28 June 2005

Rice Sees Iraq's Political Process as Key to Defeating Insurgents

Secretary calls Iraq opportunity to change "poisonous politics" in Mideast

The ongoing political process in Iraq is the key to defeating the insurgency, achieving stability in the country and bringing an end to the need for coalition forces, according to Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice.

“[I]t is very important to keep focused on that political process because when the Iraqis are taking control of their own future that way, and when their security forces are taking more responsibility, there's no doubt that our own coalition forces will be less needed,” Rice said in a June 28 interview.

The secretary spoke to ABC News, NBC News and Fox News to discuss the administration’s perspective on events in Iraq.

Rice said that political reconciliation between different ethnic and sectarian groups would not be easy, given the historic tensions.  “They are coming to terms with their own politics.  They are coming to terms with the poisonous atmosphere that was left among them by Saddam Hussein,” she said.

She said, however, that as the groups begin to see their future in the political process rather than in continued violence, the insurgents will lose popular support.

Responding to recent reports about contacts between coalition forces and Sunni Arab groups, Rice said that the administration is relying on Iraqi officials to help it understand what groups and individuals from that community would be influential and constructive players in the political process.  She said this is part of an effort to bring all parties into the process, but added that the United States is not in negotiations with terrorists.  She said that murderers of innocent people do not belong in a political process.

Rice said that the stakes are high in Iraq because it represents an opportunity to change what she called “the poisonous politics of the Middle East” that have produced extremism and terrorism.

She characterized this moment in history as “a great historic sweep where freedom is on the march.”  Speaking about her recent trip to the Middle East, she said, “People are hungry for freedom.”

Rice also spoke about Iran’s and North Korea’s nuclear ambitions.  She said the international community is united in the opinion that both countries must renounce nuclear weapons.

Following are the transcripts of Rice’s three interviews:

(begin transcript)

U.S. DEPARTMENT OF STATE
Office of the Spokesman
June 28, 2005

INTERVIEW

Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice
On ABC's Good Morning America

June 28, 2005
New York, New York

(7:00 a.m. EDT)

MR. GIBSON:  Madame Secretary, welcome, first of all, to Times Square.

SECRETARY RICE:  Thank you.

MR. GIBSON:  First time you've been here as Secretary of State.

SECRETARY RICE:  That's right.

MR. GIBSON:  It's nice to have you here.

SECRETARY RICE:  Thank you.

MR. GIBSON:  There's a new ABC News-Washington Post poll which indicates for the first time, a majority of people say they believe the President intentionally misled this country on Iraq, which suggests a credibility problem and says speeches may not matter if people don't believe you.  And yet he makes an important speech tonight.

SECRETARY RICE:  Well, he makes an important speech to the American people because it comes from a deep conviction that the President holds that after September 11th it was important to deal with the threats that we saw in the international system and it was important to deal with the poisonous politics of the Middle East that created the al-Qaida threat.  And Iraq is a very important element of dealing with the politics of the Middle East.  The Iraqis are on a very difficult journey, but when they have established a more democratic and stable Iraq in the heart of the Middle East, it is going to make a tremendous difference to our security because that region, which has for too long had a freedom deficit that leads to this kind of extremism that we called al-Qaida, I think the President will make that case to the American people.

MR. GIBSON:  But if polls show that he doesn't have credibility, do speeches matter?

SECRETARY RICE:  Whatever the polls say, this President has always lived by his convictions and his values, not by what he sees in polls.  And he is going to go to the American people who elected him just six months ago and tell them again why it is important that we finish the job in Iraq.  And we are making progress.  I know what the American people see on their television screens every day.  They see the carnage.  We all mourn the sacrifice of Americans who are losing their lives there.  And we look forward to the day when American soldiers can return home with the honor that they so richly deserve.  But we have to finish this job.

MR. GIBSON:  52 percent now say he misled this country on Iraq, 52 percent say the war is going badly, 56 percent disapprove of his handling of this.  So what can he say to people that we haven't heard before?

SECRETARY RICE:  Well, first of all, other polls show that Americans also understand that we need to finish the job.  If you want to talk about polls, there are polls that show that Americans believe that we ought to finish the job.

MR. GIBSON:  The same poll says 60 percent of --

SECRETARY RICE:  That's right.

MR. GIBSON:  the people say we need to stay the --

SECRETARY RICE:  We need to stay the course.  And that says that Americans understand the stakes here.

MR. GIBSON:  There is a real public relations offensive going on now in the war.  Secretary Rumsfeld has been appearing.  General Casey came back.  The President is going to give his speech.  You're here.  So many people say, well, we have to get to the new constitution, we have to get through the political process.  But a year ago, just a year ago to this day, when sovereignty was handed over, the Administration was saying this is such an important political milestone.  Since then, 900 American soldiers have died, there have been hundreds of car bombings, and the insurgency goes on seemingly as strong as ever.

What particular thing can you point to that's going to say to the people we're getting somewhere, we've accomplished something here?

SECRETARY RICE:  Well, the continuing political process.  And yes, a year ago we transferred sovereignty to the Iraqis.  Charlie, in the large historic sweep of things, that's a very short period of time.

MR. GIBSON:  Is it counterproductive for the Vice President to say the insurgency is in its "last throes"?  Does that falsely raise expectations?

SECRETARY RICE:  Well, the point is to note that we're making progress because every day on their television screens, all that we see are pictures of carnage, pictures of car bombs.  And so it's easy to say that the insurgency is getting stronger because that's what you see every day, but you defeat an insurgency not just militarily but politically.  And every day when Shia and Kurds and Sunnis, and especially Sunnis, see their future in the political process, not in violence, the insurgents are losing the support of the Iraqi people.  And when an insurgency loses the support of the population, then it does get weaker.

MR. GIBSON:  Madame Secretary, it's good to have you here.  Thanks for dropping by.

SECRETARY RICE:  It's good to be with you.

MR. GIBSON:  All the best.

SECRETARY RICE:  Thank you.

MR. GIBSON:  Thank you.

(end first transcript)

(begin second transcript)

U.S. DEPARTMENT OF STATE
Office of the Spokesman
June 28, 2005

INTERVIEW

Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice
On NBC's Today Show

June 28, 2005
New York, New York

(7:00 a.m. EDT)

MS. COURIC:  Condoleezza Rice was a key player in the decision to go to war in Iraq.  She is now the U.S. Secretary of State.

Condoleezza Rice, Madame Secretary, good morning.  So nice to have you here.

SECRETARY RICE:  Good morning.  Nice to be with you.

MS. COURIC:  We're really honored to have you in our studio.  So let's talk about the situation in Iraq.  As you know, Madame Secretary, every morning it seems we're reporting bad news from that part of the world.  Over 1,700 U.S. military forces have been killed so far, 484 car bombings in the last year alone.  Public support for this war is declining.  There's no question about it.  Almost every poll indicates that's the case.  What must President Bush do tonight to convince Americans that this war will not go on indefinitely?

SECRETARY RICE:  The President tonight will have an opportunity to say to the American people that it has been one year since the transfer of sovereignty to the Iraqis.  That really is not very long.  And they have in that time had elections, they formed a new government.  They are now about to write a constitution and then they will have elections for a permanent government.  And I know that when you see on your screens every morning, suicide bombers, car bombers and, of course, the loss of American life, which we mourn every single life.

MS. COURIC:  Not to mention the loss of the Iraqi lives.

SECRETARY RICE:  And the loss of Iraqi lives at the hands of these terrorists who have no political program, but simply want to destroy innocent life.  I know that it's hard to focus on the quiet process that is going on in Iraq of building a political consensus toward a stable and democratic Iraq.  And that, Katie, for the United States means an Iraq in the center of the world's most volatile region, the Middle East, the region that came home to us on September 11th with its extremism.  It means a different kind of Middle East.  And I know it's difficult and the president will acknowledge that.  But the United States has gone through difficult times before to come out on the other side with a more stable world and that is what we -- those are the stakes that you have.

MS. COURIC:  But your predecessor Colin Powell, as you well know, had a philosophy, called "The Powell Doctrine" which was overwhelming force and an exit strategy.  It seems to most Americans that there is absolutely no exit strategy here.  Do you believe in the Powell doctrine and, if so, why aren't things, at least steps, being laid out so a withdrawal of U.S. troops can begin?

SECRETARY RICE:  Well, I certainly believe that there will come a time when American forces and coalition forces are able to turn over to Iraqis responsibility for their security.  And it has to be understood as both a military process and political process.  That is why we keep emphasizing the steps that the Iraqis are taking on the political side to take control of their own future.  The insurgents are very tough and they're very bloody and they can grab the headlines on any given day.

MS. COURIC:  And it seems to me they're quite tenacious.  According to Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, the insurgency could last another 12 years.  We heard Richard Myers say four to seven years.

SECRETARY RICE:  Yes.

MS. COURIC:  When you hear those numbers and that period of time, I think most Americans say, "Oh, my goodness," and they gasp because that seems like such an extended period of time for these very powerful, very tenacious insurgents to have control of the situation.

SECRETARY RICE:  Well, I don't think that they will have control of the situation for those numbers of years.  I think that what was being noted there is you can always have, as we saw in New York or as we saw in Madrid, someone who can get off a car bomb or someone who can wreak havoc against innocent civilians.

MS. COURIC:  To this degree and to the degree we've seen?

SECRETARY RICE:  I think, Katie, that what you're seeing right now is that the insurgents know that as the political process goes forward, they begin to lose the support of the Iraqi people and so they have intensified their efforts to try and stop that process of political reconciliation.  But when that process of political reconciliation reaches its zenith in December with elections, you will see that the Iraqi people are not supportive of this insurgency.  And an insurgency cannot last without the support of the population.

MS. COURIC:  At the same time, do you think the Bush Administration should take any responsibility for not fully comprehending or predicting the strength this insurgency would continue to display?

SECRETARY RICE:  Katie, I don't think that prediction is really very easy in big historical circumstances like this.  And the fact is that Iraq is coming out of a period of tyranny, more than decades of tyranny, and it's hard.  But we understood that there was nothing easy about overthrowing Saddam Hussein and then having the Iraqi people find reconciliation.

MS. COURIC:  And do you think there was enough postwar planning?

SECRETARY RICE:  Oh, there was a lot of postwar planning.

MS. COURIC:  Because that, of course, as you well know, has been a big --

SECRETARY RICE:  Yes.  Yes.  And there was a lot of postwar planning. The problem with any plan, of course, is with the minute that it hits the reality on the ground new circumstances emerge.  But we have to keep focused and I think the American people will.  Our men and women in uniform are doing the hardest work every day and to the families and to those men and women, we know they're doing the hardest work.  But nothing of value is ever won without sacrifice.  And when there is an Iraq that is a different Iraq -- in the-- different-- in the middle of the Middle East, we are going to be a more secure nation.

MS. COURIC:  Not only are Americans questioning the U.S. role currently in Iraq, but they're questioning the decision to go there in the first place.  According to an Associated Press poll: 42 percent of respondents believe the right decision was made in going to war;  53 said it was a mistake.  In retrospect, with the benefit of hindsight being 20/20, is there anything you believe now, sitting where you're sitting, that the Administration should have done differently?

SECRETARY RICE:  Oh, I'm certain, Katie, that when you look back over it, there will have been many things that we could have done differently.  It's the nature of big changes like this.

MS. COURIC:  What is -- specifically, what is the biggest thing?

SECRETARY RICE:  Katie, I will leave that to the people who will write dissertations about things that could have been done differently -- some of which I'll probably supervise when I go back to Stanford.  But we are in a huge historic change here.  The President made a difficult decision after September 11th to deal with the threats, as we saw them.  We have a chance for a different kind of Middle East where terrorism and extremism will not be the course of the day.

MS. COURIC:  Let me ask you this --

SECRETARY RICE:  That is what we need to stay focused on.

MS. COURIC:  -- let me ask you, if I could, about the Times of London report on Sunday that said Secretary -- and by the way, Secretary Rumsfeld confirmed it, that meetings had been taking place between U.S. officials and members of the insurgency.

SECRETARY RICE:  Katie --

MS. COURIC: Is this true?

SECRETARY RICE:  This is in the context of a Sunni outreach -- outreach to the Sunnis to bring them into the political process.  I believe that if you look at the way this is done, we rely very much on Iraqis to help us understand who's influential in the process.  I can't tell you that there aren't some people who have had contacts with the insurgency, or might even have been involved in some way.  But the United States --

MS. COURIC:  At the same time --

SECRETARY RICE:   -- but the United States does not deal with terrorists and we're not going to deal with terrorists.

MS. COURIC:  Do you believe, though, that there's a chance that some members of the insurgency might become part of the political process?

SECRETARY RICE:  Well, certainly, the Iraqis are going to have to go through a process of political reconciliation.  I think the Iraqis understand the principle of justice, that people who have murdered and killed innocent people don't really belong in a political process.  But this is an Iraqi process and it goes to the larger point.  They are coming to terms with their own politics.  They are coming to terms with the poisonous atmosphere that was left among them by Saddam Hussein.  And they will build a new Iraq.  We're seeing that with the new Iraqi Government.  I was with 80 countries just the other day in Brussels to lend support to that political process.  This is moving forward.  Yes, there are violent people who are determined to stop it, but the Iraqis are more determined to make it work.

MS. COURIC:  Is there a danger that the United States is so preoccupied with Iraq, in your estimation, that they're not paying enough attention to two potential nuclear threats in both Iran and North Korea?

SECRETARY RICE:  We pay a lot of attention to both.  With North Korea we have the support of all of North Korea's neighbors to say that they must get rid of their nuclear weapons and --

MS. COURIC:  North Korea is not cooperating.

SECRETARY RICE:  Well, the North Koreans will understand that they have no other entry into the international system than through giving up their nuclear weapons.  And the Iranians, there we've been working with the European 3 and we're determined to back their negotiations with the Iranians so that the Iranians can live up to their international obligations not to seek a nuclear weapon.

MS. COURIC:  Finally, let me ask you a completely off-the-wall question.  Well, it's not so off-the-wall.  But some people have speculated in 2008 a great political contest with the Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice versus New York Senator Hillary Clinton.

SECRETARY RICE:  I have never wanted to run for anything, Katie.  I don't think I ran for high school president.  I never wanted to run for anything.

MS. COURIC:  You weren't in your student council even?

SECRETARY RICE:  I wasn't even in my student council.  I'm very fortunate to be Secretary of State at a time --

MS. COURIC:  Would you ever entertain this?  No, seriously.

SECRETARY RICE:  Katie, I don't want to run for anything.  I really don't.  And I'm lucky.  I am trying to help this President at a time of real consequence.

MS. COURIC:  It must be very frustrating at times to see things unraveling so.

SECRETARY RICE:  I don't think they're unraveling.  I think we're seeing a great historic sweep where freedom is on the march, if you look at Lebanon or you look at Ukraine.  I was just in the Middle East.  People are hungry for freedom.  And I know as a student of history that when freedom is on the march, America is more secure; and that when freedom is in retreat, America experiences the kind of experience that we had on September 11th.

So I find this a time of, yes, challenge and testing and difficulty, but also a time of great opportunity.  And I'm just very proud to be serving the President and the American people at this time.

MS. COURIC:  Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, again, thanks so much for coming in this morning.  It was a real pleasure to talk to you.

SECRETARY RICE:  Thank you.  It's good to be with you.

MS. COURIC:  And to ask you some of the questions that the American people have as well.

SECRETARY RICE:  Good to be with you.  Thank you.

(end second transcript)

(begin third transcript)

U.S. DEPARTMENT OF STATE
Office of the Spokesman
June 28, 2005

INTERVIEW

Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice
On Fox & Friends

June 28, 2005
New York, New York

(7:30 a.m. EDT)

MR. DOOCY:  Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice who joins us live this morning. Good morning to you.

SECRETARY RICE:  Good morning.

MR. DOOCY:  We tidied up for you.  How does it look?  (Laughter.)

SECRETARY RICE:  It's great, terrific.  Yes.  (Laughter.)

MR. DOOCY:  Thank you so much.  Good, good, good.

All right.  So he's going down to Fort Bragg today.  A lot of Americans are wondering what the mission is.  Is it going to change?  Give us a preview.

SECRETARY RICE:  Well, the President will have an opportunity tonight, on the one year anniversary of the transfer of sovereignty -- and it's important to realize it's one year, it's not very long.  And the Iraqis have now already held elections, elections that inspired everybody.  They then have formed a government, a very good government.  I've been with some members of that government just recently.  They've been -- are writing a constitution and they'll have elections in December.

And I know that it's hard when every day what you see on TV are the pictures of the car bombs, innocent Iraqis dying, of course the continued sacrifice of American men and women in uniform.  But it is very important to keep focused on that political process because when the Iraqis are taking control of their own future that way, and when their security forces are taking more responsibility, there's no doubt that our own coalition forces will be less needed.

MS. CHETRY:  Was this speech planned to coincide with the one year mark of the handover of power or is it because of the increasing criticisms and questions about how things are going in Iraq?

SECRETARY RICE:  Well, there's no doubt that the American President ought to speak to the American people at a milestone like this because we did transfer sovereignty one year ago, and so it gives him an opportunity and it gives him an opportunity in a setting with American men and women in uniform who are bearing the sacrifice and it allows him to tell the American people where we are in this great mission.

MR. KILMEADE:  The Prime Minister -- you have talked to the Prime Minister over in Iraq.  You've talked to him here.  He seems somewhat nervous that Americans start losing their will in this fight.  And he also called for something that I couldn't figure out:  a Marshall Plan for Iraq.  Aren't we giving them the Marshall Plan already?

SECRETARY RICE:  Well, we did make that point to him that the American people have given over $18 billion in grants -- not in loans, in grants.  And I think what he was saying, and when we talked about it, they have a lot of needs.  They have a lot of reconstruction needs.  We are already involved in reconstructing electricity, reconstructing water centers, schools and clinics.  But they also are making an appeal to the rest of the world, and so it was good to be with 80 countries in Brussels to lend political support to this new Iraqi Government, and then there will be a donor conference very shortly here in which, I think, people can show that they are intending to back that up with financial support for the Iraqis.

MR. DOOCY:  Since you're here in New York today, in the New York Times, John F. Kerry writes an editorial about what the President should say tonight, and one of the things he says is the President should tell the truth about what's going on in Iraq.  To the best of your knowledge, has the President ever not told the truth?

SECRETARY RICE:  No, the President is absolutely, of course, sincere in telling the American people what needs to be done.  The American people need not be underestimated.  They can see that this is a difficult, difficult struggle.  But the American people have always come together and I think they are coming together when the stakes are at the highest.  And the stakes in Iraq are very high because we're talking about a change in the center of the Middle East that would change the poisonous politics of that region which is producing so much of the extremism that produces the war -- or that produces terrorism.

MR. DOOCY:  Sure.

SECRETARY RICE:  So the stakes are very high.  I think the American people understand that.  And the President will have an opportunity to give them a progress report on what really is an amazing story of Iraqis taking more and more responsibility for their own affairs.

MS. CHETRY:  Secretary Rice, you referred to the American people.  There's a USA Today-Gallup poll out today saying that 61 percent who were asked feel the President does not have a clear plan for handling the situation in Iraq.  Why do you think that this -- they say that -- this is the most people -- the most, I guess, people feel this way out of any of the recent polls.  Why is that opinion changing and how can he allay those fears tonight?

SECRETARY RICE:  Right.  Well, I never know quite what to make of polls, but let's just assume that Iraq can sometimes present a confusing picture because, on the one hand, you have a political process that's moving forward and, on the other hand, you have a continued, pretty tough insurgency with people dying every day.  And so what the President has an opportunity to do, which he did at the Army War College a little while ago, several months ago, is to go back through the steps that are being taken on the political side to link that with the training of Iraqi security forces so that they can take more responsibilities and to say to the American people there is a strategy for success here that does not depend ad infinitum on American forces to carry this burden.  And he will make that case and I think the American people will respond.

MR. KILMEADE:  How long do you think we should let the Europeans lead when it comes to Iran?  Because, so far, it's not going too well.  They have just put a guy in a sham election in that says the first thing I'm going to do is restart that peaceful nuclear program that we need so bad.  How long do we let this experiment continue?

SECRETARY RICE:  Oh, I still believe that there's a lot -- there are legs still to this diplomatic process that they've involved in and we're trying to support the EU-3.  What's often not recognized is that we're supporting the diplomacy, but everybody has said -- all of us united, including the EU-3 -- that if the Iranians decide that they won't take this way out, that the international community has other options like the Security Council.

So we are in a process and I think we lose nothing by allowing the diplomacy to play out here and to give the Iranians a chance.  But if the Iranians don't take that chance, then we have a unified international community going forward.

MR. DOOCY:  Speaking of the Security Council, anything on your day planner for dropping by the United Nations?

SECRETARY RICE:  I am indeed going to go over to the United Nations.  I'm going to speak with Secretary General Annan and also with the President of the General Assembly.  It's a time when we have to have UN reform and I know that every --

MR. DOOCY:  Really?

SECRETARY RICE:  Yeah, it's time.

MR. DOOCY:  Hello?

SECRETARY RICE:  It's time.  It's time.

MR. DOOCY:  Now, when you say reform, you mean condos?

SECRETARY RICE:  No, I mean we have got to get at key issues like management reform, the Secretariat reform.  We cannot have a Human Rights Commission in which Sudan sits at a time that it's being accused of genocide.

MR. DOOCY:  Sure.

SECRETARY RICE:  So we need reform and --

MR. DOOCY:  Is Kofi Annan up to the job?

SECRETARY RICE:  Kofi Annan is a very fine man and I think he has, as Secretary General, he's done a lot of very good things and we expect to keep working with him.

But this is not about the Secretary General.  This is -- the member-states have to say the UN is now almost 60 years old, it's really time for reform.  And I don't mean just who's going to end up on the Security Council.  I know that's what everybody wants to talk about.  But we need to go to the fundamental, old-fashioned issues like how are we going to manage the place better, how is it going to be more effective.  And those are the issues I'm going to raise when I'm there.

MS. CHETRY:  Also, Secretary Rice, what about getting some more UN help when it comes to Iraq in terms of peacekeepers or anything, helping secure the borders?  We see one of the biggest problems is that a lot of these insurgents are able to get over the borders from Syria, Iran and other countries.

SECRETARY RICE:  Well, I think the way to deal with that is, first of all, for Iraq's neighbors to step up.  Syria needs to stop doing what it's doing.  Syria is really in trouble with every -- all of these new states.  The Palestinians, the Syrians are not helping by supporting terrorists.  The Iraqis, they're not helping by letting people across the border.  We know what they've done in Lebanon.  So the Iraqi neighbors need to step up and stop harming the Iraqi people.

What we need the UN to do is what they're doing:  help with the election process, help with the constitution.  And we have a multinational force there, but the real answer to Iraq's security problems rests with Iraqis, Iraqi security forces, not our outside forces.

MR. KILMEADE:  Dr. Rice, I don't know, I have another passion besides sports, and it's fashion.  I just love to see what people are wearing.

MR. DOOCY:  You can tell.

MR. KILMEADE:  Absolutely.  And have you noticed everyone is writing about what you're wearing?  And having done that, do you find yourself staring in the mirror saying, "What are they going to write about this today?"  You know, does this go with this?  What are they going to say for this?  (Laughter.)

SECRETARY RICE:  I need your help here, all right.  (Laughter.)

MS. CHETRY:  No, you don't need my help at all.

SECRETARY RICE:  No, you don't worry about such things.  You don't worry about such things.

MR. KILMEADE:  Are you surprised people are writing this?

SECRETARY RICE:  A little bit.  A little bit.  Because, first of all, I have loved to shop since I was five years old.

MR. KILMEADE:  Really?

SECRETARY RICE:  Yeah, my father was a high school guidance counselor and he was a minister, a Presbyterian minister.  On Saturdays, he would go to the church to prepare things, work on his sermon.  My mother and I would head to the stores.  That was when I was five years old.  So when you --

MS. CHETRY:  Well, you have to come to New York more often.

SECRETARY RICE:  Yeah, I agree with that.  I agree with that.

MS. CHETRY:  Get outside of D.C..  The stores are a little better.

SECRETARY RICE:  I agree with that.  I agree with that.

MR. DOOCY:  You know, right now, about ten blocks from here, somebody is knocking off that outfit you're wearing.  (Laughter.)  It's going to be for sale later this evening.

MR. KILMEADE:  You're also pushing for the Olympics here in New York City.

SECRETARY RICE:  I am.

MR. DOOCY:  Do you think we still have a shot at that?

SECRETARY RICE:  I'm looking forward to -- yes, I do.  And I'm really looking forward to the sendoff for the Olympic delegation.  This is a great city.  It's an international city.  You just walk down the street and you see the voices and the faces of the whole world.  And so why shouldn't the world come to New York for this Olympics?  So I'm really honored to have a chance to be here to do that.

MR. DOOCY:  All right.  Condoleezza Rice, Secretary of State, thank you very much for joining us live today.

SECRETARY RICE:  Thank you.

MR. DOOCY:  Drop by anytime.

SECRETARY RICE:  I'd love to do that.  Thanks.

MR. DOOCY:  Not too often, though, because we hate cleaning up.  (Laughter.)

SECRETARY RICE:  Thank you.

MR. KILMEADE:  Thank you, Madame Secretary.

(end transcript)

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