Condoleezza Rice Interview With Sally Brindle

Interview With Sally Brindle of Brook Lapping Productions

Secretary Condoleezza Rice
Washington, DC
January 22, 2007

QUESTION: Secretary of State, I'll take you back to 2001 in February at Camp David when President Bush and Tony Blair first met. How did a Republican president get on so well with a New Labor prime minister?

SECRETARY RICE: Well, it was clear to me right away that they were going to get along very well. They seemed to have the same sense of humor. I'm a big believer that if you've got the same sense of humor with someone, you're going to get along and they clearly did. They also had the same sense of values and this was, of course, before September 11th changed the world or seemed to turn the world upside down. But already, they were talking about the important issues of the time and the President showed a clear respect for the Prime Minister's views and the Prime Minister, a clear desire to get to know this young president.

QUESTION: You said they shared a sense of humor. Can you give an example?

SECRETARY RICE: (Laughter.) Well, I probably -- I think that when the President in that press conference said that they'd shared toothpaste, I wondered what the Prime Minister could possibly be thinking, but at least he laughed.

QUESTION: Excellent. What's it like being in a meeting with the two of them?

SECRETARY RICE: Well, being in a meeting with the two of them is to be in a meeting in which there's no pretense, a meeting in which no one is trying to outshine the other by showing their depth of knowledge of a particular issue. In fact, I can remember that on occasion, they would turn to one aide or another and say, "All right, you have to keep going here because I'm at the end of what I know about this issue." And so that's really pretty rare sometimes. There's a tendency to perhaps have a little competitiveness. That didn't come through in those first meetings.

QUESTION: Okay, excellent. Thank you (inaudible).

SECRETARY RICE: Yes.

QUESTION: Let's move on to just -- the aftermath of 9/11. Tony Blair came here on the 20th of September and they had a meeting. What did they discuss at that dinner?

SECRETARY RICE: Well, the dinner was the two of them, but I know that in the meetings that we had, the Prime Minister came, more than anything, to say, "America's not going to stand alone." And it meant an enormous amount. I think it's sometimes perhaps not fully understood what a shock to the American system September 11th was. And at the time of the President's speech, I think this country was still in mourning and when you're in mourning, you want to see your friends.

And Tony Blair came as a friend. He came as an ally, he came as someone who was ready to talk about what we might have to do in Afghanistan, what we might have to do to fight the war on terror, but most importantly, he came as a friend.

QUESTION: Did they discuss Iraq at that time?

SECRETARY RICE: I was not in the -- but Iraq was really not foremost on anyone's mind at that time. At that time, it was al-Qaida, it was Afghanistan, and the need to get rid of the sanctuary there.

QUESTION: Sure. Why was it so useful that Tony Blair was the man who went on a traveling diplomatic mission around the globe to talk to other leaders? Why was that so useful to President Bush?

SECRETARY RICE: Well, it's always useful to have someone who will work with you as a partner where you don't have to be concerned, "Well, what are they going to be saying," because you know you have a really common view and common values. And at that time, to have the Prime Minister willing and able to go out and talk about what had to be done was very important. It was a multiplier effect for the United States, that at that point, had a lot to do.

QUESTION: Why was it particularly Tony Blair and not President Bush? After all, it was his country that had been attacked - who went on that particular diplomatic mission?

SECRETARY RICE: Well, just think about what President Bush had to do in the aftermath of the September 11th attack. You know, I remember just trying to do anything we could to secure the homeland at that moment, worrying about nuclear power plants, worrying about our airports, trying to get our banking system back up and running. It was a really trying and stressing time for the United States that had been through this attack.

The President, of course, then -- not long after that, went to China and he met with other leaders like President Putin. And so he did some of that, but you can't imagine what that first month and a half or two months was like, including, by the way, it's often forgotten that not long after September 11th, we had the start of anthrax attacks. It was good to have a friend.

QUESTION: Thanks. Let's jump forward again --

SECRETARY RICE: Yes.

QUESTION: -- to April 2002 in Crawford and Tony Blair again was visiting. Was it then that you and President Bush discussed with Tony Blair your intentions to invade Iraq?

SECRETARY RICE: Oh, no. In fact, the important thing to remember is that the discussions were about how to deal with Iraq, how to deal with the fact that, as the President had said, the sanctions were turning into Swiss cheese. Now we know they were turning into something far worse, of course. They were turning into a scheme for bribery by Saddam Hussein's regime to talk about the fact that Iraq was still firing at our pilots and at British pilots in the no-fly zones.

And in fact, I do remember that one of the issues that we were very concerned about around that time was what if an American or a British pilot went down by an Iraqi anti-aircraft missile. And so it was how to deal with Iraq; not how to invade Iraq.

QUESTION: Very clear. When was it, then, that President Bush discussed with Tony Blair his intention? When did that conversation happen?

SECRETARY RICE: Well, the question of how you would deal with Iraq, should Iraq not agree to go forward with the resolution that had been put forward, 1441, they had discussions. The President had made the approach to the United Nations in September. Throughout that period, he was talking with Prime Minister Blair about what we could do to get Iraq to actually conform to the resolution and what the implications were if it did not.

QUESTION: Okay. Let's move on to the subject of the second resolution. How did Tony Blair persuade President Bush to actually go down the UN route?

SECRETARY RICE: Well, the President wanted to know what his closest allies thought. And Prime Minister Blair thought that a second resolution would be important for -- to give others a chance, to have Great Britain involved, perhaps. It was also the view of President Aznar of Spain that a second resolution would be a good thing.

But it became clear that a second resolution wasn't forthcoming and at that point, you had to make your choice: Did you continue to try to seek a second resolution that wasn't forthcoming or did you make the decision that they had to make?

QUESTION: I'm trying to explore Tony Blair's skill as a persuader and his relationship --

SECRETARY RICE: Yes, yes.

QUESTION: -- with President Bush in this matter. Would President Bush have sought a second resolution so keenly if it hadn't been for Tony Blair's persuasiveness?

SECRETARY RICE: Oh, I think that there's no doubt that the Prime Minister was probably the most persuasive element in the President's decision to seek a second resolution. He heard several voices to that regard, but his respect for the Prime Minister, his belief that the Prime Minister never asked that the United States do anything that wasn't absolutely necessary, that he wasn't -- the Prime Minister wasn't just somehow responding to the politics of the moment, but really believed that this was important to the diplomacy, those were all factors that made it extremely persuasive.

QUESTION: Tony Blair had a hard time back at home, back in England, leading up to the war. What did you think were the reasons for that, his domestic problems?

SECRETARY RICE: Well, nobody likes to go to war and going to war is the most difficult decision, I think, that any head of state or head of government will make. And I recognized and the President recognized how difficult it was. You know, I remember a phone conversation that they had in which the Prime Minister said, "No, I know it's difficult here, but I am with you," and the President saying, "Well, perhaps there's some other way that Britain can be involved," because he didn't want to put at risk the government of Prime Minister Blair, and Prime Minister Blair saying, "No, I told you that I'm with you and I'm going to be with you."

And when we met, in fact, in the Azores and talked to our British counterparts -- and it was on a Sunday and they were going back for the vote on that Tuesday, I remember having this enormous sense of, really, respect and admiration for the fact that they knew they were going back for a fight, but that they believed that it was a fight worth having and they were going to see it through; no matter what the political consequences, they were going to see it through.

QUESTION: Just for the record, that conversation was the one on March the 9th, wasn't it?

SECRETARY RICE: Yes, yes.

QUESTION: What about post-war? Before the invasion, the British voiced doubts about not proceeding with total de-Baathification, police and troops, et cetera. I mean, how did you respond to those doubts and what did you do about them?

SECRETARY RICE: Well, the British were, of course, represented in the Coalition Provisional Authority and I think that there were concerns that the de-Baathification might be going too far. We tried to be responsive, but of course, there was also an Iraqi Government that was making its own decisions in this regard and ultimately, the de-Baathification laws came out. They probably were too severe and I think Iraq is now trying to rectify that. But it's important to remember too that if you were someone who had suffered at the hands of the Baath Party, the first expression of de-Baathification, I think, was probably likely to be more severe than probably was wise at the time.

QUESTION: Have Tony Blair and President Bush ever had a disagreement about --

SECRETARY RICE: Oh, I'm sure they have, but if they have, they've kept it to themselves. (Laughter.) Look, they don't agree on everything, obviously. They probably, on domestic politics, might not agree on a lot. But --

QUESTION: Can you think of an example --

SECRETARY RICE: Well, look, I -- you know, first of all, I'm not party to all of their discussions, but I will tell you this. I'm quite certain that what they agree on is more important than what they disagree on. And what they seem to have this firm resolve about is this understanding that this war that we're in, this long war, this ideological struggle is really for our world and for our generation, what their fathers had been through.

And perhaps one reason that it's so encouraging to have an ally like Britain is that of course, without the United States, Britain might not have survived and Britain now seems to be, in a sense, understanding that its historical role now is to help others survive who might not without help.

QUESTION: Everyone I've interviewed finds this question very difficult. Can you think of one word to sum up Tony Blair?

SECRETARY RICE: Resolute.

QUESTION: Excellent, we haven't had that one. (Laughter.) How has everything they've been through affected their relationship?

SECRETARY RICE: Oh, I think their relationship's gotten deeper and closer. The President has enormous respect for Prime Minister Blair, but he also just likes him. You know, he likes to talk to him. They like to talk about politics. They're both politicians and for those of us --

QUESTION: And about religion?

SECRETARY RICE: I think yes, of course, because they are -- they are both religious people and they talk about family. They have -- when they were out in Crawford, the Blair children were there and so they talk about family. So they share a great deal, but this is a true partnership. It's one in which the President respects and really relies on Prime Minister Blair's advice and in which I think that the Prime Minister feels free to give it, whether it's advice the President wants to hear or not.

QUESTION: How much do you think that President Bush will miss Tony Blair once he's left office?

SECRETARY RICE: Oh, I'm sure he will miss him, because this is a relationship that really has been tested by difficult times, that they've gone through some of the hardest times together. And the fact that Prime Minister Blair was in the gallery when the President gave his speech to the nation on September 20th, those are experiences that are hard to replace.

QUESTION: I have one final question just to explore that religious thing. Have you seen any evidence of how their religious conviction drives them?

SECRETARY RICE: This is always the hardest question because I am myself a deeply religious person. And you don't even know how it drives you because it's so much a part of you. And I think the fact that you don't have to express it with other deeply religious people, it's just a part of you, is probably sometimes a little bit difficult for people to understand. So it doesn't find, necessarily, expression in words, but rather, it's so much a part of who you are that it's bound to find expression in how you deal with life.

QUESTION: Is there anything that I haven't asked you which you'd like to add about your time knowing Tony Blair and what sort of man he is and what his legacy would be, for example?

SECRETARY RICE: Well, I think that Prime Minister Blair's legacy will be like that of other great British leaders, to have recognized that it's in difficult times that it's important to stay strong, to recognize that it's in difficult times that it's important to rely on values and principle because really, that's all that you have. And when I think of great wartime leaders, of course, everybody thinks of Churchill, but I think Tony Blair will find his place in the long line of great British leaders who led in that way.

But if I could, just for personal privilege, I have to say something about -- something else about Tony Blair. Maybe the proudest I've seen him in a long time was when Leo played the piano for me. And I was at Number 10 and Leo has been taking piano lessons and he played the piano for me. And that was great too, because I think he's a man who's a great family man and manages that very well as well.

QUESTION: Can you remember what he played?

SECRETARY RICE: Oh, I don't remember, but it was a wonderful song and I went over and watched. He's doing quite well.

QUESTION: Excellent, that was absolutely excellent. Thank you very much.

SECRETARY RICE: Thank you very much.

2007/417

Released on May 24, 2007

ENDS

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