 5,000 years and overnight turn it into a country that observes the rule of law. But the rule of law must be the goal.” So fundamental to what is happening is the development of a rule of law and by law, with an independent judiciary not currently present in China. It is dependent on the politicians – huge mistake.A modern criminal and commercial code and due process to every one of the 1,300,000,000 Chinese.

The Bush Administration, with regard to Taiwan, is also of great importance to us.Whereas strategic ambiguity, which means “not really saying what we would do if”, typified the policy of the Clinton Administration and other previous administrations, the Bush Administration’s policy is much more defined. The Bush Administration says, “the United States will maintain its commitment to a one-China policy and to the three Joint Communiqués, and work for a peaceful reunification in due time.” The Administration has also stated very clearly and up front that it will also abide by the Taiwan Relations Act, which pledges our defense in the event of an attack. But how we do this is very crucial. I, myself, was very concerned that our government permitted Undersecretary Wolfowitz to meet with Taiwan’s Foreign Minister Tang in Florida recently.I have been hopeful that these kinds of provocations wouldn’t take place because they’re unnecessary and the Chinese see them very differently than we do. It’s clear that those discussions were around arm sales and around what we would do “if.” Unfortunately, this has once again produced a very tense situation, where a military exercise gone awry or an unintended provocation by the Taiwanese could spark a major military conflagration.

Despite the Tang visit, the past three months have seen many positive steps taken by both sides to seek to lower tensions across the Straits. I hope to meet with the people in charge of the across-the-Straits dialogue.The three direct links have been put in place for the first time – this is direct air service, not touching down at Macaw and going on, but direct air service between Taiwan and the mainland, direct postal service and direct water service.Taiwan investment on the mainland is expanding dramatically. Unofficially it’s estimated at 60 billion dollars a year and going up.We were just talking at our table about the amount of Taiwan businessmen who are going to the mainland to open businesses.This bodes well for a long-term peaceful reconciliation between the two.

For many of us in this country, Tibet remains a major issue.As you know, China invaded Tibet in 1951, the Dalai Lama was forced to flee and the Chinese have essentially occupied what was always an autonomous area, run by Tibetan culture, run by Tibetan religion.Tibet had hoped for a dialogue between the Dalai Lama and the leaders of China. There are six million Tibetans that are on Chinese soil and the hope was that this kind of dialogue could lead to cultural and religious autonomy for Tibet so the Dalai Lama could return from India to Tibet, he could assume his rightful religious role and Tibetan culture and religion could continue.Now, this has been continuously and relentlessly thwarted by the Chinese. My husband and I have made several visits. We have tried now for twelve years to get this dialogue between the Chinese leadership and the Dalai Lama on track. Unfortunately, our voices, our requests, have not been heeded but we don’t intend to stop. Recently China has been helpful and supportive of America’s war on terror and worked behind the scenes to tamp down North Korea’s nuclear aspirations and this is very welcome by all of us. Chinese interaction, particularly with Pakistan right now, to push negotiations with India to work out a solution to Kashmir could also be instrumental in finding a long sought solution.

Now, in conclusion, I am also very deeply concerned that United States foreign policy at times is really arrogant in our unilateralism.We often alienate our friends, our allies and our strategic partners. You see this attitude in several things, [such as] refusal to sign the Kyoto Treaty on global warming. Just consider this fact.Just very recently, as a matter of fact, our Senate, much against my wishes, turned down any improvements in fuel efficiency. [We produce] the largest greenhouse gases, carbon dioxide, the largest source of greenhouse gas is carbon dioxide in the automobile and at the same time a huge part of Antarctica, the size of Rhode Island, collapsed into the sea from global warming.And yet we refused to sign the Kyoto Treaty, we, who use 25 percent of the world’s energy supply with our 5 percent of the people. Second, the decision to proceed with an aggressive program of national missile defense, even if it violates the ABM treaty to which we are signators and the latest revelation on our nuclear posture review, which apparently, and I say apparently, encouraged first use of a nuclear weapon under certain circumstances.

In the long run, I believe it makes much more sense to work with our partners to address critical global issues, to strive for bilateralism, multilateralism, to listen more than we talk with our allies, our neighbors and our friends.So I would like to see an America that works closely with its allies, that builds those coalitions and that presses for diplomatic solutions and to be less arrogant and a better listener.The architects of NATO and the United Nations, we’re those architects, we’ve had a long-standing tradition of playing a leading role in developing institutions and legal frameworks on international issues.We did not take these actions because it was in other countries’ best interests, but because it was in our best national interests. The United States today is the most dominant and strongest nation on earth and how we perform this role is crucial. A unilateral and an arrogant America can only breed enemies, but a coalition builder with strong diplomatic skills, pressing for a stable and peaceful world can only breed friends. What we become remains to be seen.

Thank you very much.