THE US: US Secretary of State, Mr Colin Powell, chastised a press aide yesterday during the taping of an NBC interview, telling her to "get out of the way" as she tried to cut the interview short. Conor O'Clery, in New York, reports
The incident led to a blazing row between the State Department press office and NBC over the length of time allotted to presenter Tim Russert who was interviewing Mr Powell in Jordan from the Washington studio of NBC's Meet the Press. State Department spokeswoman Ms Julie Reside said Mr Powell had scheduled five interviews one after another and that NBC went over the agreed time limit.
She said every effort was made to get NBC to finish up, but that other networks had booked satellite time for interviews with Powell.
Mr Powell's press aide, Ms Emily Miller, called NBC after the taping to "express her displeasure" that the interview ran so long. Meet the Press executive producer, Ms Betsy Fischer, said however that Mr Powell called Mr Russert a few hours later to apologise.
Asked later why the incident was not edited out when the interview was broadcast, Mr Russert said that never before in his career had an aide physically tried to cut short an interview.
The incident occurred as Mr Russet asked: "Finally, Mr Secretary, in February of 2003, you placed your enormous personal credibility before the United Nations and laid out a case against Saddam Hussein, citing ..." At this point Ms Miller appeared walking towards Mr Powell, saying, "You're off" and the camera was forced to turn away, filling the screen with views of sea and palm trees.
Mr Powell was heard saying: "I am not off." Ms Miller: "No. They can't use it, they're editing it." Mr Powell: "He's still asking the questions." Ms Miller: "He was not... " Mr Powell: "Tim, I am sorry, I lost you." Mr Russert: "I am right here, Mr Secretary. I would hope they would put you back on camera. I don't know who did that." Ms Miller: "He was going to go for another five minutes." Mr Powell: "We're really screw..." Mr Russert: "I think that was one of your staff, Mr Secretary. I don't think that's appropriate.
Mr Powell: "Emily, get out of the way. Bring the camera back, please. [The camera returned to Mr Powell.] I think we're back on, Tim. Go ahead with your last question."
Mr Russert finished his question by asking Mr Powell how concerned he was that an agent called "Curve Ball" had misled the CIA over biological weapons before his presentation to the UN in February 2003.
Mr Powell said he was "very concerned". There was multiple sourcing that "over time has turned out to be not accurate, and so I'm deeply disappointed".
In the same interview, Mr Powell scolded Arab governments for not expressing more outrage over the videotaped beheading of an American civilian in Iraq.
Their denunciation of the killing of Mr Nicholas Berg fell far short of their attacks on the US for the treatment of detainees at Baghdad's Abu Ghraib prison, he said. Mr Powell said he told Arab leaders: "When you are outraged at what happened at the prison, you should be equally, doubly outraged at what happened to Mr Berg."
He also reiterated that US troops would remain in Iraq after June 30th, despite his statement on Friday that they would leave if requested to do so by any caretaker government.
"They will need our troops there for some considerable time in the future," he said. "The Iraqis know they want us to remain long enough to have their own security forces in place."