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Transcript for October 16 Condoleezza Rice, Carl Levin & Louis Freeh NBC News MR TIM RUSSERT: Our issues this Sunday: Ballots in Iraq are being coun ted as millions turned out yesterday to vote on a new constitution. Wha t will this mean for violence and bloodshed and US troop levels? And for the Democrats, t he ranking member of the Senate Armed Services Committee, Carl Levin of Michigan. Then, the former director of the FBI makes very serious allegations about former President Bill Clinton and the Saudis. And the September 11th C ommission is very critical of the FBI. Our guest, the author of "My FBI : Bringing Down the Mafia, Investigating Bill Clinton, and Fighting the War on Terror," Louis Freeh. Are you confident the Iraqi people adopted a n ew constitution yesterday? SEC'Y CONDOLEEZZA RICE: I'm confident, Tim, that the Iraqi people went t o the polls in large numbers, apparently perhaps as much as a million mo re than they did in January. I'm confident that Sunnis participated in large numbers, which means that the base of politics has expanded in Ira q I think we have to wait to see what the results of the referendum wi ll be, but the fact of the matter is that they had a democratic process. They were told that they had a chance to vote yes or no, and they went to the polls in large numbers. And by the way, the Iraqi forces perfor med very well in protecting the election process, and we think there may have been fewer attacks this time, too, than in January. MR RUSSERT: But you said a few hours ago you thought it probably passed . SEC'Y RICE: There were some early reports from the ground that the numbe rs looked that way, but I think--I underscored when I made that statemen t that we would not know until we know. And I just want to be very clea r, the key here is that the Iraqi people have expressed their views and we'll wait to see what their views are. MR RUSSERT: If it did go down, it would set the political process back significantly. If, for some reason it does not, then demo cracy has been served. It would be like saying that a referendum in the United States, because it didn't pass, that it somehow was against the democratic process. The key here is the Sunnis have voted in large numb ers. That means they're casting their lot now with the democratic proce ss, and one way or another, the Iraqis are going to be in a position to move forward. SEC'Y RICE: They'll have elections in December one way or another. MR RUSSERT: Let me share an article from the Los Angeles Times with you and get your reaction. The headline: "A Central Pillar of Iraq Policy Crumbling. It does on, "Senior US officials have begun to question a key presumption of American strategy in Iraq, that establishing democrac y there can erode and ultimately eradicate the insurgency gripping the c ountry. The expectation that political process would bring stability ha s been fundamental to the Bush administration's approach to rebuilding I raq, as well a central theme of White House rhetoric to convince the Ame rican public that its policy in Iraq remains on course. But within the last two months, US analysts with access to classified information hav e-- intelligence have started to challenge this precept, noting signifi cant and disturbing disconnect' between apparent advances on the politic al front and efforts to reduce insurgent attacks." SEC'Y RICE: No, I don't agree with that, because you defeat an insurgenc y politically as well as militarily. And, of course, there are a few, a nd they are not the majority of the Iraqi population by any stretch of t he imagination. Indeed, some of them are foreigners, like those who wor k for Zarqawi. You are looking at a situation in which a few people can pull off spectacular attacks, can make life miserable for Iraqis, can c owardly--in a cowardly fashion kill schoolteachers and Iraqi children an d attack police stations or attack, as was the case a few days ago, the headquarters of the Iraqi Islamic Party which is a Sunni party that came out in favor of the constitution, but where they have not been able to derail the political process, and where Iraqis still have gone out in hu ge numbers to vote despite their threats. And, in fact, Tim, one of the facts that we're getting from the ground is that the number of attacks surrounding this referendum process were fewer than in the January 30 el ections, so that's good news. You defeat an insurgency politically as well as militarily. As the Iraqi security forces are better, they will have a role. But the Iraqi people are casting their lot with the political process, and that will sap the energy from this insurgency because an insurgency cannot ultimately survive without a political base. MR RUSSERT: Let me share with you some attitudes of Americans towards t he war in Iraq, and here's our latest Wall Street Journal-NBC poll: 51 percent say removing Saddam Hussein was not worth it; Majorities now raising huge anxieties, exp ressing huge anxieties over the war in Iraq. SEC'Y RICE: I'm quite certain, Tim, that when the American people see ev ery day what they see on their screens, which is violence and, of course , the deaths of Americans and coalition forces, it's very difficult to t ake. But the fact of the matter is that when we were attacked on September 11, we had a choice to make. We could de cide that the proximate cause was al-Qaeda and the people who flew those planes into buildings and, therefore, we would go after al-Qaeda and pe rhaps after the Taliban and then our work would be done and we would try to defend ourselves. Or we could take a bolder approach, which was to say that we had to go af ter the root causes of the kind of terrorism that was produced there, an d that meant a different kind of Middle East. And there is no one who c ould have imagined a different kind of Middle East with Saddam Hussein s till in power. I know it's difficult, but we have ahead of us the prospe ct, and I think the very good prospect of a foundation for a democratic and prosperous Iraq that can solve its differences by politics and compr omise, that becomes an anchor for a Middle East that is changing. If you look at Lebanon and you look at the Palestinian territories and yo u look at what is going on in Egypt, this is a Middle East that is in tr ansformation to something far better than we have experienced for the la st 60 years when we thought that we could ignore democracy and get stabi lity and, in fact, we got neither. So yes, it's long, and yes, it's har d, but if we quit now, we are not only going to condemn generations of p eople of the Middle East to despair, we are going to condemn generations of Americans to continued fear and insecurity. MR RUSSERT: Syria--there are reports of increased activity on the borde rs of Syria between US troops and Syrian troops, covert operations of US operatives in Syria. Would you like to see a regime change in Syri a, and will we help bring that about? SEC'Y RICE: What we are focused on is getting the Syrian regime to chang e its behavior. The Syrian regime is out of step with what is going on in the region, and, Tim, this is not a problem between the United States and Syria. This is a problem in which the Syrians have caused destabili zation in Lebanon through their presence there for 30 years, and they fi nally now are out. But the question is are they fully living up to thei r obligations under Resolution 1559, which we co-sponsored with the Fren ch, to not destabilize Lebanon, to not sanction assassinations in that r egion. They are stirring up difficulties in the Palestinian camps in Lebanon, wh ich is a problem for the Palestinian territories and the work that Mahmo ud Abbas is trying to do in bringing a Palestinian state to bear. And, yes, they are permitting the use of Syrian territory for terrorists to c ross Syrian territory. And by the way, in many cases they're coming thr ough Damascus airport. This isn't crawling across the border as they do in Pakistan or Afghanistan. And so, yes, they're using--that territory is being used to kill innocent Iraqis, innocent men, women and children , because suicide bombers are coming throug...
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