Rice Interview On The Sean Hannity Show

Interview With Sean Hannity of The Sean Hannity Show

Secretary Condoleezza Rice
Washington, DC
March 29, 2007

QUESTION: Today Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice is with us. How are you?

SECRETARY RICE: Hi, Sean, I'm fine. How are you?

QUESTION: I'm good. We always appreciate you being here. Now, what do you do in the off-season when football's not going on? Do you like baseball?

SECRETARY RICE: Well, so far, I'm just watching March Madness and waiting to see who's going to win this championship and then I'll go into hibernation a little bit, Sean, until after the All-Star break.

QUESTION: So it's really -- it's pretty much football and basketball. You're not a big baseball fan?

SECRETARY RICE: I like baseball, but I'm one of those people who think the season's a little long. I'll wait until after the All-Star break and then I'll get real interested.

QUESTION: Well, if you're ever really interested, I have a pretty good connection with a good buddy of mine who has the greatest seats at Yankee Stadium and I'd love to take you there.

SECRETARY RICE: Well, I'd love that. You know, I'm a Yankee fan so that sounds great.

QUESTION: Well, you sound like Hillary now -- I'm a Yankee -- she's a Yankee fan, a Cubs fan. You know, but I'll tell you these are dangerous seats. I took my son there last year and he got hit with a foul ball.

SECRETARY RICE: Oh.

QUESTION: I mean, a line drive right in the face.

SECRETARY RICE: Oh, my goodness.

QUESTION: And we had a tough year. He broke his leg and he got hit with a baseball so -- but I'll bring a glove and protect you.

SECRETARY RICE: Yeah, you have to protect me, Sean. I hope you can catch. (Laughter.)

QUESTION: No, I can. I'm actually -- I'm a pretty good ballplayer. But anyway, welcome back to the program.

SECRETARY RICE: Thank you.

QUESTION: We've got day seven now of this hostage situation, our allies, our friends the Brits, these sailors and marines that have been taken hostage, your initial thoughts on this?

SECRETARY RICE: Well, they need to be released. The British Government, I think has gone out and demonstrated that these people were in international waters. I think they need to be released and the international community needs to say to Iran that they need to be released and that is what we're doing. We're trying to do anything that we can with other parties to help the British. But the bottom line is that they need to be released. They should not have been put on television in that way. And the Iranian Government if it wants to show that it really is -- belongs in the international community as a responsible state it should release these sailors.

QUESTION: We have captured Iranian Revolutionary Guards inside of Iraq helping the insurgency. We have had these weapons caches that we have been able to find inside of Iraq that are being used to kill American soldiers. We now have this hostage situation. Are these acts of war?

SECRETARY RICE: Well, Sean, they're certainly acts that are destabilizing to the international community and they are certainly acts that are destabilizing in Iraq, and we've been very clear with the Iranians about that. We're going to continue to defend our troops in Iraq, continue our force protection measures dealing with people who are putting our troops at danger, and by the way putting innocent Iraqis in danger too by helping death squads and helping militias to arm themselves. And so we're going to continue to do that.

QUESTION: But clearly, they don't really seem to care what the world community thinks. We see them defying the United Nations on issues involving the nuclear program. I know that Tony Blair mentioned earlier today that he wanted to go before the UN and get a resolution passed in regard to the hostage situation. Is it fair in my assessment that I don't think the Iranians particularly care about that?

SECRETARY RICE: Well, they're certainly not listening yet, although they are a regime that ought to be listening. We know several things. We know that on the international front they have now been put under two separate Chapter 7 Security Council resolutions. We know that they're having trouble getting financing for their projects in their very important oil and gas sector. We know that they are having trouble using the international financial system, that they're getting more and more isolated.

And you just have to believe, Sean, that at some point a country that is as integrated in international politics as Iran is going to realize that this level of isolation just can't be endured. I've often said it's not a matter of looking for moderates in Iran; I don't think there are any in this regime; but it is a matter of looking for reasonable people who might want to have a different course. And so we're going to stay knit up with the international community. We are supporting the British in trying to bring this case of these captured soldiers, captured seamen, before the Security Council and we're going to help work on that.

QUESTION: The Iranians import over 50 percent of their gasoline; as I understand it, they only have one refinery inside of their country. Would it be wholly appropriate to stop any importation of gasoline into Iran and put a blockade up in the Gulf?

SECRETARY RICE: Well, I think we won't speculate on what might be in the future. We're keeping all options on the table. But the Iranians have already seen a strong reaction from the international financial system that they are a reputational and investment risk, and as this goes on they're going to become more and more of a reputational and investment risk and the policies of their president is leading to high inflation, it's leading to gas rationing. The Iranian people are suffering because of this regime and their policies and we're going to continue to turn up the pressure.

QUESTION: Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice is with us. I know there's been talk about having some type of sit-down negotiations. And we discussed this the last time you were on the program that we would actually sit at the table with the Iranians in coordination with the Iraqis as a means of trying to create stability in the region. How do you have a discussion with a man that constantly denies the Holocaust, that repeatedly has said he wants to annihilate Israel and wipe them off the map, and defies the world community in terms of its nuclear program? Where do you begin the discussion?

SECRETARY RICE: Well, I can't imagine that discussion with this president of Iran. He frankly has said things that no leader of any government should say. And I think he has experienced with the responsible states isolation as a result of that. Now, with the Iranians, we have agreed as a result of an Iraqi invitation to their neighbors to sit at the table and to talk about ways that all of Iraq's neighbors can help to stabilize Iraq. This is about Iraq, not about Iranian-U.S. relations. It's about Iraq. And this was an initiative of the Iraqi Government and we'll continue to support their initiatives to get their neighbors to act responsibly.

But Sean, when people say, well, you should sit down with the Iranians, I remind them that until the Iranians suspend their nuclear weapons program, we would be really violating an agreement with our allies that they ought to suspend their weapons program and then we're prepared to sit down and talk and see if we can work things out. But the -- I want not to confuse the two things. On the one hand, we've made an offer that if they suspend their enrichment and reprocessing, we're prepared to sit down and talk about a future that would allow the Iranian people to have a civil nuclear program. On the other hand, the Iraqis want to have conversations with their neighbors about ways to stabilize, we're prepared to be a part of that.

QUESTION: Prime Minister Tony Blair said the release of these hostages, must be unconditional.

SECRETARY RICE: Yes.

QUESTION: What is our policy if any American solider is taken hostage? What is the American policy?

SECRETARY RICE: We have had a longstanding policy that we don't negotiate with terrorists and we don't negotiate under those circumstances. And we support the Prime Minister in his view that this is unconditional.

QUESTION: One of the things I always like to raise on this program, I'm a big fan of former President Ronald Reagan, and I often ask the question, you know, what would Reagan do? We actually show a segment on my Sunday night show, Hannity's America and I'm sure you watch it every week. I'm kidding.

SECRETARY RICE: I've seen it on occasion, Sean, I have. (Laughter.)

QUESTION: You have? All right.

SECRETARY RICE: Yes.

QUESTION: Well, I hope you like it. But anyway, President Reagan, we know how he responded for example to Muammar Qadhafi. But, for example, he responded to Iranian aggression in 1987 after Tehran started mining the Persian Gulf in an effort to force a global oil crisis at the time. And he knew negotiations would be pointless and he attacked. And he did the same thing back in 1988 and he didn't go before the United Nations, he didn't -- you know, plead for resolutions and he didn't give them much time to react and he reacted militarily. It seems to me that it's almost the only thing rogue nations like this understand. Am I faulty in my thinking?

SECRETARY RICE: Well, we still believe, Sean, that there is plenty of room here for a diplomatic solution. The President doesn't take his options off the table, but you do have to ask what fits these circumstances best. And what fits these circumstances best is to continue this growing international pressure. It is growing. The Iranians do themselves no favor by doing things like holding the British soldiers, the British sailors and parading them on television. It just reminds everyone what a difficult state they are and what a danger they are to the international system.

And so I think we have the right strategy and we'll continue to assess where we are, but we're getting a lot of support internationally for a policy that isolates Iran.

QUESTION: Do you think in any way it could be connected to the votes that have taken place in the House and Senate on the Iraq funding and the setting of a deadline by the Democrats? In other words, that that vote and the anti-war sentiment, as strong as it is in this country today, that that could have emboldened a country like Iran, do you think (inaudible) connected at all?

SECRETARY RICE: Well, I -- far be it for me to try to judge the motives of the Iranians in doing these things that they do, all of which are against their interests. I think that what you have here is a state that unfortunately does not thus far listen to the international community and that acts in ways that are destabilizing. They've been doing that for a long time, Sean. This isn't the first time that they've even taken people hostage. They did it a couple of years ago with British sailors. And so I don't want to try to judge what's in their minds. I just want to try to affect their behavior.

I do think that the President's speech of January did finally convince the Iranians that we are serious. The Iranians had begun to behave in a way that they didn't think that the United States was serious. And the decision to put a carrier strike group into the Persian Gulf, to put the PAC-3 missiles there to defend our allies, the fact that we started picking up their people who are harming our soldiers, and then these financial measures that we're taking against them; I think all of that has convinced the Iranians that they're dealing with a serious power in the United States.

QUESTION: Joining us on our newsmaker line, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice. Madame Secretary, we often are very critical of the news media on this program because I feel that they have not given the American people any of the good news that has come out of Iraq. We now have put in place a reinforcement or what we call the troop surge or reinforcements for the troops there and a different strategy than we had before. We have General Petraeus working on this strategy every day and the troops are now out there in the communities in Baghdad and they're staying there. Do you have any message of success you'd like to pass on to the American people?

SECRETARY RICE: Well, I would like to pass on that our commanders all will say at this point, and our Embassy people, so far, so good. There are going to be bad days and good days, Sean, but we are seeing the Iraqis step up and live up to the obligations that they undertook when the President agreed to this surge. We are seeing the Iraqis and the United States and the coalition beginning to establish security for the people of Baghdad, and that will ultimately help the security in Iraq. In a place like al-Anbar, we actually have -- which is the toughest region, by the way; Anbar Province is the kind of epicenter for al-Qaida -- and there you have tribal leaders raising their own forces and training them to fight al-Qaida. So there are many good things going on.

But, Sean, if I could just say, the President has submitted a bill to the Congress, submitted a supplemental request to fund our troops and to fund our Embassy personnel who are out on the front lines. And it's really important that they get that funding and that they get it soon and they get it without restrictions.

QUESTION: It raises the question though that things have been so politicized at this particular point in time, and I know it's probably the President's nature and strategy; he's turned the other cheek. He's been attacked, viciously I think, by political opponents here. I've got to wonder though at what point it doesn't hurt the effort. I mean, what are the troops in the field thinking when Congress won't approve that supplemental or when it takes -- you know, the House of Representatives, they have to load it up with $24 billion worth of pork barrel projects to get, you know, certain representatives to vote for it because they won't vote for it on the merits.

SECRETARY RICE: We have remarkable men and women in uniform and we have remarkable American civilians out there. Sean, the President met a few days ago with our new Provincial Reconstruction Team leaders. These are people that are going to go out to some of the toughest provinces. These are civilians, many of them people who have already served in tough places like El Salvador during the civil war and Kenya during the attempted coup and in Pakistan and Lebanon. They've been in tough places and they're ready to go back. And they said to the President, "Mr. President, we're proud to be going because we know how important this is to America's security."

And the one thing they said to me is, "Just make sure we've got the resources to do our job." And I know that our men and women in uniform and our diplomats and our people who are going to be out in those frontline places need the resources so that they can get the job done. And I just hope that they'll get those resources and the Congress will pass the President a clean bill.

QUESTION: I do as well. We're running out of time here. Where do we stand with North Korea's agreement to dismantle their nuclear weapons? I read the other day that they walked out of the talks, indicating they wouldn't even meet the first 60-day benchmark on compliance. Is that what's really going on?

SECRETARY RICE: No, no, I think -- actually, Sean, I think we're doing okay there. We will see. And everybody has, of course, skepticism about the North Koreans, but they have said, actually, that they will meet their obligations. The problem is that it has been difficult to implement an agreement that we had on a law enforcement matter to release certain funds to the North Koreans that had been frozen. But it's all a matter of implementation; this really isn't a policy issue. And I'm still hopeful that within the next month or so here we're going to see the North Koreans shut down that reactor and we can get on then with starting to unravel and ultimately dismantle their nuclear weapons program.

QUESTION: I've got to tell you, as you look at Iran, as you look at the Persian Gulf, as you look at Iraq, as you look at North Korea, these are very, very consequential and troubling times we live in. I mean, I know your area of expertise and study has been the former Soviet Union. Do you see a parallel?

SECRETARY RICE: Well, there's a good parallel if you'd like to draw it, which is that back in the '40s when things were really, really tough at the end of World War II and the beginning of the Cold War, I don't think anybody would have ever believed that by 2006 the President of the United States would have attended a NATO summit in Riga, Latvia, where the Soviet Union had collapsed peacefully and where we had unified Europe. So my view is that we're at the beginning of a big historical transition this time, and we're going to come to a good conclusion here because our values are right and our policies are right.

QUESTION: Madame Secretary, we always love having you and we appreciate the hard work you're putting in for the country every day, and thank you for being with us as always.

SECRETARY RICE: Thank you, Sean. Take care.

2007/244

Released on March 29, 2007

ENDS

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