NATIONAL SECURITY ADVISOR, DR. CONDOLEEZZA RICE,
DISCUSSES THE WAR IN IRAQ AND INTELLIGENCE REFORM
THE WHITE HOUSE
August 8, 2004
MR. RUSSERT: But, first, we are joined by the president's national security
advisor, Dr. Condoleezza Rice.
Welcome back.
DR. CONDOLEEZZA RICE: Thank you. Nice to be with you.
MR. RUSSERT: Front page, lead story, in The New York Times: "Diplomacy
fails, the slow advance of nuclear arms. US weighs covert moves against Iran
and North Korea." What can you tell us?
DR. RICE: Well, the United States has been very actively and aggressively involved
in a diplomatic strategy to try and deal with the threats of nuclear weapons
development in Iran and North Korea. It was, in fact, the president who really
put this on the agenda in his State of the Union address, the famous "axis
of evil" address. And our allies have really begun to respond. It was--for
a long time, Tim, we were the only ones who seemed to think that Iran really
did have an aggressive program to try and acquire nuclear weapons. We are now
getting stronger IAEA action against them.
MR. RUSSERT: You mean, International Energy Atomic...
DR. RICE: That's right. And we believe that in September we will get a very
strong statement out of the board that Iran will either be isolated or it will
submit to the will of the international community. As to North Korea, we have
created the six-party framework in which all of North Korea's neighbors have
said to North Korea in a concerted way, "You must give up your nuclear
weapons programs in order to be a part of the international community." And
that includes China, which has long been North Korea's only benefactor, really,
in the international community.
So, yes, these are tough problems. These are problems that developed in the
1990s. These are problems that we have been working on, and we will use many
means to try and disrupt these programs.
MR. RUSSERT: Including covert action?
DR. RICE: Well, obviously, the president will look at all the tools that are
available to him.
MR. RUSSERT: Would we discourage the Israelis from using covert action? In
1981, they took out an Iraqi nuclear reactor. Would we discourage them to do
the same to the Iranians.
DR. RICE: Well, I think that I don't want to get into hypotheticals on this.
I do think that there are very active efforts under way, for instance, to undermine
the ability of the Iranians under cover of civilian nuclear cooperation to
get the components that would help them for nuclear weapons developments. We've
had, for instance, the Russians say that the Iranians--they will not continue
the civilian nuclear programs if the Iranians do not return the fuel for those
programs to Russia. That's a very good step. The president succeeded at the
G8 in getting a one-year moratorium on countries being able top reprocess,
which is a means by which one really gets the weapons-grade material, under
cover of civilian nuclear programs.
So we are having diplomatic successes, but these are very tough problems. They've
been growing for a while. They were ignored for a long time--that these countries
were cheating on their obligations. And this president's very tough non-proliferation
and counterproliferation programs, as well as the fact that we've been fortunate
to wrap up the A.Q. Khan network, the Pakistani nuclear scientist who was selling
components to rogue states, gives us a chance of getting a handle on these
programs.
MR. RUSSERT: Bottom line: Will we allow Iran to develop a nuclear bomb?
DR. RICE: I don't think the international community believes that it can afford
to allow Iran to develop a nuclear weapon.
MR. RUSSERT: So we will not let it happen?
DR. RICE: I think you cannot allow the Iranians to develop a nuclear weapon.
The international community has got to find a way to come together and to make
certain that that does not happen.
MR. RUSSERT: Let me turn to the war in Iraq. These are the latest casualty
numbers, U.S. troops: killed, 924; wounded-injured, 6,087. The primary rationale
given for the war was to dismantle and disarm Saddam Hussein's weapons of mass
destruction. In light that we have not found those weapons of mass destruction,
can you justify the cost of human life that we have suffered in Iraq?
DR. RICE: The primary reason for going to war against Iraq was that Saddam
Hussein was a threat. He was a--he represented a regime against which we had
gone to war in 1991, which we had gone to war again in 1998 because we were
concerned about his having thrown out weapons inspectors and that he was continuing
his weapons-of-mass-destruction programs. He was an avowed enemy of the United
States who had attacked his neighbors, who had used weapons of mass destruction.
He was tying down our forces in Saudi Arabia. He was a threat to change in
the Middle East, which is at the core of how we change the security environment
in which terrorism is taking place. And he was a friend of terrorists.
Now, it is true that stockpiles have not been found in Iraq, but I think we've
gone all the way over to the other side in assuming somehow that Saddam Hussein
was not a weapons-of-mass-destruction threat. Of course he was. And people
who--and intelligence services around the world, both the Clinton administration
and the Bush administration, the United Nations inspectors, knew that this
was somebody who had the knowledge, the capability, the intent to make weapons
of mass destruction, had used them before, refused to disclose them, was, of
course, continuing to defy the international community.
Sooner or later, Tim, the international community had to mean what it said
about Saddam Hussein. When it said that it could no longer tolerate his defiance
and he had one last chance to disarm or be disarmed, he chose defiance. And
the president fulfilled the obligation that he had given to the international
community when he went to the U.N. in September of 2002 and said, "If
he will not comply with his obligations, then he has to go."
MR. RUSSERT: But having not found the kind of stockpiles of chemical and biological
and potential nuclear that we thought he had, you have no second thoughts that
the war was not necessary?
DR. RICE: Absolutely not. Because Saddam Hussein had been a threat for 12 years,
ever since he invaded Kuwait and set the Middle East on a course of instability.
Somebody had to take care of Saddam Hussein and set the Middle East on a different
course. This president is not confused about this point. He knows that this
was the right thing to do. And now we have an opportunity--and let me just
say, Tim, every sacrifice of an American soldier is felt deeply by us all,
because this is a great sacrifice for the men and women in uniform, for their
families and for the American people. But nothing of value is ever won without
sacrifice. On September the 11th, we were brutally attacked by people who had
an ideology of hatred so great that they, with a few people, threatened to
try and bring down our way of life.
MR. RUSSERT: But there's no linkage between September 11 and Iraq?
DR. RICE: There is no linkage between the plot of September 11 and Saddam Hussein's
regime that we see. But I think it would be wrong to say that there is no linkage
between what happened to us on September 11 and the instability and lack of
hope and lack of freedom in the Middle East. And Saddam Hussein's regime was
one of the prime elements in that kind of Middle East. Now, we have a chance
to build a different kind of Middle East.
MR. RUSSERT: You talked about September 11. On Thursday, John Kerry was asked
what he would have done differently on September 11, and this is what Senator
Kerry had to say:
(Videotape, Thursday):
SEN. JOHN KERRY, (D-MA): First of all, had I been reading to children and had
my top aide whispered in my ear, "America is under attack," I would
have told those kids very politely and nicely that the president of the United
States had something that he needed to attend to. And I would have attended
to it.
(End videotape)
MR. RUSSERT: Your reaction?
DR. RICE: My reaction is that anyone who thinks they would have known exactly
what they would have done under those circumstances--I just can't imagine that
you would say something like that. The president of the United States was confronted
with one of the greatest tragedies that had befallen the United States in our
200-plus years of history. He decided on the spot that he was not going to
alarm the third-graders. He was not going to alarm the American people. He
was going to proceed in a calm way. That was the right thing to do.
And anyone who has any doubt about that just needs to look at what he did in
the hours subsequent to that: when he made a statement to the American people
that still stands that evening as the core of how we think about fighting terrorism;
when he went to ground zero on that Friday and talked to the relief workers
and told them that everybody would hear America for what had happened to us;
and when he has led since then a war on terrorism that has been effective,
that is making America safer--not yet safe, but safer; when he has liberated
two countries; and when we are on a course to finally deal with the threat
of terrorism, which had been ignored for so long in the past.
I really--I don't think that talking about that seven minutes, although the
president handled that seven minutes correctly, in my view, has anything to
do with how one would carry forward the war on terrorism.
MR. RUSSERT: Let me talk about the September 11 commission report and this
is how it was reported upon on Wednesday in the papers. "But while Mr.
Bush agreed to create such a [national intelligence director] post"--which
had been recommended by the commission--"he rejected the commission's
recommendation that the national intelligence director have direct control
over the intelligence community's $40 billion annual budget and veto power
over the people named to head intelligence agencies. Under the White House
proposal, the intelligence director would have far more limited budgetary and
personnel authority."
Now, the chairman of this commission report, Tom Kean, had this to say. "We
believe that the position has to have budget authority and appointive authority.
... Otherwise it's not going to be much better than what we have now." Tom
Kean's a Republican. Arlen Specter, Republican from Pennsylvania, "If
you don't have the authority to pick the people, isn't a national director
just a shell game and a shell operation?"
DR. RICE: Well, first of all, Tim, I think there has been some misconception
of what the president is talking about here. He took the time to read the report.
He took the time to discuss it with his advisers, and he believes that there
should be a national intelligence director. The only thing that he's taken
off the table that this person shouldn't be in the White House and shouldn't
be a part of the Cabinet because he...
MR. RUSSERT: So he would allow budget authority and a point of authority?
DR. RICE: The president is determined to give this person effective authority
to present for the process of budget through OMB, a unified, integrated intelligence
budget. Nothing is off the table. We're discussing the mechanisms by which
that might be done, and I think you will see that the president most certainly
believes that this person needs to have more effective authority than the director
of Central Intelligence now has.
So we're working through the issues. You obviously want to do this in a way
that is deliberative and sound, because these are major reforms. You have a
war ongoing. You want to make sure that there is fundamental support to the
war fighter in intelligence, that there's fundamental support to homeland security.
But the president fully understands that budget authority is an important element
of this, and he's looking at how those mechanisms would work.
MR. RUSSERT: So complete control over budget and personnel is on the table?
DR. RICE: Well, of course, everything is on the table. But I think the president
will look for a way that gives this person effective control.
MR. RUSSERT: What does that mean?
DR. RICE: The person needs the ability to make sure that the president's priorities
in intelligence are being represented in the budget. What that means for how
that relates to the intelligence budget which is currently broken up into several
budgets I think we'll have to look at the mechanisms for doing that. But the
president has said and said clearly that he wants a unified and integrated
approach to the national intelligence program.
MR. RUSSERT: The right to hire and fire?
DR. RICE: We'll look at what that would mean. You obviously don't want to disrupt
the lines of authority for people who have to run these agencies at Defense
or run these agencies at the Homeland Security Department, but the president
is looking at what the best mechanisms are to give this person the effective
authority he needs to integrate the intelligence programs.
MR. RUSSERT: Last week, the Homeland Security director, Tom Ridge, had a news
conference. On Thursday, The New York Times wrote this editorial. "This
week [Homeland Security officials] were specific: the five financial institutions
were in danger of being bombed in the 'near term.' The terror alert was raised
to orange for those sites in New York, Washington and New Jersey. But things
quickly lapsed into confusion. For three days, officials at news conferences
and background briefings said their concerns were based on new information,
then old information, then back to new information. Many people were scared
out of their wits on Monday, cynical on Tuesday and befuddled by [Wednesday
]."
DR. RICE: Well, the government has a duty to warn when we find information
that is more specific than the sort of general warnings that have been out
there. The president's made that commitment. Tom Ridge has made that commitment.
All of us have. And starting on a week ago Friday and going through the weekend,
we began to get important intelligence from some of the people that were being
rounded up in these raids in Pakistan, from raids that were done that produced
physical evidence, all in the context of a pre-election threat that we had
talked about before. And so while it was not imminent, it did give a time frame
that suggested some urgency.
Among the things that were found were casing reports on several financial targets
in New York City and Washington, D.C., and the decision was made that you had
no choice but to warn people that their buildings had been cased. Now, yes,
some of the reports came from 2000, 2001. Perhaps some of them had been updated.
But whether they had or not, we know that al-Qaeda meticulously plans over
a number of years. The casings for the East Africa Embassy bombings which were
done in 1998 had been done five years before.
And so this information in the context of reporting about a pre-election threat
in the context of what we were hearing from people who were being picked up
in raids, in the context of known terrorists who were thought to be plotting
against the United States made it imperative that we warn that this was going
on.
The good thing, Tim, is that we don't have a situation like we had before 9/11
where the information was not being shared. It was being shared--this was in
some way textbook for the sharing of information that was coming in from the
field, coming in from liaison with Pakistan. Three years ago, Pakistan was
not a fighter in the war on terrorism. And here you have them able to take
down terrorists and to provide information which then could be shared in the
government, could then be shared with state and local officials who were on
some of the conference calls and you could have an effective response to these
terror threats.
MR. RUSSERT: Howard Dean, who ran for president, as you well know, had some
very pointed comments last Sunday. He said the following: "I'm concerned
that every time something happens that's not good for President Bush, he plays
this trump card, which is terrorism. His whole campaign is based on the notion
that, 'I can keep you safe, therefore at times of difficulty for America, stick
with me,' and then out comes Tom Ridge. It's just impossible to know how much
of this is real and how much of this is politics, and I suspect there's some
of both in it."
DR. RICE: Well, I wish that Governor Dean had been able to sit with us on Saturday
and Sunday of last weekend and go through these terror threats. America was
attacked on September 11, and everything that we've been doing since then,
whether with it is with new allies in places like Pakistan to fight the war
on terrorism, whether it is trying to enable state and local governments to
really use information more effectively, whether it is sharing intelligence,
it's all to try and prevent another attack. Now, we know we have an uphill
fight, because the terrorists only have to be right once. We have to be right
100 percent of the time. But the idea that you would somehow play politics
with the security of the American people, that you would not go out and warn
if you have casing reports on buildings that are highly specific in New York
City, are you really supposed to not tell the people of New York City or the
people of Citigroup or the people of the New York Stock Exchange, their security
experts, that we found casing reports that are highly specific about vulnerabilities?
I don't even understand what Governor Dean is talking about.
MR. RUSSERT: But Democrats point out that Rom Ridge said he would divorce himself
from politics, but in his presentation he lavished praise on President Bush
and the war on terror.
DR. RICE: Well, he works for the president of the United States, and the president
of the United States deserves credit for having us in a position where we now
actually are getting--because we're on the offense in our war on terrorism--where
we're actually getting information that can help us on the defense.
MR. RUSSERT: But wouldn't it be better if he refrained from campaign pitches?
DR. RICE: I don't think this was a campaign pitch. Tom Ridge is out there to
tell the American people that there is a vulnerability, that there is a threat,
and that they need to be vigilant and to give to local and state officials
the way to be quite specific in their responses.
But, Tim, we're either going to fight this war all out and on the offense or
we're not. We're either going to recognize that we can't sit back and just
defend the country, that we've got to go out, that we have to find new allies
in the war on terrorism as we have, for instance, Pakistan, that in the war
that we're fighting in places like Afghanistan and Iraq, we are changing the
circumstances out of which these terrorists came. And what the people of those
countries need to know is that we're in this for the long term. We're not going
to set artificial deadlines for American forces. We're going to be there for
the brave Afghans and Iraqis who are taking risks for democracy, and that we
are going to finish this job. This president is in no way confused about what
our obligations are.
MR. RUSSERT: And for the long term, if President Bush is re-elected, will you
stay in your current position?
DR. RICE: Tim, I'm trying to get through the next few weeks. I think we'll
cross those bridges when we come to them.
MR. RUSSERT: Dr. Rice, we thank you for joining us and sharing your views.
DR. RICE: Thank you.