MR. LIS: Mr. Secretary, now in the U.S. you fingerprint and photograph people from many countries, among them from Poland, but actually not from all countries. Don't you think that's it's humiliating for us to be treated in that way, especially taking under consideration that Poland takes part in anti-terrorist coalition and our troops are fighting in Iraq?
SECRETARY POWELL: There is no intention to humiliate Poles. We consider Poland to be one of our closest friends and we appreciate what Polish troops are doing in Iraq, and we regret the loss of life that has occurred and we are very appreciate of that effort.
The need to fingerprint people and to photograph people coming into our country is a requirement that we put in place not to harass people or to humiliate anyone, but to help us protect our homeland. There are a group of countries that currently enjoy privileges under something called the Visa Waiver Program, where they don't require visas. But, ultimately, their passports will have to have biometric identifiers, which will pretty much serve the same purpose.
The nature of the Visa Waiver Program is such that we cannot, at the moment, offer that program to Poles. But I hope Poles will understand that it is a fairly simple --
MR. LIS: Why not?
SECRETARY POWELL: There are a variety of standards that have to be met, and those standards are not met at the moment.
But I hope that Poles will see that it is a fairly simple procedure, it is not a humiliating procedure; it's two fingerprints and a photograph and it's done. It takes a few seconds time. And it's for the purpose not only of protecting our homeland, but protecting international travelers who are using the airways so we know who is traveling, who is coming into the country, who has left the country.
And that's the sole purpose. Not to humiliate anyone, especially our Polish friends.
MR. LIS: And, Mr. Secretary, you mentioned visas. The problem is we wait in long lines for those visas, we pay a lot, actually more and more, and actually we don't even have any guarantees that we will get this visa. And at the same time, President Bush says, you are saying, "Poles, you are great friends of ours."
I mean, is it fair to treat your friends like that?
SECRETARY POWELL: I don't think we're treating our Polish friends any differently than friends elsewhere in the world. We require a fee to apply for a visa because it does require an amount of effort, and the way in which the whole program is funded is through the fees that we charge for the visa application. And if there was no fee charged, then everybody would apply just to take a chance at getting a visa, and we couldn't sustain the program. So it is necessary to charge a fee for the visa application.
We are doing everything we can to make it easier to apply for a visa, but as a result of 9/11 our Congress directed us, and it was necessary for us, to put in additional elements to our visa application system in order to have a good understanding of who is coming into our country.
I hope that over time, as these procedures become better known and as we make them easier, as our data systems catch up with what we're trying to do, people will not find it that difficult a process or that inconvenient a process to go through.
MR. LIS: Could the system of granting visas be changed, especially for your close allies from Poland?
SECRETARY POWELL: Well, as I say, there are some standards that have to be met, and at the moment expanding the Visa Waiver Program to additional countries is not something that I believe would be possible. In fact, here in the United States, there are many who are suggesting that countries currently in the Visa Waiver Program should be taken out or there should be no Visa Waiver Program. But that would so increase the volume of visas that we wouldn't be able to sustain that right now.
So we are reviewing all of these matters with respect to homeland security. And I know that this is a very sensitive issue in Poland because of the nature of your questions. But I just hope that our Polish friends would recognize what we're trying to do to protect them, to protect our homeland, to make travel safe, and to make sure terrorists are denied the opportunity.
I'm not expecting a Polish citizen to be a terrorist, but it's necessary for us to have these universal procedures with respect to countries that are not in the Visa Waiver Program in order to know who is coming into the country. And it is a very simple procedure. It doesn't take long with respect to the fingerprinting. And we're doing everything we can to reduce the lines at our consular offices where visa applications are accepted and to turn the visa application back as quickly as possible so people are not kept waiting too long as to whether or not their visa will be approved or not.
MR. LIS: Mr. Secretary, Poland just started to negotiations with Washington on moving some American bases, military bases, on our territory. Do you have any idea when actually that might happen? I mean, are we talking two years, five years?
SECRETARY POWELL: Oh, I don't think Secretary Rumsfeld has made any decisions, nor has he provided any recommendations to the President yet. We are looking at our overall base structure and we are talking to all of our friends in NATO and in other nations, and it's a worldwide effort, and no specific decisions yet have been made about a particular base or a particular facility in Poland or in the other nations of NATO. But Mr. Rumsfeld is hard at work on this.
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