For Immediate Release
Office of the Press Secretary
November 1, 2001
National Security Adviser Briefs Reporters
Press Briefing by National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice
The James S. Brady Press Briefing Room
11:47 A.M. EST
DR. RICE: Good morning, everyone. I would
like to take a few minutes just to talk a little bit about the
President's activities over the next week, including a series of
speeches that he will make updating the American people and our
coalition allies on the progress on the war on
terrorism. And then, of course, I'll be happy to take your
questions.
The President thinks it's vitally important to make certain that
the American people are kept informed about the nature of the threat
that we face, and the progress of our response. I'm going to
leave the timing and logistics of the exact timing of the President's
speeches and briefings to Ari, but let me just give you a sense of what
he plans to do.
Next week, the President will address the American people about
homeland defense and security, and our status and progress on this
front, the home front, on the war on terrorism. He will
speak to the American people about the ways in which our everyday lives
have changed necessarily since the horrific events of September 11th,
and his optimism and resolve that, despite these changes, American
values are constant and impermeable. The President will also take an
opportunity next week to announce new progress on the financial front
against terrorism.
Concerning the war abroad, the President will consult with the
members of the coalition. He does this regularly in phone
calls each morning, but he'll have a couple of special opportunities
next week. He will speak to a gathering in Warsaw, Poland of
Central European states that have gathered to talk about how they can
best support the war on terrorism. And he wants very much to
thank the Polish government for arranging this gathering. He
will talk about the importance of world leaders and coalition allies,
he will define the nature of the global response to terrorism, and
update the progress on the war on terrorism, talking about the
responsibilities of those who have joined the coalition.
The President will also have several heads of state here next
week. He will visit with Prime Minister Blair of Great Britain who
will come here; with President Chirac of France; with Prime Minister
Vajpayee of India. He will also meet with President Cardoso
of Brazil and Ahern of Ireland. And also, of Algeria --
Bouteflika from Algeria.
Finally, the President will deliver his first speech to the United
Nations General Assembly on Saturday. So it's going to be a
very busy week, both in talking about the home front and in talking
with members of the coalition about the progress in the war on
terrorism. And now I'd be glad to take your
questions. Ron.
Q Just a follow up to the homeland defense
speech. Are you saying -- is that a prime-time or an Oval
Office or a Congressional address?
DR. RICE: I'm going to let Ari address the logistics
with you. But the President is going to take an opportunity
next week to update the American people on homeland defense.
Q I'm assuming Poland is a satellite speech,
by satellite?
DR. RICE: That's right. He's not going to
Poland. That's right, he's going to be on satellite.
Q Is there a tentative agreement on missile
defense?
DR. RICE: The President has been very consistent, going
all the way back to the time that he was elected, that he had certain
principles that he believes should guide us as we've thought about the
new environment in which we find ourselves with Russia, at the end of
the Cold War.
Those principles have not changed. First of all, he's
said that he believes very strongly that the United States ought to do
a strategic nuclear review, a review of its offensive forces, and bring
those forces to a level consistent with our own deterrence needs, not
as a matter of negotiation, but as a matter of restructuring our
nuclear forces.
Secondly, the President has made clear that he believes that we're
going to have to move beyond the ABM Treaty for two
reasons: first of all because it constrains our ability to
fully explore the possibilities for missile defense, and secondly
because he believes that it is not representative of the kind of
relationship that we have with the Russians.
Now, obviously, we've been talking with the Russians at the head of
state level, at the ministerial level, and at the expert level for a
number of months now. We believe that we are understanding
each other better, that we're making progress. But I would
caution against expecting any particular deal at any particular time.
We have a series of meetings that we have been having with the
Russian President -- Ljubljana, Genoa, the recent meeting in
Shanghai. And as you know, President Putin will be here
shortly. So I would caution against expecting any particular
deal at any particular time. But we do believe that we and
the Russians are making progress on redefining our new relationship.
Q Are you denying -- are you denying that
there has been a tentative agreement on the range of nuclear
reductions?
DR. RICE: I am just saying, Ron, that I would caution
against expecting any particular deal at any particular
time. As I said to you many, many times, let's not try to
keep score, that it's 1-0 or 2-0, or that it's the ninth
inning. We are building this relationship over a long period
of time with the Russians, and we are making steady progress.
Q Can I follow on that, Dr.
Rice? There was a sense out of one of the meetings that
Secretary Powell had while he was in Shanghai, that the Russians had
indicated to us that there's a lot more that we can do in terms of
testing within the framework of the ABM Treaty than we think we can
do. Did this sort of notion of -- not an agreement, but some
sort of understanding, fall out of those conversations?
DR. RICE: Well, I think that we are getting to
understand each other better over this long period of
time. I think that the expert discussions have really told
the Russians precisely the kinds of things that we are thinking about
doing. We have said that we are going to be transparent in
our testing program; we have said that the Russians should know
precisely what we are doing to move toward limited
defenses. And so I don't think it should be surprising to
anyone that there is a better understanding, and perhaps more comfort,
with how we are going to move forward.
But I am not going to put words in the Russians' mouths as to
precisely what they think of our testing program. We will
see how the discussions go over the next several months.
Q Can you at least say, or perhaps explain,
that it's acceptable to lower the overall number of warheads?
DR. RICE: Oh, the President has said from the very
beginning -- in fact, he said during the campaign -- that he believed
that American offensive nuclear force levels were probably too high for
the task of post-Cold War deterrence. And he launched, upon
becoming President, a strategic nuclear review. That review
is moving toward conclusion. And the President's also made
very clear that he believes the restructuring of American nuclear
forces and numbers that are consistent with the deterrent mission is a
matter of military planning; it's not a matter of negotiation. And so,
sooner or later, those talks will be done internally.
Q But just to explain to the American
people, I mean, you apparently are exploring going below 2000 --
DR. RICE: What we're doing is looking at the level --
and this is an internal review; this is not a review with the Russians
that says we have to match warhead for warhead. We really
believe the old arms control agreements in which you had to match
warhead for warhead, system for system, ignoring geography, ignoring
history, ignoring the threats around you, was the old way of thinking
about this.
We think that the best way to do this -- and the President said it
several times -- is to ask the Pentagon to review America's needs for
deterrence and move America's forces to a level that is appropriate to
our deterrent needs. And we would expect that the Russians
would do the same.
Q Dr. Rice, it seems to me that your
phraseology of moving beyond the ABM Treaty has been purposely vague
all along. Are you willing to accept amending the ABM
Treaty, or are you determined to scrap it entirely?
DR. RICE: Look, we have said all along that we need to
find a way to achieve two goals. One is to give ourselves
maximum flexibility for exploring the technologies that might give us
the chance of an effective limit to defense. The ABM Treaty
is constraining.
The President's also made clear that he does not believe that this
treaty is appropriate to this period of time, and that we need a new
strategic framework with the Russians that is appropriate to this
time. This was a treaty with the Soviet Union, signed in 1972.
Now, we are working with the Russians and trying with the Russians
to come to a better understanding of what that might mean, how it is we
move beyond the ABM Treaty. But that's what's going on
here. The President's views have not changed.
Q So you could accept either amending it or
scrapping it, and that's still under negotiation?
DR. RICE: I've said that -- it's not a matter of
negotiation, it's a matter of principle -- that there are two reasons
that the ABM Treaty is problematic. One has to do with
testing, the other has to do, however, with the nature of the
relationship.
And I think that both Presidents have made clear that they want to
come to agreement, that they want to move forward together, but we
haven't come to an agreement on what the form of that should be.
Q Condi, pursuing that same point, say, if
you take your two different issues, one of them is an immediate one;
the testing one, you need to move forward with the testing in a
relatively short period of time if you're going to meet your own
schedules. The new strategic framework is a longer-term
issue. Could you foresee a situation in which you had a
two-phase agreement, in which the first phase has to do with testing,
but keeps in place the ABM Treaty, the second phase deals with the
ultimate disposition of the ABM Treaty, and your framework?
DR. RICE: David, I think we just have to continue to
explore with the Russians how we meet these two goals that the
President set out sometime ago. I do think that all of the
time that we've spent in discussions with the Russians, all of the time
that they've spent with us, that we are understanding better each
other, and what our own constraints and demands are.
But I would not jump to any conclusions about precisely how this is
all going to come out, or when there's going to be an
agreement. I think that would be a mistake.
Q Dr. Rice, the administration has said the
military campaign on Afghanistan is going according to plan; yet some
in Afghanistan, some in Pakistan, some even in Europe are confused as
to what the plan is; why hasn't more been achieved through the air
campaign, when is the ground campaign going to begin in
earnest? And there is some concern that this isn't going as
well as the administration had originally advertised, or led the
American people to believe. It's even caused anxiety in the
stock market, causing, in some cases, share prices to go down.
What can you tell the American people about the plan, why it's
going so well, and deal with those skeptical voices, not only in the
region, but among some of our European allies?
DR. RICE: I would say several things. The
first is that the military portion of this -- and I want to be very
clear that the President made very clear early on that military power
was only one element on the war on terrorism -- and in fact this is a
different kind of war, he said, don't expect this to look like the Gulf
War. This is going to take time to achieve the objectives
that he laid out.
Those objectives are to make certain that the al Qaeda organization
and its leadership are not capable of carrying out the kind of
training, financing of terrorists that they've been carrying out for
the last several years, to root them out, to root them out wherever
they might be, to make certain that secondly, Afghanistan, which has
been a country that they hijacked for their own purposes, to harbor
terrorism, that Afghanistan can no longer be a sanctuary for terrorism,
and that the Taliban understands that it made the wrong choice in
continuing to harbor terrorists -- and thirdly, that we have to think
about there's a broader war on terrorism. You can't be in favor of one
set of terrorists and continue to harbor other terrorists.
Now, on all of those fronts the President believes that we are
making progress. On the front of making certain that a Qaeda
can't train, we have gone after and destroyed many, many al Qaeda
training sites. They are not going to have the kind of
access to those training sites that they have had in the
past. We have made great -- good progress against the
Taliban's military assets, and we have made good progress against the
goal of making certain that Afghanistan, when this is over, is not
going to be a place that you can harbor terrorism.
But let me be very clear: The military campaign is only
one part of this. Every time you see people being arrested
and rooted out in countries all over the world, you are seeing cells
that are potentially being broken up, that are perhaps out there
waiting to commit terrorist acts. That's extremely
important.
This is the first time in international history that you have had
the kind of concentration of intelligence assets, law enforcement
assets from around the world, on a network like this. They
are not going to be able to hide, because the scrutiny and the pressure
from the international community, from law enforcement, and from
intelligence around the world is not going to let them
hide. They are not going to be able to get significant
financing, because we are shutting down their financial networks.
So, as the President said, this can't be thought of as just a war
of military power, although our military power is having good
effect. You have to look at the total picture here, and we
think we are making tremendous progress on all of these goals.
Q Can I follow up just for a
second? So are you telling the American public that actually
deterrence is the first goal, and it may -- the public and the European
allies and the coalition powers may have to wait longer than they ever
imagined to actually get the Taliban out of power?
DR. RICE: The President said this is going to be a long
war. And he made clear that his standard is that we have
made certain that the Taliban can't -- I'm sorry, that the al Qaeda
cannot do what it has been doing, that we've made certain that they
can't be harbored, and that we've made certain that other countries
that might be considering harboring terrorists, or might be harboring
them, understand that there is a significant price to pay for harboring
them. But he made clear, he said, this may be one year, it
may be several years, it may be more than one
administration. He's been very clear about that from the
beginning, and that is what we are seeing. This is going to
take some time.
Q Two quick questions. First of
all, in your internal review of the arsenal, nuclear arsenal, has the
administration reached a decision in and of itself as to what number it
wants to bring that arsenal down to?
DR. RICE: The review is very near
completion. But I want to caution that this is not just
about a number. This is to structure American forces in a
way that they can meet deterrent needs. The President has
also been concerned, for instance, about the infrastructure for our
nuclear weapons, about making certain that we can keep them safe and
reliable.
All of this has been discussed in this review. And to
the degree that as you come down in numbers, you also want to make sure
that you're more safe and reliable. We spend equal time
worrying about that as to any specific number. But I want to
caution that a specific number, rather than a draw-down over time, is
not exactly the right way to think about it.
Q Can I try you on this?
Q Just one other question on the -- do you
-- there is a report that Pakistan is giving ammunition and assistance
and working that into Afghanistan to help the Taliban. Can
you comment on that?
DR. RICE: We believe that we're getting very good
cooperation from the Pakistani government. We are in
constant discussion with them. In fact, they've had a number
of high-level visitors lately. They will have more
high-level visitors very shortly. We believe we are getting
good cooperation with the Pakistanis, and that they are doing what they
can to avoid the situation that you are talking about.
Q While you're exploring with the Russians,
are you talking numbers? Are you talking specific
numbers? Are you talking about the two sides proceeding --
oh, if the Russians care to, but certainly we care to --
test? After all, you've cancelled the suspended parts of
tests that violate the treaty. I'm trying to get to today's
event. You say, exploring, exploring,
exploring. Are you talking numbers to them? You
know where they want to go. You know we have too
many. Are you talking to them about a range of numbers, and
are you talking about it linked -- linked however you mean -- to going
ahead with tests?
DR. RICE: First of all, the "linkage" was made sometime
ago by the President, that he believed this had to be both about
offensive forces, lower numbers of offensive forces, and about
beginning to incorporate defensive forces in, too. We have,
in the now considerable consultations that we've been having with the
Russians, talked a great deal about all of these things.
Now, I want to repeat, about the offensive forces. This
is not an arms control negotiation, in which we and the Russians need
to try to match warhead for warhead how many we have or how many we
don't have. What we want to talk to the Russians about is
how we see our deterrent needs, in terms of levels, in terms of the
period of draw-down, in terms of on how they're
structured. But we consider this not a matter of
negotiation, but a matter of how American forces ought to be
structured. And we expect the Russians to have the same
concerns.
Q I asked about a range, not matching
warhead to warhead, a very wide range of possibly 500
warheads. Are you talking specific numbers? Is
Mr. Powell talking specific numbers? Will Rumsfeld talk
specific numbers?
DR. RICE: There is going to be a completion of the
review that the President -- that review is nearing
completion. I think that the Secretaries will be talking to
their counterparts about some of the findings of that
review. But I just want to reemphasize, this is not an arms
control negotiation in which we try to equalize the numbers.
Q What evidence does the United States have
right now that -- specific evidence that Osama bin Laden is somehow
displaced or disrupted in his activities?
DR. RICE: Well, first of all, David, I don't want to
comment on what we are or are not seeing. And I think you'll
understand that. But I will say this: when you
look at what has happened in Afghanistan, when you look at what has
happened to al Qaeda camps and to al Qaeda strongholds, when you look
at the scrutiny that al Qaeda cells are under all over the world, it is
very hard to make a case that they are operating like they were on
September 10th. And that is the purpose of what we're
doing. Our purpose here is to disrupt, is to make it harder
for them to do what they were doing on September 10th, and to
eventually make it not possible for them to do it.
Now, I want to warn -- you know, the President, and I think
Attorney General Ashcroft, has made clear that we don't think that we
are out of the woods in terms of potential attacks against the United
States. But every time we round up in some country -- thanks
to intelligence-sharing, thanks to law enforcement efforts -- a group
that might have been planning something, or a piece of a cell that
might have been planning something, we are accomplishing precisely what
we need to accomplish.
Q Can I follow up in a different
area? Why is it that the United States is now prepared to
engage the Germ Warfare Treaty in a different way, and why does the
U.S. not think it's salvageable?
DR. RICE: Well, first of all, the United States has been
a strong adherent of the BWC Convention since its
inception. And we made clear early on that we thought it was
important to try and strengthen the convention. We just
thought that the particular protocol that was being discussed was not
addressing the problems that biological weapons pose.
For instance, we have not believed that the kind of inspection
regime that was there under the Biological Weapons Convention made
sense. Now, we thought that -- we have been in these
discussions with our allies and friends for sometime. A
meeting was coming up; we thought it was important now to put some
proposals on the table. But I can tell you that the
proposals have been developed, were being developed all the way back
into the summer.
We now think that if we can move toward a system of strengthening
the Convention that focuses on criminal activity and underground
activity that can make more effective the kinds of things that we're
doing, that that's really what we want to do. So we are
establishing procedures for compliance concerns, talking about
criminalizing acts that might -- much, in the way, by the way that
we're doing with terrorist conventions -- making states responsible for
dealing with scientists and others who might engage in this kind of
activity. We want to have strong national oversight
mechanisms.
There is a lot going on here. I can say, too, David, I
think that there has been a positive reception to a lot of these ideas,
and we just think that it's time to move on with this.
Q Dr. Rice, I want to ask you two questions
about the coalition. The first one has to do with
Ramadan. If the military action continues after the start of
Ramadan, how will this affect how Muslim allies -- members of the
coalition and the Middle East situation, the violence hasn't stopped --
how is that affecting our coalition with the Arab and Muslim nations?
DR. RICE: Well, we've been on a track on the
Arab-Israeli issues -- or the Palestinian-Israeli issues for quite a
long time now. And we continue to believe that there are
things that both sides can do to make possible entry into the Mitchell
Process. And we work that every day. And I think
that nobody has been more dedicated to that than the President and
Secretary Powell. But we do not see the Israeli-Palestinian
issue as a part of the coalition effort.
I would just point you to what Yasser Arafat said about Osama bin
Laden trying to hijack the Palestinian issue. Where was he
for 30 years, and all of a sudden the Palestinian issue is al Qaeda's
issue? I think that we need to be very careful not to link
these in our own minds, and -- but we work the Israeli Palestinian
issues in their own right, because we think they are important to
security in the region.
In terms of the Afghanistan -- I'm sorry, you asked about --
Q Ramadan.
DR. RICE: Yes, Ramadan. We think that the
best thing that we can do for the world, for all of the allies in the
coalition, whether they are Muslim or not, is to make certain that this
war on terrorism succeeds. And that means we have to finish
the mission.
We do not believe that al Qaeda or the Taliban or any of their kind
are likely to be ones that are going to be observant of any kind of
rules of civilization. They've never demonstrated that they
were observant of any kind of rules of civilization before.
This is an enemy that has to be taken on, and taken on
aggressively, and pressed to the end. And we're going to
continue to do that. We have to continue the military
action. I just want to remind everybody, this is an action
in self-defense. The United States was attacked on September
11th with incredible brutality. We continue to be concerned
about further attacks. We have no choice but to try to go
both to the source of this in Afghanistan, and to try to root these
organizations out wherever we can. And we have to get about that
business; we can't afford to have a pause.
Q The coalition has involved the United
States working very closely with some countries that are very different
from our own. You've been at the center of what must be some
unimaginably excruciating decisions in the last six weeks about how to
structure that coalition. Can you tell us: Will the United
States work with any country that's willing to offer help, or are there
some countries whose past practices or habits are so abhorrent to
American values that they're just somehow considered to be on the
tail? And can you help us in how you're guided in making those
decisions?
DR. RICE: It's a very important question, because what
the United States is not prepared to do is to sacrifice either
long-term interest or values in short-term goals. We do
recognize that we need help. The way that we were attacked
on September 11th, if the President of the United States did not do
absolutely everything that he can to try and root out these terrorists,
to try to make it not possible to use Afghanistan, he would simply be
shirking on his first responsibility, which is to protect and defend
the United States.
So we have to do whatever we can to deal with that. And
we are willing to accept help from all comers concerning al
Qaeda. What we have been very clear, though, is that it is
not enough to say you want to help us on al Qaeda, and hug other
terrorists. That's not appropriate. And so
whenever we talk to countries that have a past, so to speak, and maybe
even a present in harboring terrorism, we are very clear that it's fine
that you want to help with al Qaeda, but to really be a part of this
coalition, the responsibility to deal with all terrorism is a part of
the responsibility of this coalition.
We also have tried to be very clear that we believe that in the
long run, the countries that are both best going to deal with these
issues will be countries that respect the rights of their own people,
that respect their own people, that respect religious and ethnic
minorities, and don't willy-nilly turn them into terrorists in order to
hide certain kinds of activities under the terrorist banner.
So I believe that we have been in exactly the right place here,
which is to be, as the President said in the speech that first night to
the Congress, if you continue to support terrorism, you are making the
wrong choice. We've never wavered from the point of view
that you cannot be on both sides of this. We've never
wavered from the point of view that there are no good terrorists and
bad terrorists. And that's been our guiding principle.
The President is doing everything that he can to try and achieve
these goals, so that the United States, in self defense, can protect
itself from the kind of thing that happened to us on September 11th.
Thank you. Got to go.
END
12:14 P.M. EST
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