08 October 2001
Transcript: Condoleezza Rice and Karen Hughes Press Briefing October 8
(Took questions on events leading up to the military strikes) (8610)
National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice and Counselor to the
President Karen Hughes held an on-the-record briefing for the press
the afternoon of October 8, responding to questions about how things
have unfolded over the last week or so, leading up to the military
action that the U.S. has taken October 7-8 in this new phase of the
war against terrorism.
Following is the White House transcript:
(begin transcript)
THE WHITE HOUSE
Office of the Press Secretary
October 8, 2001
PRESS BRIEFING BY NATIONAL SECURITY ADVISOR CONDOLEEZZA RICE AND
COUNSELOR TO THE PRESIDENT KAREN HUGHES
Room 450
The Dwight D. Eisenhower Executive Office Building
1:59 P.M. EDT
MR. FLEISCHER: Good afternoon. Let me go over a couple brief items,
and then turn it right over to the senior administration officials.
The briefing will be on the record, pen and pad, on the record. Also
the purpose of it is to help you construct what you've asked for,
which are tick-tocks. So I'd like to kindly request, keep your
questions focused to the tick-tocks, that's the purpose of both of
them being here. If we start getting into any other issues, we'll keep
the time shorter. But the purpose is here to answer as many questions
as possible about events leading up to yesterday.
DR. RICE: All right, we're here to take questions. Let me just start
out by saying that we'd like to talk about how things have unfolded
over the last week or so, leading up to the action that we took in
this new phase of the war against terrorism. And my colleague and I
are going to go back and forth. So you can ask a question to one of
us, you'll probably get both of us. So let's open up for questions.
Q: What was the moment at which the President decided, and what was it
that prompted him to decide at that point to proceed with military
action?
DR. RICE: Jim, the way to think of this is that there were a series of
decisions that were made. Really the strategy was set all the way back
on that Monday after the Camp David meeting, which was the weekend
after the attack. And the strategy was set then. The President then
made public that strategy in his speech that Thursday night to the
Joint Session.
He was briefed on a concept of operations, kind of military concept of
operations to support the broad strategy that he had been talking
about during that following week. That then was followed by a kind of
operational plan that takes the concept and begins to put in more
concrete terms.
And it was really then on Tuesday of last -- of this past week that he
decided that it was about time to go. It was on Friday that he had a
final kind of assessment with his military planners, and then on
Saturday a final National Security Council meeting.
And I think if you could talk about a moment, he knew that it was now
time to start this next phase of this war on terrorism. And he turned
to General Myers, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs, looked him right
in the eye, and said, Dick, is Tommy Franks ready to go? And General
Myers said, yes, sir, he's ready to go. And he gave the go ahead. And
at that point then, of course, military operations actually began.
MS. HUGHES: On Friday.
DR. RICE: I'm sorry, on Friday. There was a wrap-up National Security
Council meeting then on Saturday.
Q: So he actually gave the order on Friday?
DR. RICE: On Friday, he asked the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs, is
Tommy Franks ready to go. He got the answer, yes, he's ready to go.
And he had a wrap-up meeting on Saturday morning. And it was actually
on Saturday morning that he said it was all right for bombers to leave
their bases, for instance.
MS. HUGHES: I think it's been clear for some time, as my colleague
said, that military action would be a part of -- it would be one of
the fronts of this war. And, by the way, that's something the
President has emphasized to all of us since, literally the day after
the attacks, that this would be a multi-faceted campaign, that it
would involve action on a lot of different fronts.
When we were working on the speech to the Joint Session of Congress,
Jim, I said to him -- because I was aware that he was contemplating
military action -- well, what if we had taken military action? And he
said, well, my message is, if we have, we'll describe it and, if not,
be prepared -- to the military.
On Tuesday of last week, Tuesday, October 2nd, after his National
Security Council meeting, he called me to the Oval Office and told me
that he was preparing to launch a military operation and asked me to
start thinking about an address to the nation. He was very aware that
he would need to define the goals of the operation to the nation.
And I have a quote here. He said, "The Bush administration will
enforce its doctrine." And that's what he told me as part of
explaining that the military operation would be part of a long and
broad effort on a lot of fronts and that its goal would be to help
disrupt the terrorist network in Afghanistan and clear the ground
there for sustained operations.
Q: I guess this is for both of you -- you know him as well as anybody
in the administration by this point in time. In your minds, was there
ever any thought on his part that the Taliban might yield and that we
wouldn't have to go this road or -- I mean, did he spend any time
thinking about that? Or was it really pretty much straightforward
military preparations all the way down the line?
DR. RICE: Well, I think the President follows what is really the best
premise in this situation, which is, of course, lay out the
opportunity for the Taliban to do what they needed to do, but be
prepared if they don't. And he really gave the order to the military
to begin planning all the way back after that first National Security
Council meeting.
But he also recognized that the military side of this needed to be, as
my colleague said, in a larger context, and it was quite deliberate
that other things happened first. For instance, the financial piece
would happen first.
One thing that was very focused on through this entire period of time
was the humanitarian piece. And he spent a lot of time with both
Secretary Powell and Secretary Rumsfeld and with the Chairman of the
Joint Chiefs, saying, I want to make sure that the humanitarian piece
is in place when we start military operations. Because I think he
understood that in broad strategic terms, making very clear that this
was not a war against the Afghan people, was extremely important to
what we were trying to achieve.
Q: Why did he not set a deadline, a date certain, as we saw during the
Gulf War?
DR. RICE: Well, John, I think that, as I remember the Gulf War, it
also was at a time of choosing. It is important to give time to the
planning of the military operation. But it is also important not to
tip, in a sense, exactly when you plan to begin military operations.
The President said clearly to the Taliban, you need to do the
following things. I think that all of you picked up that, by the end
of the week, he was starting to send pretty strong signals to the
Taliban that time was running out. In fact, I think he said, time is
running out.
But it is probably -- it is actually not very effective, he believed,
to set a specific time and say, do this by this time.
Q: Just to follow up on that, I mean, was all of this presented
publicly? I mean, was there any behind-the-scenes delivery of messages
to the Taliban?
DR. RICE: Well, as you know, there were a number of attempts by
Pakistan to reach the Taliban with this message. I am not going to
talk about the diplomacy that was going on here, but I think the
President really felt that he had given the Taliban fair warning, he
had done it publicly. Let's remember, this wasn't the first time that
the Taliban had been told by an American administration that they
needed to close down these camps and that they needed to stop
supporting al Qaeda. So there is a long history here; the Taliban had
plenty of warning.
Q: When the President gave the go-ahead to his military people, did he
leave it up to them to choose the precise hour in terms of nighttime
bombing, or did he say, I want this to hit at such and such a time?
DR. RICE: Well, I'm not going to get into operational matters. But let
me just say that I think the President set the direction. He was
briefed on an operational plan, and he gave the go ahead to do the
things that were -- that he believes were best within that operational
plan.
MS. HUGHES: He felt that it was very critically important to his
decision, he told me later, was the fact that the military ready, that
the time was right for the mission to be a success. And I think he
felt that was a critical part of his decision.
Q: Can you define the Bush doctrine, which you said he would enforce?
And, secondly, did the President ever try to -- did you ever hear him
try to understand the motivation or explain the motivation, the
character of bin Laden? Did he ever discuss bin Laden in those terms?
MS. HUGHES: I'll leave the second half of that to Condi. The doctrine
which he was referencing, Randy, was the statement he made very
clearly in his joint session of Congress, that the countries who
harbored terrorists would deliver the terrorists or share in their
fate. That was what he was referring to in that.
Q: Can I follow up on the timing? Was there a reason that it was a
Sunday? Was that a specifically chosen, Sunday in the United States,
mid-day?
DR. RICE: This was just the right timing from the point of view of
everything being ready and the right time to start the plan.
Q: To follow that --
DR. RICE: Okay, a follow up on bin Laden. Obviously, in those first
sessions at Camp David, for instance, there was a lot of discussion
about what kind of threat the United States and its allies were now
facing, how to think about the motivations of al Qaeda and bin Laden.
But this is a team that had looked at the al Qaeda threat quite a bit
prior to this. In fact, there had been some discussion of how to deal
with al Qaeda, going all the way back nearly to the beginning of the
administration.
The President had been party to some of those discussions, how to
engage in a counter-terrorism that would really remove this threat for
the United States and its allies. So there was some discussion about
it, but I think that after the September 11th attacks, the President's
view was, he now had a self-defense case. He now had to take this to
the terrorists, where they lived. He had to get us into a situation in
which we were going after them, that we were -- you know, the best
defense is a good offense. And I think the motivations at that point
fall apart.
Because it was clear that bin Laden, through his public statements,
through the fact that he had bombed -- or had ordered the bombing of
American targets before, was bent on destroying our way of life.
Q: Did he not discuss the character of bin Laden in any way since
September 11th?
MS. HUGHES: Not in specific terms, specific to an individual. In terms
of the broader terms of the terrorists, we've had discussions about
the fact that people who commit suicide in the process of murdering
other people are, as he said, barbaric criminals, who had done just
that, committed suicide and murdered other people. So we have had
discussions along those lines, Randy, but not specifically targeted to
an individual, more about the broad nature of the crimes involved in
these terrorist acts.
Q: Ari said that the President did watch the tape of bin Laden
yesterday, in the Residence, and said that based on the tape he
thought that he had "virtually" taken responsibility for the attacks.
But it was a very chilling message. He didn't have any, sort of,
emotional or personal reaction to hearing what that man had to say?
DR. RICE: Again, this administration and the President at the top of
it, has known for quite some time about Osama bin Laden, al Qaeda and
this terrorist network and what they were capable of, what their
motivations were. This didn't spring full-blown on September 11th;
this has been known. And that he was out to end our way of life, to
make Americans fearful in the way that he talked on that tape was
clear on September 11th. So I don't think that I could say the
President had an emotional response to it at all.
Q: A couple of points. Can I just clarify, then, the final go order
happened Friday? Or you described it as sort of Friday into Saturday.
DR. RICE: The final decision to do the military action, provided
everything still held, was a Friday decision. On Saturday morning,
there was one final NSC meeting, and at the end of that NSC meeting
the President gave the go-ahead for the bombers to be launched.
Q: And just a question about the okay -- not the final okay, but the
okay to move forward is something that pre-dated even Secretary
Rumsfeld's trip, as you describe it, or at least coincided with that?
Is that --
DR. RICE: The President asked Secretary Rumsfeld to go out to the
region and to make a kind of final look at what we had and what we
were dealing with. The Secretary reported on Saturday that everything
was still in place. Remember that the President on Tuesday had really
decided that it was time for military action, that's when he sent
Secretary Rumsfeld out to the region to kind of make an assessment,
make a final look with the front line states about what was going to
be permitted and to make a last check with the front line states.
Then on Saturday morning, the Secretary was back. They had the -- we
had this final NSC meeting and the President then, of course, said,
you can send the bombers.
Q: So in other words, it's: we're going to do this, Secretary
Rumsfeld, you go make sure the deal is sealed, and when you tell me
that it's clean over there, we're going to go forward?
MS. HUGHES: That's right.
DR. RICE: And that the military is prepared to carry it out.
Q: Why did you -- this additional Saturday meeting? Essentially to let
Rumsfeld get back? Were there other diplomatic shoes that had to fall
into place between Friday, when the military was already ready, and
Saturday?
DR. RICE: Remember, on Friday what he got an assessment of was, is the
military ready. On Saturday, there's one last check to make sure that
everything is ready: the diplomacy is in place, the allies are in
place, the military is in place. And when he can walk around to his
national security principals and say, are we really ready to go.
So I think the way to think about it is that on Friday, he got
assurance that the military piece was, indeed, ready. On Saturday, he
took one last check to make sure that all the pieces were in place and
then gave the order to go.
Q: In terms of the timing being ripe, as your colleague says, can you
speak to that, vis-a-vis the coalition that he built? I mean, it
seemed to me as though you had pretty much at that point brought to
bear maximum pressure on the Taliban. They were virtually isolated.
And were you worried that if you didn't go this weekend, that cracks
might start to form?
DR. RICE: I think the President felt that the coalition was doing just
fine. I don't think that there was any sense that there was, you know,
extra added pressure to go right now. But it was -- I think the term
is, right -- that the military action was prepared. Frankly, that the
other pieces had achieved some victories, that we had some agreement
on the financial piece with the allies. You were starting to really
squeeze the Taliban on the financial side. That the diplomatic piece
really was in place. That you were getting offers of support from
around the world. And then, of course, that the allies piece was in
place. And so it was now right.
But it's extremely important to remember that from September --
really, after the President made his decision on that Monday, after
Camp David, all of this was unfolding on several other fronts. And
that is what really was bringing maximum pressure on the Taliban, was
that you had the diplomatic piece in place, you had the financial
piece in place, you had the humanitarian piece in place, and now you
had the military piece in place and it was time to do that.
MS. HUGHES: John, I think the humanitarian piece was a very important
part of it. From the first time that the President first talked with
me about the military operation, he emphasized that at the same time
we are going to be clearing the way so we can deliver humanitarian
relief. That's been very important to him. We had planned the week
before the humanitarian announcement that we made at the State
Department last Thursday, because he felt it was very important that
we put in place the humanitarian operation because of his concern for
the people of Afghanistan.
Q: When was the first time he talked about that?
Q: If Tuesday is the central day here, could either one of you all
kind of give us some of the real details? For example, what time of
day, what meeting, who did the President communicate to when he
embraced this mission, as we have seen it so far?
MS. HUGHES: I can tell you generically some of the things I remember
about Tuesday. As Andy Card said this morning -- I wrote it down
because I thought it was a great -- let me find exactly what he said:
Last week was a month long, he said. Which I think really is true,
when you think through all the different things that took place last
week.
On Tuesday, Tuesday was the day the President announced the reopening
of National Airport, which was an important leadership decision, we
felt, for the country. It was also a difficult decision, because there
were people within the administration who had different feelings about
how we should handle Reagan National Airport. And so Tuesday was the
day he announced that decision and went to the airport.
He had a National Security Council meeting that morning, as he has
been having every morning. Late that afternoon, he also had a domestic
consequences meeting with Secretary Paul O'Neill, where they discussed
and decided the shape -- the range of the economic stimulus package.
So it was a very busy day on a lot of fronts.
Do you remember any more details about the national security part?
DR. RICE: Well, on the National Security Council meeting, it was not
unlike they have all been, which is that he -- the President chairs
them. He goes around to each of the principals, asks how various
aspects are going. Concentrated quite a bit that day, obviously, on
how the military piece was coming, including issues about
diplomatically landing rights and so forth. And by the end of that
time, was confident that we probably had in place the military piece
to be ready to go on the weekend.
Q: So what did he say at the end of the meeting to sort of -- if you
know, or if it was clear in a sense that, okay, this -- did he say
anything like, all right, this is our plan or anything like that?
DR. RICE: Well, again, you make a series of decisions here, each one
making it a little bit more refined. So I think that the thing to
think about Tuesday is that now it was pretty refined what was
actually going to be done.
Q: In any situation like this you've got a series of options and you
have to discard some. Can you tell us, first of all, at what point you
discarded launching other attacks on other countries or just focusing
on Afghanistan to begin with?
And then, within Afghanistan, can you tell us if there were key
decision points about whether or not you were going to take out
bridges, power plants, things like that, which you ultimately seem to
have decided not to do, to keep ordinary life for ordinary Afghans
together.
What were the range of choices he had to go to?
DR. RICE: Well, David, I am not going to get into the planning here of
the operational details of an ongoing operation. Let me just say that
the President has been very concerned from the very beginning that we
make clear that this is a war not on the Afghan people but on the al
Qaeda and the regime that is harboring them.
On the first point, all the way back at the Monday NSC meeting after
the Camp David weekend, the President had decided that the first phase
-- in a military sense, the first phase was what he talked about in
his joint session speech, which was to go after al Qaeda and those who
harbored them, if those who harbored them were not prepared to give
them up and turn Afghanistan into a place that you could not have
terrorist bases.
The President also -- and this continues to be the case for the
strategy -- the President has also kept the focus on the fact that
this is a broad war on terrorism, that we have different approaches to
some of these issues, but that he doesn't believe there are good
terrorists and bad terrorists.
And so while this is a first phase, he's made very clear that he
doesn't believe that you can be against al Qaeda and support other
terrorist groups.
Q: A couple of questions on how he has responded. First, the horror of
September 11th -- was there any thinking at that time for a more
immediate response or had he decided from the beginning that this was
going to be more comprehensive?
And, second, he said yesterday that, no President undertakes military
activity without -- lightly. And so I wonder if you could tell us how
you've seen him deal, personally, with the gravity of sending the
fathers and mothers and sons and daughters of Americans into harm's
way?
DR. RICE: Karen can probably add on the second point. On the first
point, the President from the very beginning said I want to do
something that is effective. He also said, from the very beginning,
that military power was but one element of this broad campaign. And so
there was no need to do something hurriedly, because there were -- the
campaign began with other important pieces of this.
I think you just cannot underestimate how important it is to cut off
financial networks, how important it is to deal with intelligence --
with other intelligence agencies around the world, how important it is
to round up these cells that are sitting out there like cancers in any
number of countries. And very early on, he realized and knew that
those were equally important parts of this campaign.
So he didn't feel any rush to get to the military piece, because the
campaign had begun. We were making progress on the campaign. The
Taliban was getting more and more isolated. The diplomatic piece was
proving to put the Taliban in a position in which it really is the
outlaw regime that it is. So he didn't feel any rush.
But I think that he has dealt with the responsibilities of
Commander-in-Chief -- and, after all, this is the most important and
gravest thing that a Commander-in-Chief does -- with a kind of
seriousness of purpose, with an understanding that Americans need to
be clear that this is a long campaign, that they need to be clear that
sacrifice may be entailed; and as a patient counselor, and really
almost educator of the American people of what kind of war this is
going to be.
And I think every time he speaks, he tries very hard to fulfill that
role of bringing the American people with him, laying the fundamentals
of what kind of campaign this is going to be. And I think he thinks
that that may be the most important thing that he does right now.
MS. HUGHES: And to underscore that, that really started the morning
after September 11th. And I think in our meeting -- we meet in the
mornings and talk about basically the strategic framework of the day
and the week. And the President talked about acts of war have been
committed against us and we need to begin the process of explaining to
the American people that this is a very different kind of war. And so
almost every time -- including this morning -- almost every time I see
him, he is reminding all of us and --
DR. RICE: Especially all of us --
MS. HUGHES: -- and all of our Cabinet Secretaries that you have got to
explain this is a different kind of war, that there are a lot of
things going on in different arenas and in different fronts.
As to, Terry, the other question about how he is. I think that at Camp
David this weekend, for example, there was a sense of the weighty
decision the President was in the process of making. I think there
were people there who -- some family and friends -- who did not really
know the decision. But I think they could all sense that there was a
very heavy burden on the President.
We all tried our best to try to be somewhat normal. There was, you
know, a football game on in the background a couple of times, and --
but there was a lot of -- my colleague was being paged all the time,
and the Chief of Staff was having messages delivered, and I even had a
few messages delivered.
So it was -- I think there was a feeling that there was a seriousness
of -- there was a weighty feel to the weekend. And almost a somber
undercurrent that what was taking place was very profound.
Q: The military plan that he approved on Saturday, how far into the
future does it go? Was it just for yesterday, or is it two or three
weeks?
DR. RICE: I am not going to be able to get into that. He has approved
strategy, a concept of operations and a military plan, and that's all
I'm able to say.
Q: As far as tick-tock yesterday, could you get into any more
specifics in terms of, for example, when he first was told, yes, the
bombs have started to land? Or perhaps a reaction? Or if you wrote any
other quotes down from him or other senior administration officials
from yesterday or any of the other days leading up to it? Any other
real specific tick-tock times?
Q: And also today, is he watching anything on TV, the bombing today or
--
Q: We want color.
MS. HUGHES: Okay. Well, yesterday, obviously, we started the morning
-- was yesterday Sunday?
DR. RICE: Yes. (Laughter.)
MS. HUGHES: Today has been a month long. Yesterday we started the
morning at Camp David, and at that point, the President when I first
saw him was concerned about his speech that he was -- his address to
the nation, which we had worked on, Condi and Mike Gerson and the
President and I, the night before, and Condi had sent to the Secretary
of Defense and Secretary of State and the Vice President, for their
feedback and comments.
And so the President asked Condi to come back to Washington to touch
base with those officials. And the other -- as we went to the Fire
Fighter's Memorial -- which, by the way, had been scheduled before the
events of September 11th, and which the President felt strongly was a
commitment that he wanted to honor, to respect the fire fighters who
had lost their lives in the line of duty. And I think the memorial
that year was for the year 2000, but also was an opportunity to pay
tribute to the fire fighters who had lost their lives in the heroic
rescue efforts in New York, and those who had served at the Pentagon.
And so he felt it was important that he go on to that event. But we
discussed the remarks some during the helicopter ride to the event. It
was -- again, I think there was a -- it felt very somber, serious,
throughout the day. And we returned to the White House and I think --
you had the first report. I remember you coming into the Oval Office
and saying that we've got a report. Do you remember that --
DR. RICE: What happens, is of course the Secretary of Defense says,
the operation has begun. And so the Secretary of Defense called to say
that the operation had begun. The President then went down to make his
remarks to the country. The interesting thing, of course, about
something like this, is that once the operation starts to unfold, it's
unfolding. And you're not participating in its unfolding.
I know that there's sometimes an image that you sit there watching
things plot on a map. You, of course, don't. And so the President was
getting updates as they had come in. I think he talked to the
Secretary of Defense a couple of times, in the window during which
operations were ongoing. I certainly briefed him a couple of times.
But he was -- the President was nice enough, after he did his remarks,
to just say to senior staff who were around, let's have lunch.
And so we sat in the Roosevelt Room, and we sat down and we got the
lunch in front of us. And my colleague said --
MS. HUGHES: I said, what do we need to do now. Because the feeling --
we knew that it was underway. It had been a very intense, very hectic
24 or 48 hours leading up to it. And we were sitting, waiting for the
Secretary of Defense to come out and brief from the Pentagon. And so
we had the big screen TV on, and the Secretary hadn't come out yet.
And I remember looking at everyone, and saying, what do we do now?
And there really was nothing for us to do at that moment. It was
mainly wait. And I think that's what my colleague said, now we wait.
DR. RICE: Now we wait, right.
MR. FLEISCHER: Last question.
Q: Could you tell us in recent weeks what level of concern has the
President expressed about words from the region, from our Arab and
Muslim allies? How concerned was he about internal stability in those
countries? And at what point did he reach some level of comfort that a
lid could be kept on that?
DR. RICE: Well, first of all, we've recognized, and the President more
than anyone has recognized from the beginning that different countries
have different circumstances. And we've been really getting remarkable
cooperation from a lot of very courageous leaders in the region.
He has had a couple of phone calls with these leaders, and so he had a
sense that they were committed, that they were -- that they understood
their own circumstances, but they were prepared to step up. He, in
every call with leaders in the Middle East and in the Gulf, and for
that matter in other Muslim countries, he has said, I'm going to go
out and make sure that this is understood not to be a war against
Islam, but a war against terrorism, a war against the barbarians who
did this, but not against Islam.
And I think that has helped a lot with the leaders around the world. I
think that Secretary Rumsfeld's trip to the region helped to reinforce
that we, indeed, had the cooperation and that the leaders in that
region were alongside for the ride.
Q: Can I just follow? When he said, in the context of the Secretary
Rumsfeld trip last week, when he -- he had that line in there, it's
important to understand that legitimate governments survive. What
precipitated that remark?
DR. RICE: Well, I think that there is no secret that al Qaeda and
terrorist networks like that are not just against the United States
and Europe, but also that they have designs on the overthrow of
legitimate Muslim governments that do not follow their particular
brand of -- well, I can't call it religion, but who do not want to use
religion in the same way that they want to use it for purposes of
terror. So that's what the President was speaking to.
Q: I want to clear up a couple of things. The President turned to
Myers and asked whether Tony Franks was ready --
DR. RICE: Tommy Franks.
Q: -- Tommy Franks was ready to go. Was that at Camp David?
DR. RICE: No, that was on Friday. Here at the White House in the NSC
meeting. Tuesday, he had decided that it was time to go. Friday, he
wanted to get a final military assessment of whether they were ready.
Saturday, he wanted to get the NSC principals back together and make
sure that everybody was ready, and especially to hear from Don
Rumsfeld, who had been in the region -- although, he had had updates
from Rumsfeld the entire time that he was on the road.
I think it's extremely important to just note that for a
Commander-in-Chief at that moment, he needs to look at his military
advisor and then he needs to look at his national security team and
say, are we ready to go. And that's what that was.
Q: To follow up on that same question. To Karen, the first time that
the President mentioned that humanitarian aid linkage to the military
operation -- was that also on October 2nd, when he called you to the
Oval?
MS. HUGHES: He had talked about humanitarian aid for some time in
advance of that. In fact, because the week before that we had
scheduled the State Department announcement on humanitarian aid for
that Thursday. I think he had talked about humanitarian aid for some
time before that.
DR. RICE: Yes, that had come about very early.
Q: Is this the first time he linked them?
MS. HUGHES: Specifically on Tuesday he did tell me the humanitarian
aid would be an important component of the operation.
DR. RICE: He had asked the military, through Secretary Rumsfeld, to
see what military operations could do to support the humanitarian
relief effort. He very much wanted the humanitarian relief effort to
be part of the military component, as well as other components. And,
indeed, the USAID Director was directed to work directly with the
military to see if we couldn't get that done.
Q: Both of you have talked a lot about the President being an educator
for the American people. Since he has talked about a new kind of war
with objectives that are very broad -- he's talked about saving the
world, he's talked about ending terrorism, he's talked about ending
evil -- what kinds of conversations have the two of you had about
making sure that the American people are clear about what the
objectives are and what success looks like?
MS. HUGHES: Well, he's told me from the very beginning that -- again,
on that morning after the attacks, I think I've talked to you all
before about the fact that on the way home from the attack -- to
Washington the night of the 11th, he talked about that he felt that
his primary goal that night was to reassure the American people.
And the morning after was when he called me to the office and said
that acts of war had been committed against us and that we -- this was
going to be a very different kind of war.
I think he feels -- he understands that there -- as my colleague said,
that there are no shades, so long -- as he said in his remarks
yesterday, there can be no peace so long as there are those who
threaten peace. And so long as there is the threat of a terrorist
attack or of a terrorist group of global reach that is able to strike
and strike fear in our country, there will be no peace. And so he -- I
think the mission is defined by the adversary in some ways, that we
have -- that we must respond in order to protect the peace and
security of our own nation and the world, that we have to be prepared
to combat terrorism wherever it springs up.
Q: Has he expressed any concern with you recently, in the past few
days, that the American people will be confused about what is success?
If this is this long, ongoing assault, what is the achievable end
result that they're going to be patient to wait for?
MS. HUGHES: I think actually the American people understand quite well
exactly what I just said, that there can be no peace, so long as there
is the fear of a terrorist strike on our country and I think that --
Q: Can I ask a detail question here, to get some color? Was he briefed
even on the detail that said what the food package should be and the
care that went into figuring out what should be in each packet? Could
you talk a little bit of that even kind of detail is something that
you would review with him?
DR. RICE: Well, I don't think even I was briefed on precisely what's
in the food packages, except that they would be appropriate to a
population some of which might be Muslim. That was briefed to him.
No, he was really concerned that the operation that involved military
forces in the air drop be as successful as possible, as effective as
possible, that it be coordinated with other humanitarian aspects of
what we were trying to do. But, no, not on the details of what --
MS. HUGHES: One other point that I think is important to answer your
question about is focus. He feels it is very important for the
American people and for the military -- he kept emphasizing in the
process. On Friday, he called and basically gave me an outline for the
speech. He called and said, write this down, and proceeded to give me
an outline, that he wanted to describe the action, that he wanted to
describe the objectives; third, to outline the mission; fourth, to
talk about the nature of the campaign; and, finally, to talk about the
characteristics. And he mentioned specifically patience and sacrifice.
He had previously seen the letter from the little girl, the very
touching letter from the 4th grade girl who said she was willing to
give her dad to the President to serve his country. And he told me to
put that letter, a discussion of the letter at that point in the
speech.
So I think he has been very conscious of the need to educate, not only
the American public, but also other world leaders about the nature of
our campaign. One of the things he asked me to do last Tuesday when he
talked about preparing, was to talk with Prime Minister Blair's,
Alastair Campbell, his -- I think his communications director. And we
did talk on Saturday. And so he asked me to keep in touch with them so
that other leaders and their staffs understood our objectives.
Q: Could you elaborate a little bit more on Prime Minister Blair's
involvement and the whole decision-making process? Was he just brought
in at the end, or was he brought along step by step? And did he
contribute in any significant way to shaping the kinds of decisions as
they were made?
DR. RICE: Well, I think it's fair to say that the Prime Minister and
the President saw eye to eye on the broad strategy almost immediately.
When Blair was here on the night of the joint session speech, they had
an extensive discussion of what they were facing, of the strategy that
needed to be employed. And I think they saw eye to eye and then they
went about their respective ways to deal with beginning to implement
that strategy.
And I think the President has been really very gratified by the
tremendous support of Prime Minister Blair and also of a number of
other leaders who, very early on, seemed to have understood that the
strategy made sense, that you were not going to war against the Afghan
people, you were going to war against those who have been harboring
terrorism; that this was not a war against Islam, this was a war
against terrorism; that you needed to have a humanitarian component of
this.
I mean, there were several things that the President and several other
leaders understood very early on, and then went about implementing. So
it wasn't as if Prime Minister Blair and the President were role
playing here, and you do this and I do that. I think that they had a
generally -- a broad, agreed strategy and then they each acted on that
strategy.
There were discussions with -- I had conversations very frequently
with the National Security Advisor to Prime Minister Blair. It is also
the case that several other National Security Advisors of close allies
have either been here or have been constantly in contact. But Prime
Minister Blair, because his forces were involved in the actual action,
this was discussed, of course, in more detail with him, through his
military channels.
Q: Did you coordinate the speeches of the two leaders?
Q: Was he sort of -- on the timing of the launching of military
action?
DR. RICE: Prime Minister Blair was -- they discussed the timing just
before it went, but the timing was a decision of the President.
Q: Karen did you coordinate the speeches of the two leaders?
MS. HUGHES: They asked what the President's plans were, and I told
Alastair that the President planned to make a statement shortly after
the military action began. And he said that the Prime Minister would
plan on watching that, and speaking following the President.
Q: Could you provide an update on the financial pieces, please?
DR. RICE: Actually, I'll have to get that for you. It is continuing.
Secretary of Treasury is getting ready to expand the list. They're
working through that. The total for this financial effort across the
world is really quite impressive. It's in the several hundreds of
millions of dollars.
But this is going to be an ongoing process of listing terrorist groups
on the OFAC list, and it's continuing even as we speak.
Q: You said that when the President decided on a first phase, what you
talked about was going after al Qaeda and the regime that harbors it.
The President didn't mention bin Laden and al Qaeda yesterday, and we
were told this morning that he is not a particular focus, he and his
associates are not a particular focus of this attack.
Was there a point at which it was decided to not focus specifically on
him and was that for substantive reasons or more sort of stylistic
reasons, in terms of allowing people to understand the breadth of the
attack?
DR. RICE: Well, first of all, the President I think made clear from
the very beginning -- I think bin Laden was only mentioned once in the
joint session speech, because he's wanted to make clear that this
isn't just one person, this is a network, it's the al Qaeda
leadership, it's the fact that they have training basis in
Afghanistan, it's the fact that they are -- they effectively have safe
harbor there.
This is not just a person, and I think that he wanted to make very
clear that this isn't just a person but, rather, that this is a
network and the various nodes that are out there. And while going
after assets of those who harbor them is one phase of it, an equally
important part of this is cleaning out these nodes through cooperation
with intelligence and law enforcement around the world.
Q: Is it not part of phase one still to capture bin Laden and his
chief lieutenants in Afghanistan?
DR. RICE: I'm not going to comment on that. The President's been very
clear on what his -- what he expected the Taliban to do. And he's been
very clear that the most important thing from his point of view is
that they will not have the safe-harbor that they have had to plan,
train and provide terrorists around the world, that that's the most
important thing.
MS. HUGHES: I'll refer you to the President's own discussion
yesterday, and his statement about the goals for the operation, which
was to disrupt their ability to use Afghanistan as a base of
operations, to deliver humanitarian aid, and to clear the way for
ongoing, sustained and relentless operations. And that's what he sees
as the goals of this first phase of the military operation.
Q: But are you saying that it's misleading to say that there's been a
shift in emphasis from the initial statements, where you talked him
and --
Q: We had the wanted dead or alive quote, which was --
DR. RICE: There is no shift in emphasis. The goal here is to root out
the terrorists so that they cannot do the kinds of things that they
did on September 11th. And there are several facets to that, including
bringing down the al Qaeda network and its leadership, and making
certain that they can't do the kinds of things that they have been
doing. But there is no change.
Q: If I could just follow on that, because it's in the same sphere.
The Negroponte letter to the Security Council, how much of that is pro
forma and how much of that is indicative of this broader campaign that
you talk about?
DR. RICE: John, the -- what has been clear is that there are several
elements to this campaign, that this is a broad campaign, a broad war
on terrorism, in which the goal is to make sure that countries
understand -- the President chose his words very carefully -- those
who continue to harbor terrorists. The President made very clear that
there aren't good terrorists and bad terrorists, you can't hate al
Qaeda and love other terrorist organizations. And I think that is
being carried out here in several diplomatic --
Q: Can you tell us what happened with the release of evidence, with --
you know, Powell said one thing, you said another, Powell backtracked.
Then the evidence is getting released and Blair is posting it on the
Internet. (Laughter.)
DR. RICE: Well, I may want to quarrel with that characterization to
begin with. (Laughter.)
The goal was always to get information out in a way that was useful to
the campaign. And the piece of this that was most useful to the
campaign from the American point of view was to brief NATO so that
they could remove the "if" in Article V, to brief governments around
the world about the information that we had.
And let me just be very clear on what the nature of this was. This was
not an effort to sit down and give every fact about the September 11th
event and al Qaeda's links to it. This group has a history, and so
this was an historical case already. Also, after all, bin Laden had
been indicted for the bombings of our embassies in Africa.
So that case was made. That case was made at -- that case was made at
NATO. The British wanted to release a public version of a similar case
and, as I said, it isn't as if the United States and Britain sat down
and said, you do this, you do that. Both were acting on this broad
strategy, and the United States doesn't have to do everything. I think
the British did a very fine job, it was a very good paper. And I think
it made the case very effectively.
If there was any doubt, of course, there was bin Laden yesterday
saying, in effect, you know, look at me. So I don't think there was
ever any doubt about this. And we did make very clear to the Taliban
which kept asking -- publicly to the Taliban, which kept asking about
proof, that we didn't see this as a regime that was that concerned
with western jurisprudence.
Q: Could you just tell us when General Myers said, yes, sir -- what
did the President then do or say?
DR. RICE: The President sat back and said, all right, then we're ready
to go. But then on Saturday, I just want to emphasize, he wanted to
have one final check with Secretary Rumsfeld there, to hear what
Secretary Rumsfeld had found, to hear one more time from Secretary
Powell, to hear one more time from the DCI and others, and one more
time from the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs, and then he gave the order
to go.
Q: And where were those meetings, which rooms -- the Tuesday, Friday
and Saturday meetings?
DR. RICE: Tuesday was in the Situation Room, Friday was in the
Situation Room. Saturday was at Camp David with several people on
teleconference.
Q: Was Rumsfeld up at Camp David or --
DR. RICE: On teleconference.
Q: Aspen Lodge? (Laughter.)
DR. RICE: No.
Q: Laurel?
DR. RICE: Yes.
Q: Bright and sunny? (Laughter.)
THE PRESS: Thank you.
END 2:45 P.M. EDT
(end White House transcript)
(Distributed by the Office of International Information Programs, U.S.
Department of State. Web site: http://usinfo.state.gov)
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