Rice on CBS's Face the Nation with Bob Schieffer

Interview on CBS's Face the Nation with Bob Schieffer

Secretary Condoleezza Rice
Washington, DC
April 29, 2007

QUESTION: Good morning, again. Joining us first, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice. Madame Secretary, I welcome but I must say it's difficult to know where to begin. I can't recall since maybe back in the days of Watergate when an administration found itself and its credibility being challenged on so many different fronts. Now we have this explosive new book by George Tenet, the former head of the CIA who got a Medal of Freedom from the President when he left, now charging that there wasn't even a serious debate about going to Iraq, that the top officials in the Administration had their minds made up from the start.

Is that true?

SECRETARY RICE: Well, George was a very good public servant and we worked very well together during very difficult times. But the President came in in 2001, determined to try to deal with the Iraqi situation perhaps even by sanctions, by smart sanctions. When the President gave his first press conference, he said the sanctions had become Swiss cheese. We went through an extensive period of time of getting states to tighten the sanctions at the UN through the sanctions committee. We went to countries in the region -- Syria, for instance -- saying, "Can you stop the illegal flow of oil?" We knew that the Oil-for-Food program was causing difficulty. Don Rumsfeld led an effort to try to make more robust the no-fly zones against Saddam Hussein. We tried --

QUESTION: So you're saying that his charge is not true?

SECRETARY RICE: There was an extended period of time of trying other efforts, including the President's September address to the UN in 2002 where we did get another resolution to compel Iraq to put weapons inspectors in.

QUESTION: Let me just go -- he talks about this in an interview tonight with Scott Pelley on 60 Minutes, and one of the things he talks about, he puts on the record the story that came out in Bob Woodward's book that you did not take him seriously about the threat of al-Qaida in the days before 9/11. Let's just listen to a portion here:

QUESTION (from tape): "By the summer of 2001, Tenet was alarmed by repeated specific intelligence warning that an attack was coming. He asked for an immediate meeting to brief then National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice."

ANSWER (from tape): "Essentially the briefing says there are going to be multiple spectacular attacks against the United States. We believe these attacks are imminent. Mass casualties are a likelihood."

QUESTION (from tape): "You're telling Condoleezza Rice in that meeting in the White House in July that we should take offensive action in Afghanistan now, before 9/11?"

ANSWER (from tape): "We need to consider immediate action inside Afghanistan now. We need to move to the offensive."

QUESTION (from tape): "In his book, Tenet says that even though he told Rice an attack on Americans was imminent, she took his request to launch preemptive action in Afghanistan and delegated it to third-tier officials."

So what he is saying is that you just sort of brushed him off.

SECRETARY RICE: Well, it's very interesting because that's not what George told the 9/11 Commission at the time. He said that he felt that we had gotten it. And in fact, the very next day or the day after, Steve Hadley, hardly a third-tier official, sat with the intelligence agencies to try and determine what more we could do. We were concerned, for instance, could we go after Abu Zubayda, who might have some information?

But the idea of launching preemptive strikes into Afghanistan in July of 2001, this is a new fact and I -- and we'll have to --

QUESTION: Well, why would he say something like that?

SECRETARY RICE: Well, I don't know. I don't know what we were supposed to preemptively strike in Afghanistan. Perhaps somebody can ask that.

QUESTION: He also says that when he talked about it would be a slam dunk, he meant it would be easy to make the case for going into Iraq. And he says instead officials -- and I guess he means you, too -- sort of hung him out to try and then used that as an excuse to say why we went in.

SECRETARY RICE: You know, that's very interesting. When George said slam dunk, everybody understood that he believed that the intelligence was strong. We all believed the intelligence was strong. The sad fact of how all of this has gotten talked about is that there was a problem with intelligence. But it wasn't just a problem with intelligence in the United States; it was an intelligence problem worldwide. Services across the world thought that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction. The United Nations thought that Saddam had weapons of mass destruction or would not have had these Draconian sanctions that were being levied against Iran -- Iraq.

QUESTION: But you just don't --

SECRETARY RICE: So --

QUESTION: You don't take what he said -- do you take it seriously? Are you insulted by it?

SECRETARY RICE: Well, certainly --

QUESTION: What is your response to it?

SECRETARY RICE: I can only remember once speaking to the "slam dunk," or a couple of times, and what I said was what I've just said to you: Yes, George said it, but we all thought the intelligence was strong.

QUESTION: All right. Well, let's just move on then. You find yourself currently in this dispute over Iraq with the White House and the Congress. You find yourself now under subpoena from Congress to tell what you knew about Saddam's weapons programs. Are you going to comply with that subpoena?

SECRETARY RICE: Well, first of all, this is one of the most examined issues -- how the Niger language got into the President's speech. What was its genesis? It was in the NIE. What was thought of it? This has been examined by a bipartisan commission, by Chuck Robb and Larry Silberman, by the Senate Select Intelligence Committee. I was asked about it in questions for the record for my confirmation hearing. I have given Chairman Waxman hundreds of pages of documentation --

QUESTION: So you're not going to do it?

SECRETARY RICE: -- including several letters. Let me just say I respect the oversight role of Congress and I'm perfectly willing to continue to try to answer whatever questions Chairman Waxman may have about this very thoroughly investigated issue. But there is --

QUESTION: But you will not testify in person?

SECRETARY RICE: This is a White House issue and I was National Security Advisor. That means I was at the time an advisor to the President and there's a constitutional issue here that the White House will have to handle.

QUESTION: So at this point, you are going to resist that subpoena?

SECRETARY RICE: This is a matter for White House Counsel, but I am perfectly happy in appropriate ways to continue to try to answer Congressman Waxman's questions.

QUESTION: Let's talk about what's coming up on Tuesday. Apparently, the Congress is going to send the President a bill to fund the war but it's also going to have language in there that says we have to begin withdrawal of our troops in October. We're told the President is definitely going to veto that, Madame Secretary. What happens next? Is the Administration willing to accept any kind of conditions on funding?

SECRETARY RICE: Well, when the President vetoes this measure, I know that he wants to have the leadership down and relevant parties down to talk about it. We need to come together on a way to move forward. The benchmarks that are there are benchmarks that were set by the Iraqi Government, so they're benchmarks that they know they can meet, should meet. We've been working with them and telling them that our patience isn't limited. But the problem is, why tie our own hands in using the means that we have to help get the right outcomes in Iraq? And that's the problem with having so-called consequences for missing the benchmarks.

QUESTION: Well, let me just play the devil's advocate here. We've been doing that. We've been telling the Iraqis, look, you've got to shape up or we're going to ship out, basically. That's been our message. It doesn't seem to be doing any good. How does it hurt the President's cause, your cause, the country's cause, to tell these people, look, this is it and it's written down here, and if you don't get going here, figure out a way to share power, we're out of here?

SECRETARY RICE: Well, it assumes that it's going to give incentives to the right people. I'm afraid it might give incentives to the wrong people. People who don't want it to happen will simply wait us out because the Iraqis, many of whom are paying great sacrifice to try to make this national unity government work, want to be able to move forward on the reconciliation.

Look, they are not moving quickly enough. Secretary Gates told them that. I've told them that. The President has told them that. But General Petreaus and Ambassador Crocker have a plan and a way forward. To begin now to tie our own hands and to say we must do this if they don't do that doesn't allow us the flexibility and the creativity that we need to move this forward.

QUESTION: One other question. As if you didn't need more trouble right now, The Washington Post reports this morning that while the State Department was telling countries around the world thanks so much for your help in Katrina, that in fact we weren't collecting it, almost none of it was collected through bureaucratic red tape and incompetence, that we never got the money.

SECRETARY RICE: No, in fact what happened, Bob, is that we were grateful for what people were offering. It was frankly a new circumstance for the United States to be flooded with offers of foreign assistance.

QUESTION: So that story is false?

SECRETARY RICE: No, Bob. The United States was very grateful for what -- we did tell some people we couldn't use certain kinds of in-kind contributions. We told people that it might be more efficient to help the Bush-Clinton private effort or the Red Cross. And many of those -- much of that assistance was used, including, for instance, money that has gone to help historically black colleges in Louisiana and Mississippi as well as libraries in those states.

QUESTION: So as far as you're concerned, it was handled properly? You don't have a problem --

SECRETARY RICE: It was a new circumstance and I would be the last to say that everything was handled perfectly. But we were very grateful for what countries had done, and to the degree that they delivered on their pledges, I think those pledges were well used.

QUESTION: One final question. You said earlier this morning you're going to this conference on Iraq. People from Iran will be there. Will you meet with representatives from Iran?

SECRETARY RICE: I would not rule it out. We will be there, not to talk about U.S.-Iranian issues but to talk about Iraq and how Iraq's neighbors can help to stabilize Iraq. And I won't rule it out.

QUESTION: But would you also not rule out that you might talk to Iran about its nuclear program?

SECRETARY RICE: The proper channel for Iran's nuclear program is through Javier Solana, the EU High Representative who is representing all of the six countries that have made Iran a very generous offer concerning the development of civil nuclear power.

QUESTION: Madame Secretary, thank you so much.

SECRETARY RICE: Thank you very much.

2007/337

Released on April 29, 2007

ENDS

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