Rice in U.K. Defends U.S. Policies on Terror Detainees, Iraq
31 March 2006
Delivers major foreign policy speech at Chatham House in Blackburn, U.K.
By Jeffrey Thomas
Washington File Staff Writer
Washington -- Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice defended the U.S. prosecution of the war on terrorism and the U.S. intervention in Iraq in a speech in the United Kingdom March 31.
Acknowledging concern in Europe and other parts of the world that the United States has emphasized security at the expense of respect for the law and human rights, Rice said, “No one should ever doubt the U.S. commitment to justice and the rule of law.”
The United States does not tolerate torture, she said. "We also have no desire to be the world's jailer," she added at the foreign policy research center Chatham House in Blackburn, a town in northern England represented in the U.K. House of Commons by Foreign Secretary Jack Straw. "We want the terrorists that we captured to stand trial for their crimes."
“But we also recognize that we are fighting a new kind of war, and that our citizens will judge us harshly if we release a captured terrorist before we are absolutely certain that he does not possess information that could prevent a future attack, or even worse, if we meet that terrorist again on the battlefield,” Rice said.
For more information on enemy combatants held at the Guantánamo Bay Naval Base in Cuba, see Detainee Issues.
CHANGE TAKING PLACE IN MIDDLE EAST, IRAQ
Turning to the effort to encourage democracy in the broader Middle East, Rice asked for patience. Real change is beginning in the Middle East, she said. Asked whether she was being overly optimistic, Rice replied that her response to skeptics is a question: “What is the alternative? Is the alternative that the Iraqi people were left somehow to Saddam Hussein?”
The secretary defended the “incredibly difficult endeavor” of attempting to bring democracy to Iraq as something that simply had to be done. “The old status quo was unstable. Any sense of instability was a false sense of stability. It was not serving any interest and democratic reform had to begin.”
In response to a question after her speech, Rice acknowledged the United States has made mistakes. "I know we've made tactical errors -- thousands of them, I'm sure," she said. “But when you look back in history, what will be judged is did you make the right strategic decisions.”
She said she believed “strongly it was the right strategic decision” to remove Saddam Hussein from power and set Iraq on the course of democratic development. Saddam “wasn’t going anywhere without military intervention,” she said.
IRANIAN NUCLEAR ISSUE
Rice also responded to questions on the Iranian nuclear issue, which was the focus of her meeting in Berlin March 30 with the foreign ministers of Germany, the United Kingdom, France, China and Russia. (See related article.)
“It is enormously important that we get the message through to the Iranian people that it is not the international community that is isolating Iran,” she said. “It is the Iranian regime that is isolating Iran.”
She reiterated that the United States believes the Iranian nuclear issue can be solved diplomatically, but she also said that the U.S. president never precludes any option, including the option of military force.
“Iran is going to have to make a choice,” she said. “Accept a way to the development of civil nuclear power that does not have the proliferation risk associated with enrichment and reprocessing on Iranian soil, or face deeper isolation from the international community.”
Asked about China, Rice took issue with the notion that conflict between the United States and that nation is inevitable. “We have our differences with China on human rights … on some economic issues and trade issues,” she said. “But it is a good relationship, it’s a sound relationship, and it’s one that … is very much on track to see the peaceful integration of China into the international system.”
Rice was in the United Kingdom on the third leg of a trip to Europe that began in Berlin on March 30 and included a stop in Paris to meet with French President Jacques Chirac.
Her visit to northern England accompanied by Straw mirrors Straw’s visit to Rice’s hometown of Birmingham, Alabama, in October 2005. (See related article.)
The transcript of Rice’s speech is available on the State Department Web site.
(The Washington File is a product of the Bureau of International Information Programs, U.S. Department of State. Web site: http://usinfo.state.gov)
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