SECRETARY POWELL: Good morning, Brit. How are you?

MR. HUME: Very well, thanks. Welcome.

SECRETARY POWELL: Thank you.

MR. HUME: Give us the latest, if you can. I know that there have been meetings there in Beijing this morning, or in China anyway, this morning. You have been briefed. What can you tell us?

SECRETARY POWELL: Well, we're in intense diplomatic discussions with the Chinese Foreign Ministry. Ambassador Prueher, who I've spoken to twice so far this morning, has had two meetings with his interlocutors, and things are moving along. We laid out a road map several days ago with the Chinese Government as to how we could get through this incident and get to a more stable situation once again. The road map -- we're not moving as fast along it as I would like, but we are moving, and there has been some progress.

MR. HUME: And that has been described in various reports, including one just now by Jim Angle, as an exchange of explanations with us searching to say something, not an apology, but some further expression of our sorrow at what happened.

Is that basically correct?

SECRETARY POWELL: We have expressed regrets, and we have expressed our sorrow, and we are sorry that a life was lost. The only life lost to this point was that of the Chinese pilot, and so I think it's a very proper thing to express our regrets and sorrow over that.

The question of apology is something quite different, because then we're being asked to accept responsibility, and that we have not done, can't do, and therefore won't apologize for that.

So we are exchanging our views, things are moving along, and we're looking for the right words of art to make sure that we can get through this without damaging the relationship any more than it already has been damaged. And the President has been deeply involved in this from the first day. It's not so matter a change of tone; it's that in an incident like this, it unfolds in a certain rhythm, and in that first 24 to 48 hours we were getting no information about our 24 young men and women. And so we were rather stern with the Chinese that we needed to know how they were doing.

And then when we started to get information and we started to sense what the political dynamic was, we then adjusted our statements and have been moving forward ever since on this road map, which I think will be successful at the end of the day.

MR. HUME: Do you have a reason other than just your general sense of things? I mean, is there any specific reason why you are as optimistic as you have been?

SECRETARY POWELL: Well, it's more than a general sense. I mean, I have had an exchange of letters with the Vice Premier of China -- some harsh language, but also language within that letter that showed some indications of how we could move forward. I am in constant touch with our Ambassador in China. The President is in constant touch with his National Security Advisor. So we're all knitted up here in Washington talking clearly to our Ambassador, the President giving us the direction we need to give Joe Prueher what he needs to deal with the Chinese.

MR. HUME: Now, the Chinese haven't been shy about releasing their correspondence. And the latest round that you've heard from the Vice Premier there would seem, I think to the naked eye at least, to be a rebuke or a rebuff. I gather you choose to see it otherwise.

SECRETARY POWELL: Well, it was a rebuff in the sense that he was insisting on an apology, but he also knows just as clearly from correspondence that I've exchanged coming from me to him that an apology is not what we are looking at at this time. We have to find a different formulation that gets us out of this. So he understands our position clearly; we understand his; and there is negotiation going on, serious negotiation, between those two positions to find a solution.

MR. HUME: Now, the President, we have learned now, has written a letter to the presumed widow, at least the wife of the downed Chinese airman. What is in that letter?

SECRETARY POWELL: Well, I don't want to disclose presidential correspondence, and frankly, I haven't seen a final draft of the letter.

MR. HUME: Has it gone yet?

SECRETARY POWELL: I don't know if it has gone yet. I would have to refer to the White House.

MR. HUME: Well, what is the purpose of the letter? She calls him a coward.

SECRETARY POWELL: The purpose of the letter is to respond in a humanitarian way, in an American way, to a widow who is grieving. Whatever you think about the politics of it, she has lost her husband, and the President saw enough in her letter to suggest to him, quite correctly, I think -- and this shows you the kind of gentleman he is and the kind of nation we are -- that he should pick up those elements in her letter that talked about hope for the future and respond along those lines. Whether the letter has gone yet, I would have to refer you to the White House.

MR. HUME: May I take it that it will or will not be publicly released?

SECRETARY POWELL: I can't answer that. I will leave that to the White House.

MR. HUME: All right, now, we've had three meetings now with the crew. We must know by now, because a couple of them at least have been private, what their version of events is. What do they say happened?

SECRETARY POWELL: Well, from what we know from a variety of sources is that there is no basis to believe that our crew did anything wrong, improper, and they were not the cause of the accident.

MR. HUME: Now, that being the case, it appears then that this Chinese ace fighter pilot flew too close, took chances with the lives of 24 Americans, an accident occurred, or maybe not an accident, that resulted in severe damage to the aircraft, could have killed our crew members. They now had to make an emergency landing.

Why are we not asking for an apology?

SECRETARY POWELL: We think it best at this point to wait until this is all resolved. We have this meeting that will take place after our crew has been released where both sides can offer their respective explanations, and then we can see what really happened, get the truth out. And it's best to wait until that happens rather than demanding apologies from one side to the other. Even though we don't have all the facts, we're pretty sure of our facts. We're pretty sure of what we think happened. But the place to deal with this is within that maritime committee special meeting procedure that was set up for just such purposes.

MR. HUME: So you are convinced, sir, that our plane did not swerve or make a quick turn or anything like that to cause to this?

SECRETARY POWELL: I have seen no evidence to suggest that our plane did anything that was improper or caused this accident.

MR. HUME: All right. Now let me ask you about those flights. Obviously they were important enough to us that we did them for a long time. The Chinese -- they were no secret to the Chinese, of course. But are they continuing?

SECRETARY POWELL: I can't tell you whether they are or they are not at this moment. And if I knew, it's a Pentagon matter; if I knew, I probably wouldn't disclose them anyway because of the nature of those flights. But we certainly don't intend to give up the important reconnaissance work that we around the world in international waters. It's an important part of our national security programs and plans, and we don't intend to abandon them.

MR. HUME: Does that mean that, whether they are continuing now or not, the United States has every intention of resuming them if it has paused them?

SECRETARY POWELL: The United States has every intention of continuing to do the kind of reconnaissance and surveillance work we have done for decades -- well known to everyone -- that is essential to protect our national security and, frankly, the security of our friends in various regions of the world. It's part of our collection system.

MR. HUME: What you're saying, though, would seem to leave open the possibility that we might alter our course in those flights, perhaps fly at a greater distance from the Chinese shores in order to accommodate them.

SECRETARY POWELL: What we will do is conduct our operations in a way that we think is best, and do it in a way that does not violate anybody's recognized territorial limitations. But we will decide how these flights will be flown and where they will be flown and at what frequency they will be flown.

MR. HUME: You are not suggesting that we have violated anybody's territorial rights?

SECRETARY POWELL: No, we have not. And that's the point: We don�t. We understand what territorial integrity means in the concept of international law, not what some countries claim beyond what we think is appropriate. So we always fly these kinds of missions in ways that are consistent with the common understanding of international law, and we will continue to do so.

MR. HUME: By the way, how much do we know about how much the crew was able to destroy data and make it impossible for the machines that are aboard the plane to reveal anything to the Chinese?

SECRETARY POWELL: I don't know. I would rather leave that to the Defense Department and other agencies to give an actual answer in due course. We have reason to believe, though, that they crew was able to do quite a bit on the way down, but that's as far as I'd like to go.

MR. HUME: Now, your version of events and that stated consistently by the Administration indicates that this was clearly something that the Chinese pilot, and perhaps the Chinese deliberately caused to happen. Is there any --

SECRETARY POWELL: It seems unlikely that someone said, "Let's go out and bring down an American plane by ramming it." So I don't know. I mean, if that's the point of the second point of your question, I think not.

But clearly they have been following us too closely for months. We have demarched them and suggested to them previously that they need to back off. They know where we are. They come up and trail our planes over international air space. It's been going on for a long time. But we have been concerned for some time that they have been getting too close, and we demarched them.

MR. HUME: And did they, in fact, ram our plane?

SECRETARY POWELL: Let's wait until all the facts are out. If ram means something that was done deliberately, that seems quite unlikely. It seems more like to be an accident that resulted from them following too closely.

MR. HUME: And the following too closely, as you point out, was conduct that we had warned them about precipitated this event, clearly you believe. Will there be, in your view, a price paid by the Chinese for having done this?

SECRETARY POWELL: Let's not talk about price. Let's stick to the facts and the situation we have in front of us. We have an intense diplomatic negotiation going on, and we want to get our crew home. Frankly, the political disagreement we're having with the Chinese Government has nothing to do with the crew. The crew should be released as soon as possible. Whatever price the Chinese ultimately pay, they are making it worse in terms of delaying this situation. The sooner we clear this up, the less damage that will be done to the relationship. I mean, it's already easy to see that things are happening that are not favorable to them. Congressional delegations are canceling trips; I'm getting calls from senior former officials and business people saying we don't think we're going to be visiting there any time soon. There are a lot of bigger issues that we have to be worrying about with respect to our relationship to China, and the longer they drag out this situation, the more difficult it is to get this relationship back on track.

MR. HUME: Now, the Administration has said that the decision about whether to ship further weapons, ships, to Taiwan is a separate issue. Do you regard it as separate?

SECRETARY POWELL: Of course it's separate. It has to do with our obligations to Taiwan to make sure that they have what they need to defend themselves.

MR. HUME: Do you sense that the Chinese conduct in this matter may have given them reason to believe that they would be able to exercise some leverage with regard to that decision?

SECRETARY POWELL: I have no idea what they were thinking when they moved down this path, but I don't know why they would reach any such conclusion.

MR. HUME: Now, normal trade relations, because the Chinese have not gotten into the WTO, has to come up again in Congress. The cancellation of the congressional delegations to China that you just mentioned are a sign of discontent there. Is that an issue? Do you plan to still go forward and request that, or is this an issue that is now on the table again because of this incident?

SECRETARY POWELL: Well, it remain to be seen. We are still supporting access to WTO but I can say that if we have to go for a vote on normal trading relations again, this situation has not improved their chances of winning that again. So the relationship is being damaged. The damage can be undone. But in order for the damage to be undone and no further damage to occur, we've got to bring this matter to a close as soon as possible.

MR. HUME: Do you have any doubt, sir, about who is running things over there, who is in charge, whether Jiang Zemin for example has the flexibility that a leader would normally have in a situation like this?

SECRETARY POWELL: We have noted in the last seven days as we've gone through this that they seem to be very well coordinated with all of the channels of communication between the United States and China going through their Foreign Ministry, and they seem to be in close touch with their more senior leaders who are traveling in South America. So I have no reason to believe that they are not coordinated. Whether there are differences of opinion within the government between the Peoples Liberation Army and the government bureaucrats and the political structure, I am sure there are. But I have no reason to believe that they are not all coordinated and understand what each part of their government is saying and doing with respect to this matter and how they interact with us.

MR. HUME: The restraint that you have shown in issuance of public statements, which is in contrast to what the Chinese have been doing, seems to have given rise to some criticism in this country. And most conspicuously, there is an editorial in the just-printed edition of the Weekly Standard, a sister publication of Fox News, which describes this as a national humiliation. It says, "No one should ignore the enormous price that will have been paid to secure their freedom," speaking of the crew there. "The United States is on the path to humiliation."

How would you respond to that?

SECRETARY POWELL: I think that's absurd. We're not on any path to humiliation. We are dealing with a difficult situation that has come along, and we're trying to do it in a way that does not fracture a relationship that we're trying to improve. And first and foremost, we're trying to get our young men and women who served us so well back home to their families as quickly as possible.

And so that kind of editorial comment is interesting but not terribly accurate, and not terribly relevant. Compared to doing what? Making the situation worse? We are anxious to handle this in a way that will achieve our goals, which is to get our youngsters back and see if we can minimize the damage to the relationship. But we're making clear to the Chinese what our position is and how serious this matter is, and that this is not the way we should be behaving between two nations such as China and the United States.

MR. HUME: A final question to you, sir, about that. You mentioned getting our service men and women back and limiting damage to the US-China relationship. What place, if any, in the principles of our policy has the idea of making sure the world sees that we are a firm and strong nation, a true superpower that cannot be trifled with in this way?

SECRETARY POWELL: I think everybody knows we are a strong nation and a superpower. The world has really supported us in this matter. A number of our allies have spoken to the Chinese Government and said, you know, this is really quite inappropriate for you to keep moving down this path. You ought to resolve this as soon as you can.

And so we are on track. We know what we do. We have power. We have influence. And we're going to bring this to a successful conclusion, perhaps not as fast as I would like, but it will come to a successful conclusion, I am reasonably confident.

MR. HUME: I'm sorry, I need to follow up on that. One more question, if you don't mind. You said a number of countries. I think everyone is aware that Great Britain has. There has been a lot of talk about silence in other parts of the world. Can you name some other names here of countries that have come to our support?

SECRETARY POWELL: Great Britain is the principal one. There are others who have quietly gone to the Chinese Government and said this is not the way you should be handling this. And in all my conversations this week with various countries that have representatives who have visited me, I have made the same message and have gotten assurances from a number of them that they will also pass that message.

MR. HUME: General, Mr. Secretary, thank you very much, sir. Nice to have you.

SECRETARY POWELL: Thank you, Brit.

[end]