Interview On Fox News Sunday with Chris Wallace
Secretary Condoleezza Rice
Washington, DC
September 10, 2006
QUESTION: And joining us now is the Secretary of State, Condoleezza Rice. Secretary Rice, welcome back to Fox News
Sunday.
SECRETARY RICE: Thank you. Good to be with you, Chris.
QUESTION: Let's start with the big picture. Five years later, where do we stand in the war on terror? Where do we stand
in the conflict against Islamic extremism?
SECRETARY RICE: I think it's clear that we are safe -- safer, but not really yet safe. And we have done a lot. In terms
of homeland we are more secure. Our ports are more secure. Our airports are more secure. We have a much stronger
intelligence sharing operation, not just within the country where we've broken down walls between law enforcement and
intelligence agencies to get all of the information to break up terrorist plots, but also across the world. We have
really an intelligence network across the world of sharing information.
We've clearly hurt badly the al-Qaida organization that planned and plotted and executed September 11th, capturing many
of their major field generals. When the President talked the other day about bringing to justice people like Abu
Zubaydah, people like Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, you're really talking about the people who were at the center of that kind
of plot of 9/11.
And, Chris, we are making progress in the long run on -- for the long run in having liberated 50 million people and in
having new allies in the war on terror like Afghanistan and indeed Iraq.
QUESTION: Any failures?
SECRETARY RICE: Well, certainly I am sure there are many things could be done better. We would like to make more
progress. People would always like to make more progress. But --
QUESTION: But anything specifically that you say --
SECRETARY RICE: Well, I think --
QUESTION: -- that you know, five years later the war on terror hasn't gone as well?
SECRETARY RICE: Again, history will have to judge, Chris. I think that the record will show that the last five years
have been years of reorganizing the United States Government, reorganizing our international alliances for this long war
and reorienting our strategic policy toward one that simply will not accept the conditions in the Middle East and in
other places that have allowed extremism to flourish at the expense of moderation.
QUESTION: All right, let's talk about some of the concerns that people have. President Bush calls Iraq and again this
week called Iraq a central front in the war on terror. But I want to look at some of the other statements made by your
Administration recently, and let's take a look. In April, your State Department said al-Qaida in Iraq has about 1,000
fighters. That's about 5 percent of the total insurgency. Last month, the Pentagon said the core conflict in Iraq
changed into a struggle between Sunni and Shia extremists seeking to control key areas of Baghdad.
Secretary Rice, what evidence do you have that the homegrown Sunnis and Shia fighting each other in Iraq, and of course
that at this point is the vast majority of the violence, that they have any interest in attacking the U.S.?
SECRETARY RICE: Well, clearly the person who set off much of the sectarian violence, who plotted the notion that Shias
should go after Sunnis and you should try and spark civil conflict, actually was the al-Qaida leader at the time,
Zarqawi, who we later killed.
QUESTION: But he's gone.
SECRETARY RICE: Well, but it was his strategy and we know that, to try and set off sectarian violence. Now, we have to
ask the question: Why did he try to do that? Because he understood and al-Qaida in Iraq understood that when there is a
stable and democratic Iraq, then their plans, the plans of al-Qaida and the extremists for a Middle East in which there
is indeed sectarian violence, in which there is extremism, in which there are repressive regimes of the Taliban type,
that will not be possible when there's a democratic Iraq.
And so yes, Iraq is going through very difficult times. There's no doubt about that. But if you have a broad view of
what it will take to defeat extremism, meaning that there will have to be a different kind of environment in the Middle
East, it's hard to imagine that different kind of environment with Saddam Hussein in power and Iraq at the center of a
nexus between terrorism and conflict.
QUESTION: But I think here's the concern a lot of people have. When we went in there allegedly to remove the weapons of
mass destruction, people understood that as the war on terror. Even when we deposed Saddam Hussein, people understood
that as the war on terror. When we were fighting Abu Mussab al-Zarqawi, people understood that as the war on terror. Now
we've got Shiites fighting Sunnis, Muqtada al-Sadr. These are rivalries that go back centuries, tribal rivalries,
religious rivalries. Aren't we involved in a terrible case of mission creep here that has nothing to do with the war on
terror?
SECRETARY RICE: No, Chris, is is the Iraqis who will have to settle their own differences and indeed that's why they
talk about a process of national reconciliation. That's why they're trying to build security forces that bridge
sectarian divides. Our role though was to indeed remove Saddam Hussein, and it's hard to imagine that the world could
possibly have gotten better with Saddam Hussein in power, that the Middle East could possibly have gotten better --
QUESTION: But is it our responsibility to solve these ethnic sectarian problems?
SECRETARY RICE: It is clearly Iraq's responsibility, Iraqis' responsibilities, to do that. But we have --
QUESTION: But we're involved in the fighting.
SECRETARY RICE: Well, but we have to give them an environment in which they can do that. We have to help them build
security forces. We have to help them build political institutions. And, Chris, it would simply be wrong to say that the
only problem in Iraq is sectarian violence between Sunnis and Shia. There is still a considerable problem of terrorism
from extremists who simply want to see Iraq be a part of a Middle East in which the bin Ladens of the world control, not
the Malikis, the moderates of the Middle East.
QUESTION: Meanwhile there is Afghanistan, which used to be the safe haven for al-Qaida and where some of its leaders are
still at large. On Friday, a suicide bomber -- and we have the pictures here -- attacked an American military convoy in
Kabul, killing 16 people. The Taliban, which most Americans thought we wiped out back in 2001, is back on the march in
the south and NATO forces this week are asking for more troops.
Secretary Rice, why didn't we finish the job in Afghanistan?
SECRETARY RICE: Well, it was not possible to "finish the job in Afghanistan." This is going to be also a long process of
bringing stability to Afghanistan. We have made enormous progress over the last four and a half years in Afghanistan.
You actually have a national government that is elected in Afghanistan whose forces are fighting alongside of us, rather
than the Taliban which was both harboring al-Qaida and giving them support.
You now have for the people of Afghanistan the possibility of a better life. Women are not being beaten in stadiums that
were given to the Taliban by the international community. You have a situation in which, yes, the Taliban is trying to
make a strike at the Afghan Government because they do not want it to succeed. But the Taliban is not going to succeed
and they're not going to succeed because you have strong NATO and coalition forces and U.S. forces that are beating them
back. Taliban is taking a beating in this.
QUESTION: But the --
SECRETARY RICE: And, Chris, I want to be very clear. The notion that somehow this is a strategic threat to the Karzai
government, I think this is not the case. You are talking about a Taliban that is able, particularly in the south, to
wreak a lot of havoc and to bring death and destruction to civilians, but they are being beaten back.
QUESTION: But again, and just this week the head British commander in Afghanistan, Brigadier Ed Butler said -- and let's
put it up on the screen: "The fighting is extraordinarily intense, the intensity and ferocity of the fighting is far
greater than in Iraq on a daily basis." I'm sure a lot of Americans are saying, "Isn't it a failure?" We had them on the
run, we had the Taliban completely disrupted. Isn't it a failure to have allowed the Taliban to regroup?
SECRETARY RICE: Well, Chris, it's very hard to say that we didn't expect them to fight back. Of course they're going to
fight back. Even if they're on the ropes, they're going to fight back. And yes, they came back somewhat more organized
and somewhat more capable than people would have been -- would have expected. But that's why they're being beaten back
by the NATO forces that are there. I think they also believed that when the United States forces moved out and NATO
moved in, that it would be easier to make advances. And they're learning a very brutal lesson as they encounter NATO
forces that are destroying them in very large numbers.
QUESTION: I don't have to tell you that one of the criticisms of the Bush Administration -- we heard it again today from
Senator Jay Rockefeller -- is that all of you manipulated intelligence to push the country into war. I want to discuss
just one area, the issue of whether Iraq helped al-Qaida with weapons of mass destruction. Here's what the President
said in October of 2002: "We've learned that Iraq has trained al-Qaida members in bomb-making, in poisons and deadly
gasses." And in March 2003, just before the invasion, you said, talking about Iraq, "And a very strong link to training
al-Qaida in chemical and biological techniques."
Secretary Rice, a Senate committee has just revealed that in February of 2002, months before the President spoke, more
than a year -- 13 months -- before you spoke, that the Defense Intelligence Agency concluded this, and let's put it up
on the screen: "Iraq is unlikely to have provided bin Laden any useful CB." That's chemical or biological knowledge or
assistance. Didn't you and the President ignore intelligence that contradicted your case?
SECRETARY RICE: What the President and I and other Administration officials relied on, and you simply rely on the
Central Intelligence -- the Director of Central Intelligence. George Tenet gave that very testimony that in fact there
were ties going on between al-Qaida and Saddam Hussein's regime going back for a decade. Indeed, the 9/11 Commission
talked about contacts between the two. We know that Zarqawi was running a poisons network in Iraq. We know that Zarqawi
ordered the killing of an American diplomat in Jordan from Iraq. There were ties between Iraq and al-Qaida.
Now, are we learning more now that we have access to people like Saddam Hussein's intelligence services? Of course we're
going to learn more. But, Chris, the --
QUESTION: But this report -- if I may.
SECRETARY RICE: Yeah.
QUESTION: This report wasn't now. This isn't after the fact. This was a Defense Intelligence Agency report in 2002. Two
questions. First of all, did you know about that report before you made your statement?
SECRETARY RICE: Chris, we relied on the reports of the National Intelligence Office, the NIO, and of the DCI. That's
what the President and his central decision makers rely on. There are --
QUESTION: Did you know about this report?
SECRETARY RICE: There are intelligence reports and conflicting intelligence reports all the time. That's why we have an
intelligence system that brings those together into a unified assessment by the intelligence committee -- community of
what we're looking at. That particular report I don't remember seeing, but there are often conflicting intelligence
reports. I just want to refer you though to the testimony of the DCI at the time about the activities that --
QUESTION: That's the head of Central Intelligence.
SECRETARY RICE: Yes, the head of Central Intelligence -- that were going on between al-Qaida and between Iraq. But let
me make a broader point. The notion somehow, and I've heard this, the notion somehow that the world is better off --
would be better off with Saddam Hussein still in power seems to me quite ludicrous. Saddam Hussein had gone to war
against his neighbors twice, causing more than a million deaths. He had dragged us into a war in 1991 because he invaded
his neighbor Kuwait. We were still at war with him in 1998 when we used American forces to try and disable his weapons
of mass destruction. We went to war again with him day in and day out as he shot at our aircraft trying to patrol no-fly
zones.
This was a mass murderer of more than 300,000 of his people using weapons of mass destruction. The United States and a
coalition of allies finally brought down one of the most brutal dictators in the Middle East and one of the most
dangerous dictators in the Middle East, and we're better off for it.
QUESTION: We have about a minute left and I want to get into one last area. There have been several stories this week
that you prevailed over Vice President Cheney in the debate over whether or not to pull these top high-valued prisoners
like Zubaydah and Khalid Sheikh Mohammed out of the CIA prisons, also reports that you now have more clout with the
President than Vice President Cheney because of mistakes in judgment he made in the first term. Have you replaced the
Vice President?
SECRETARY RICE: Well, I think these are truly among most of the ridiculous stories. These stories float around
Washington, who's up, who's down. The Vice President remains a crucial advisor to the President. His role is different
than my role. But not only is he a crucial advisor to the President on whom the President relies, but he's also someone
on whom all of us rely, including me, for advice and counsel because of his great experience and because of his great
wisdom on these issues. No, these stories are simply ridiculous.
QUESTION: You have not replaced the Vice President and the President's top foreign policy advisor?
SECRETARY RICE: I'm the Secretary of State, Chris. I have a different role from the Vice President. But let's remember
who ultimately makes the decisions in foreign policy. It's the President of the United States himself.
QUESTION: We're going to have to leave it there. Secretary Rice, thanks for coming in and thanks for giving us your
perspective on this fifth anniversary.
SECRETARY RICE: Thank you.
2006/801
ENDS