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Interview With Jonathan Beale of BBC Arabic Television

Secretary Condoleezza Rice
Washington, DC
January 12, 2007

QUESTION: Madame Secretary, were you taken aback by the strength of criticism on your evidence on Capitol Hill, not just from Democrats, but Republicans too?

SECRETARY RICE: Well, I think it's a very difficult time. As the President said, everybody knows that the stakes are high and everybody knows that the situation in Iraq is unacceptable. And so passions are running high and people are concerned.

I do think it's important to note, though, that the only real alternative on the table is the President's alternative. And so I understand skepticism. I certainly understand that people wonder why we -- why it hasn't worked to now, but the President's given us a way forward and I hope it'll get support.

QUESTION: Well, how convinced are you that it will work?

SECRETARY RICE: It's a difficult situation in Iraq, but the President's plan, first of all, very much puts Iraqis at the center of responsibility for dealing with what is their most urgent problem. Their most urgent problem is that the population has lost confidence that the Government of Iraq can and will defend them in an evenhanded fashion, whether they are Sunni or Shia. And they have to correct that or the fabric of the society is going to continue to tear and that will make it difficult, then, to have the kind of political reconciliation that they're working on at the center.

So the President's plan very much relies on Iraqis' responsibility for the kind of country that they're going to be, but we recognize that they don't yet have the capability to clear these neighborhoods of the extremists, then hold them and build. And so the augmentation of American forces would be to help the Iraqis do that. I think if the plan works, if the Iraqis live up to their commitments, it will work and we'll have a very different circumstance in Iraq.

QUESTION: Can I put it to you that the concern is this is an escalation not because just you're sending more troops to Iraq, but because essentially, you decided to confront both Syria and Iran and ignore the advice of James Baker, who said you got to talk to them?

SECRETARY RICE: Well, we decided that we're not going to let them continue to engage in activities that are endangering our soldiers and --

QUESTION: That's an escalation, isn't it?

SECRETARY RICE: No, no, that's called good policy. I don't think there's a government in the world that would sit by and let the Iranians, in particular, run networks inside Iraq that are building explosive devices of a very high quality that are being used to kill their soldiers. That's not an escalation; that's just good policy. And the President's made very clear that that's unacceptable. Now as to talking to them --

QUESTION: Sorry, can I say --

SECRETARY RICE: Yes.

QUESTION: It is an escalation, isn't it? Because you're sending a battle group, you've just raided an office -- an Iranian office in Northern Iraq, the President has said he's going to go after networks, search and destroy. That sounds like an escalation.

SECRETARY RICE: Let's call it a reaction to Iranian policies that escalated some time ago the attacks on our forces, the nature of those attacks, and the lethality of those attacks. So let's just call it a reaction to Iranian activities that are simply unacceptable.

QUESTION: Why did you raid that office in Northern Iraq, the Iranian office?

SECRETARY RICE: Well, as I've said, we -- also, you may remember just around Christmastime, a little before Christmastime, there was another raid. Because we are picking up intelligence that activities are being carried on there that are harming our soldiers. And we're going to continue to pursue those networks.

QUESTION: Can I ask you about your visit to the Middle East, to the region? You are going to engage with what you would call moderate Arab nations. You believe that they can help. Why should they help? This is your war and the last thing they want is an escalation.

SECRETARY RICE: Well, it's their neighborhood and so I think they have every incentive to help. An Iraq that is stable, an Iraq that doesn't have Saddam Hussein, who by the way, invaded Kuwait and threatened the rest of the neighborhood, an Iraq that -- even if the government is Shia-led, is treating Sunnis fairly, a government that isn't going to be a safe haven for terrorism and perhaps most importantly, from the point of view of these states, an Iraq that isn't a bridge for Iranian influence rather than a barrier to Iranian influence, that's very much in their interest. And so I expect these countries to act in their interests.

QUESTION: Wouldn't these countries prefer you to engage with Iran?

SECRETARY RICE: No, actually, they wouldn't. They would prefer that we have policies that deal with the Iranian policies that are so destabilizing in the region. Frankly, I have not heard from any of these states, "Go and engage with Iran."

QUESTION: And they think it's a good idea to step up the pressure of Iran?

SECRETARY RICE: In fact, I think that many are worried that if we are not in a position to counter Iranian activity through action, that any engagement and talk is simply going to be talk, because diplomacy without action isn't really useful.

QUESTION: What do you expect Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Egypt to do to help you in Iraq?

SECRETARY RICE: Well, let's -- it's not to help us. It's to help the region and to help the Iraqis. And the states are already engaged in some efforts to increase outreach to Sunnis, participation of Sunnis. But --

QUESTION: Pretty amenable, though, isn't it?

SECRETARY RICE: No, no. In fact, over the last year, I think it's been pretty intensive. They were very involved in trying to get Iraqis all the way back to the time of the elections. That's the constitution, to participate in the political process. But it's more than that. We hope that there will be more representational -- diplomatic representation in Iraq. The head of the Arab League went to Iraq, which is important.

Iraq is a Shia-led government that has an Arab identity. And that Arab identity needs to be nurtured and reinforced because Iraqis have no desire to trade the yolk of Saddam Hussein for the yolk of Iran.

QUESTION: Do you still believe, as you said in the summer, that what we're seeing, the violence and the war that happened in Lebanon, the violence in Iraq, what's happening in the Palestinian territories, is the birth pangs or the birth pains of a new Middle East?

SECRETARY RICE: What I really believe is that we are seeing a realignment in the Middle East of the forces in the Middle East between those who are extremists who want to use violence, who want to, for instance, stop the emergence of a Palestinian state, who want to overthrow a young Lebanese democracy that got there fair and square, that perhaps wants to reestablish Syrian influence and Syrian dominance in Lebanon, that side of the equation. And the other side of the equation, which are states that want to use the political process, that want to adhere to the long, now, history of efforts to -- and contributions to resolving the Palestinian-Israeli conflict and that want to support those forces.

QUESTION: On that key question -- I mean, on the Palestinian-Israeli conflict, they all say when you go there, these moderate Arab nations, "We want American engagement." Are you going with a plan to bring about a peaceful process?

SECRETARY RICE: I am certainly going with a very clear desire and commitment to see if we can move the -- move forward, accelerate the roadmap, perhaps even accelerate the roadmap through the completion. And yes, we need to look at what can be done to establish a Palestinian state. That's been the President's desire from the time that -- in 2001, he declared the need for a Palestinian state as an aspect of American policy, something that had not been done.

We want to proceed in a way, though, that is going to succeed this time. There have been a lot of failed efforts on the Palestinian-Israeli front. I'm an academic, so I've been spending a lot of time reading about it and trying to understand what failed before. One of the issues is that this time, I think we want to have consultations to see where people are and we --

QUESTION: That doesn't sound like a plan, though, does it?

SECRETARY RICE: Well, I think anything that is an American plan is bound to fail. What we need is that all of the states that have an interest in the establishment of a Palestinian state have got to come to an agreement on how we proceed. Because yes, the United States, and we accept responsibility, has to be engaged and I fully, personally accept responsibility that the United States and I personally have to be engaged.

But the United States is not going to succeed in this alone. This has to have an Arab voice, Egypt, Jordan, Saudi Arabia. It certainly has to have the voice of the -- reasonable factors among the Palestinians, like Abu Mazen. It has to have an Israeli voice and the Israelis have been sending all kinds of signals with the speech that Prime Minister Olmert gave, the meeting between Prime Minister Olmert and President Abbas, that there are new possibilities here.

QUESTION: You say that, but -- I mean, what the Arab states that you're going to visit want is America to put pressure on Israel, to tell them essentially, "Stop expanding your settlements and start thinking about prisoner exchanges."

SECRETARY RICE: Well, certainly, the United States has constantly said that settlement expansion should end. But we also have to remember the Israelis got out of Gaza, unilaterally got out of Gaza, the first return of territory to the Palestinians ever. The Palestinians deserve and need a state. That's very obvious. But there are responsibilities that both sides, the Israelis are going to have to undertake and the Palestinians.

Mahmoud Abbas talks all the time, I think rightly, about the establishment of a governing entity for the Palestinians that, in fact, will live up to the internationally accepted norm about this conflict that will recognize Israel. How can you have a process when one side doesn't recognize the right of the other to exist?

QUESTION: Which suggests that as long as Hamas are there in government, nothing is going to move.

SECRETARY RICE: No, what it suggests is that Abu Mazen has the right views of this. He is someone who is trying to do the right thing for the Palestinian people. He doesn't do this for the United States, certainly not. He is trying to find this road ahead for the Palestinian people. But I do believe that given the alignment in the Middle East, given what we saw in the summer in the Lebanese war when it became crystal clear who was on what side of the conflict, that the chances now, first to explore but then perhaps to deliver on a real outcome in progress in the Palestinian-Israeli conflict is there.

QUESTION: And do you think that path forward is essentially fresh elections?

SECRETARY RICE: Well, I think this is something the Palestinians have to determine, but I'm certainly looking forward to conversations with President Abbas about it.

QUESTION: Can I quickly finally just ask you about evidence that John Negroponte gave on Capitol Hill? And he was -- he's going to be your Deputy here, or maybe your Deputy here if he gets through approval of the Senate. He says that Pakistan is now a stronghold for the al-Qaida leadership, which suggests that Pakistan hasn't been that good an ally in your war on terror.

SECRETARY RICE: Oh, I think Pakistan has been an excellent ally, but it's well-known that the area -- the federally administered tribal areas have been largely ungoverned by Pakistan for its entire existence. And so what the Pakistanis need to do, and I think are trying to do, is to make certain that that area cannot be a safe haven for al-Qaida or for the Taliban. And I do think they've made some progress, but obviously, we'd like to see more progress made.

QUESTION: Madame Secretary, thank you very much indeed.

SECRETARY RICE: Thank you.


2007/29



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