For Immediate Release
Office of the Press Secretary
October 31, 2003
National Security Advisor Dr. Rice Remarks to National Legal Center
Remarks by National Security Advisor Dr. Condoleezza Rice to the National Legal Center for the Public Interest
The Waldorf Astoria Hotel
New York, New York
DR. RICE: Thank you very much. (Applause.) Well, thank you very
much. But I just have to say one thing, Bill, I am not one year from
my 50th birthday. I am one year, 16 days, and 15 hours from my 50th
birthday. (Laughter.) So I have a little longer than one year.
I want to thank my good friend, Judge Webster. When after
September 11th, we were trying to figure out some of the issues about
how the CIA and the FBI might work better together to make the country
more secure, the person that I called first was the person who had
actually merged them, Bill Webster. And he came right away and talked
about his experiences, both as Director of the FBI and as DCI. And I
want to thank you, Bill, for your advice and counsel throughout the
years.
I want to thank Ernie Hueter, who has been a good friend for a long
time. And your service to this organization and to the country is
wonderful. And we honor you tonight, too, for your service.
(Applause.)
I'm really pleased to be speaking to this distinguished group. I,
too, want to thank you for changing your schedules so that you could
join me here. The rule of law is one of the vital foundations of
civilization and one of America's defining principles. And it's a
central part of what we are and who we are, and it's a central part of
what it is that we protect every day. And this organization has been
stalwart in discussing the important issues that face us in this area.
And so I'm really delighted to be here with you.
It has been more than two years since terrorists made this city --
and our country -- a battleground in the war on terror. It will take
years to understand fully the long-term effects of that fateful day,
September 11th. But that tragedy brought home to us certain verities
in the most vivid way. It crystallized our vulnerability to attacks
hatched in distant lands that come without warning, bringing tragedy to
our shores. It made clear that sweeping challenges under the rug is
not an option. And it laid bare the shortcomings of our and, indeed,
the world's approach to terrorism for many years before.
It is now undeniable that the terrorists declared war on America --
and on the civilized world -- many years before September 11th. The
attack on the Marine barracks in Lebanon, in 1983; the hijacking of the
Achille Lauro, in 1985; the bombing of Pan Am 103, in 1988; of the
World Trade Center, in 1993; attacks on American embassies, in 1998;
and the attack on the USS Cole, in 2000 -- these and other atrocities
were part of a sustained and systematic campaign for utter devastation
and fear. Yet until September 11th, the terrorists faced no sustained
and systematic and global response. They became emboldened -- and the
result was more terror and more victims.
Since September 11th, the United States and, indeed, the
international community have pursued a different strategy. We are
taking the fight to the enemy. And as President Bush said to the
nation last month, we are finally rolling back the terrorist threat to
civilization, not on the fringes of its influence, but at the heart of
its power.
This bold strategy is, in fact, emblematic of a larger approach to
foreign policy that we now must follow in the wake of September 11th.
We live in a time of grave threats to our national security -- to our
very national life -- from terrorists, from rogue states, from the
proliferation of weapons of mass destruction. And the gravest threat
of all is the potential nexus between them -- the dreadful possibility
that terrorists could gain nuclear, biological or chemical weapons from
an outlaw regime, thereby realizing their means -- and rationalizing
their means to match their hatred.
These threats cannot be ignored or wished away. The only prudent
course in the face of such dangers is to meet them head on, without
illusions. That is what the administration and our friends, our
allies, around the world are doing.
Rooting the Taliban out of Afghanistan was the first battle because
the Taliban had provided the home base and primary sanctuary for al
Qaeda. Today, that sanctuary is denied to them. Al Qaeda remains a
danger, and we continue to pursue its members. Across the globe,
unparalleled law enforcement and intelligence cooperation efforts are
underway, successfully breaking up cells and disrupting operations. It
happens all over the world in many, many different place. Nearly
two-thirds of al Qaeda's senior leaders, operational managers, and key
facilitators have been captured or killed. And the rest are on the run
-- permanently.
Some time, just listen to the stories of the various places in
which it happens. Many countries of Europe, in Thailand, in Indonesia,
in Pakistan, in Afghanistan, across the world, there is a net, an
umbrella of intelligence and law enforcement cooperation that is making
a difference.
Confronting Saddam Hussein's regime in Iraq was also essential.
For 12 years, Saddam Hussein sat in the middle of the world's most
volatile region, defying more than a dozen United Nations Security
Council resolutions, threatening his people, his neighbors, and the
world.
Saddam Hussein twice launched unprovoked invasions of his
neighbors. After losing a war of aggression that he began, Saddam's
threatening posture toward other Gulf nations -- and his continued
oppression of his people -- required the United States and Great
Britain to maintain a massive military presence in the Gulf, and to
patrol vast no-fly zones for a dozen years to keep him in check.
Saddam is the only tyrant of our time, not only to possess weapons of
mass destruction, but to use them in acts of mass murder. He
maintained ties to terror. He harbored known terrorists within his
border, and he subsidized Palestinian suicide bombers. And he
remained, until his final days in power, one of the cruelest tyrants of
this or of any time. As his killing fields continue to yield up their
dead, as more mass graves are discovered, the world sees fresh evidence
of his torture and his oppression of the Iraqi people.
All of this had been well known for more than a decade when
President Bush went to the United Nations in September, 2002. The
intelligence agencies of most governments agreed on Saddam's
capabilities and his appetites. The United Nations and other
international organizations had -- again and again -- documented his
aggressions against his neighbors, the tortures of the Iraqi people,
and the violations of international law. The United Nations Security
Council passed resolution after resolution -- 17 in all -- laying out
Saddam's obligations to the world and demanding that he comply or face
consequences.
Can we really debate the wisdom of removing Saddam Hussein from
power and liberating Iraq? Let us be clear: Saddam Hussein was not
going to go away of his own accord. For 12 years, he gave every
indication that he would never disarm and never comply with the
Security Council's just demands. In fact, he mocked those demands and
made every effort to circumvent them through massive programs of denial
and deception. There was no reason to believe that waiting any longer
for him to change his mind was going yield results. The threat, and
the challenge, he posed to the international community could not be
tolerated any longer.
The choice before the world was stark. Should we have countenanced
indefinitely his continued deprivations of the Iraqi people? Should we
have stood by indefinitely as more mass graves were dug, more innocent
children put into prison? Should we have let Saddam Hussein continue
to defy the world and indefinitely, poised in the heart of the Middle
East, sit atop a potentially deadly arsenal of terrible weapons,
threatening his neighbors?
Those, ladies and gentlemen, were the alternatives. President Bush
and a coalition of more than 40 nations chose to act, and the world is
both safer and better because they did.
The threat from the proliferation of the world's deadliest weapons
and the means to deliver them is another danger that has simmered for
years. The traffic in ballistic missile technologies between North
Korea and Iran is longstanding. People have known for a long time that
the nonproliferation treaty was in trouble from those who would sign
it, but easily violate its tenets.
Under President Bush's leadership, the world is taking new action
against this old threat. We are working with the international
community to prevent Iran from obtaining nuclear weapons. Thanks in
large part to the President's unwillingness to sweep this problem under
the rug and his patient yet persistent diplomacy, countries around the
world are keeping the pressure on Iran to abandon its nuclear weapons
program. And Iran is feeling that pressure, as evidenced by its recent
announcement that it will sign the Additional Protocol for the IAEA and
suspend its enrichment activities. While we will only be able to judge
Iran's compliance by its actions, the firm stand of the United States
against proliferation has clearly established a broad consensus that
the international community must be proactive in countering this
growing threat.
Diplomacy is also yielding results in our dealings with North
Korea, a rogue state that for years has been cheating on its agreements
to halt all nuclear weapons development. The path of least resistance
would have been for the United States to, once again, engage in
bilateral talks with North Korea in hopes of stopping its programs.
But this would simply have repeated the experience of the past, when
North Korea accepted, and then systematically violated, an agreement
offered by the United States in good faith, while gaining the benefits
that it, the North Korean regime, sought. President Bush saw from the
beginning that there was another way, that Japan, South Korea, China
and Russia -- no less than the United States -- all had a vital
interest in ensuring that the Korean Peninsula is free of nuclear
weapons, and that only close cooperation among all five of these
nations could lead to a lasting resolution of the issue. And today all
of us are working together to show North Korea that its continued
pursuit of nuclear weapons will bring only further isolation.
Building a diplomatic consensus took time. Some believed that such
a consensus could never be reached. But today, when the North Koreans
come to multiparty talks, they look across the table at a united front
of nations opposed to their own nuclear armament. And the North
Koreans know that a strategy of divide and conquer is no longer an
option.
As we advance a broad non-proliferation agenda, we also recognize
that determined proliferators cannot always be stopped by diplomacy
alone. But they can be stopped. Through the Proliferation Security
Initiative, the United States and 10 global partners have recently
approved a Statement of Interdiction Principles and are developing the
capability to search planes, ships, trains and trucks carrying suspect
cargo, and to seize weapons and equipment that raise proliferation
concerns. This initiative will soon be broadened to include new
members from across the globe. While all actions will be taken
consistent with existing national and international legal authorities,
we are also seeking ways to expand those authorities. And it is for
this reason that the President proposed in his September address to the
United Nations that the Security Council adopt a resolution calling on
all states to criminalize proliferation activities, establish effective
export controls, and ensure the safety and security of sensitive
materials and technologies.
The world has an obligation to confront squarely the threats of our
time, and President Bush is determined to meet that obligation. But,
of course, we must do more than just confront problems. We also have
an historic opportunity to make the world better by fighting poverty,
by fighting disease, and by ending hopelessness.
It has always been America's way to try and leave the world, not
just safer, but better. And we follow in that great tradition. For
years, the world talked of the need for a decisive action to stop the
spread of AIDS. President Bush has matched his words with deeds, and
by committing the United States to a five-year, $15-billion emergency
plan for AIDS relief, the world will now begin to confront this
challenge in a serious way with assistance to developing nations that
need it.
For years, there was always talk about the need for greater
development assistance to those who are trying to fight their way out
of poverty. President Bush stepped forward with a 50% increase in
American aid over three years. By linking increased aid to sound
policies, the President's plan encourages developing nations to govern
justly, to invest in their people, and to support economic freedom.
Those who do those things will be eligible for this new assistance.
Those who do not cannot be eligible because, ultimately, unless
development is a partnership between donor and recipient, nothing of
lasting value can be achieved.
And for many years, the world viewed the Middle East as hopelessly
mired in conflict and misery -- somehow incapable of liberty, or
prosperity, or democracy. President Bush, instead, sees a region of
potential, filled with talented and resourceful people who, when
blessed with greater political and economic freedom, and better and
more modern education, can fully join in the progress of our time.
As the President has said, Iraq is the central front in the war on
Terror. But it is also a central front in the international effort to
realize the vision of a Middle East that is a center of hope and
change, rather than despair and hatred. We are aggressively attacking
the Baathist remnants and foreign terrorists. And increasingly, Iraqis
are fighting alongside our troops to secure their own freedom. The
numbers of Iraqis now risking their lives to defend their nation is
over 85,000 and growing. Together, we continue to discover arms
caches, thwart attacks, track down killers, and dismantle the terrorist
infrastructure.
And we are helping the Iraqi people rebuild their country, reform
their economy, and create a road to a representative and democratic
government. Success will take time. And recent attacks by Baathist
remnants and foreign terrorists show that the enemies of freedom will
stop at nothing to prevent the emergence of a free Iraq. We must
always remember that every democracy, even our own, is built
day-by-day, brick-by-brick. Persistent effort produces something
strong and solid.
These achievements do not, of course, come without great
sacrifice. Today those sacrifices are being borne by our men and women
in uniform, by those of our coalition partners, by international aid
workers, and by the Iraqi people. But we must and will stay the course
-- because free nations do not sponsor terror, and free nations do not
breed hatred.
As we move forward across this broad and ambitious agenda, we must
remember that times of the greatest strategic importance are also times
of great turbulence. Anyone who has ever built a successful democracy
has been through times of turbulence. We here in America have no
reason to have false pride in the democracy that we have built over 225
years, if we do not remember the sacrifices and the difficulties that
were incurred in building it. When the Founding Fathers said, we the
people, they didn't mean me. It's taken us quite a long time to find a
way to live up to our principles and our ideals.
And so when we see the people of Iraq, or the people of Afghanistan
toiling in the new freedoms, toiling against a dangerous landscape and
backdrop of those who would try and kept them from that success, I hope
that we will remember that nothing of lasting value is ever won without
sacrifice.
It is also the case that great historic changes take time. I well
remember serving on the National Security Council staff a dozen years
ago, when the Berlin Wall fell, when the Warsaw Pact dissolved, and
when the Soviet Union gave way to a free Russia. It was, of course, an
exhilarating time to be in government, and I will tell you that I felt
some small measure of pride. But that pride quickly gave way to a
humble awe for the giants who faced the great challenges of the
post-World War II moment - Truman and Marshall and Acheson and Kennan.
These men -- in the most uncertain of times, amidst often noisy
acrimony -- made decisions that bore fruit only decades later. By the
late 1980s and early 1990s, my colleagues and I were lucky enough to
reap the harvest that they had sown.
That harvest, a safer, freer, better world, is no less our hope for
today's moment of decision and challenge. That that we do today with
our allies and our friends will take years to fully realize a vision
and a completion. It will require a commitment of many years. But if
done well, the march of freedom and security and safety and prosperity
will continue. And it will continue because America has chosen, again,
to lead. The effort will take time, but the wait will be worth it.
Thank you very much.
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