30 August 2006
Rice Defines "Successful Outcome" in Iraq
Secretary of state predicts democratic institutions will take root
Washington -- Security, democratic institutions and the use of politics – not violence – to resolve differences, are the main criteria for a successful outcome of the war in Iraq, says Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice.
Rice spoke with reporters from a variety of news outlets during her August 29 visit to Salt Lake City, where she addressed the 88th Annual American Legion Convention. The American Legion, chartered by Congress in 1919, is, with 3 million members, the largest service organization to aid wartime veterans in the United States.
“When Iraqis are able to secure themselves and to use their democratic institutions, their new institutions to work on their differences by means of politics not violence, that will be a very successful Iraq, and that day is coming,” Rice said in a televised interview.
“You're never going to have a situation -- or not for a long time -- in which there is no violence in Iraq,” the secretary acknowledged. “They're going through a huge historical change. There will be some violence. But the Iraqis need security forces that can secure them and we are helping them to build that. They need a unity government that represents all Iraqis. Twelve and a half million Iraqis went out and voted for that government. That government is now moving forward.
“Success in Iraq is that Iraqis are able to govern themselves and protect themselves,” she said.
Rice expressed confidence that the Iraqis have both the desire and the capacity to hold together the country by democracy.
“Iraqis want their country to be held together. They're undergoing very great sacrifice in order to try to build a unified Iraq,” she said. “I've met Iraqi leaders who have lost family members personally because they are part of this unified government. And so they will be able to do this through politics.”
Under the regime of Sadam Hussein, unity in Iraq was accomplished either through repression or violence, Rice said, so “it is hard to learn to trust each other in a political process.
“But that has to be the future of a different kind of Middle East or we will never be able to defeat the ideologies of hatred that have caused us so much violence and so much destruction,” she said.
U.S. PRESENCE IN IRAQ
Rice predicted that the United States “will be engaged with Iraqis for a long, long time, but that doesn't mean that we have to be militarily engaged for a long, long time.
“There's a difference,” she explained, “in helping the Iraqis to create a secure environment, training their military forces so that they themselves can carry out their security mission and remaining engaged with them politically, economically in support of the changes that are going on there.
“The most egregious error that the United States could make,” the secretary added, “is to leave Iraq before this task is finished. Because what we do not want to see is an Iraq that falls to the likes of Zarqawi, who we managed ultimately to eliminate, an Iraq that might go back to its old habits and its old ways.” (See related article.)
Rice acknowledged that the ongoing reports of sectarian violence make it difficult for many to see how a future Iraq could be different. “But I would just ask people to recognize when you have big historic changes of this kind, when you have people trying to come to live together through politics not through violence, it does take time; it does take support; it does take commitment.
“But it will be a Middle East in a world that is much more secure for us as well. A secure Iraq will make for a more secure America,” she said.
Rice expressed her own admiration for Iraq’s “great culture” and “great civilization.” Iraqis, she said, “really do see themselves as an Iraqi culture” which is an important foundation for “a unified government in Iraq that will work.”
Many Iraqis striving for a unified government have lost family members to terrorists; nonetheless, she noted, “they're willing to sacrifice for it.”
American families, too, have lost loved ones for a unified Iraq, she said. “We're doing it in common cause with a people who deserve a better future than they've had in the past.”
Responding to questions about American protesters against the war in Iraq, Rice said: “Protest is as natural a part of democracy as breathing and I think it is important that people recognize that protest is a wholly legitimate form of political expression.”
She added: “I do hope that as people protest they recognize that they are protesting a war that actually has given people in places like Iraq or Afghanistan the right to protest.”
The secretary said there is a difference between protesting a policy, which, she said is “anybody's right to do,” and impugning “the motives or integrity of those with whom you disagree.” President Bush, she said, “did not go to war easily or lightly or eagerly.”
As for the governments that disagreed with the U.S. decision to go to war in Iraq, Rice said: “I believe we've rebuilt most of those bridges. We have very good relations both in Europe and in the region, and there is an understanding now, broadly, that a stable and a more democratic Iraq is going to be a pillar of a different kind of Middle East.
“It's hard getting there, and people are concerned with the continuing challenges of Iraq, but there seems to me to be little disagreement now on what the future should hold for Iraq,” she said.
U.S. SUPPORT FOR ISRAEL
Rice said that the United States successfully can engage with nations in the Middle East and support Israel at the same time.
“[W]e are going to be a defender and ally of Israel,” she said. “Israel is a democracy. Israel is our friend, and we share values.
“And we also have very good relations with others in the region, with Egypt, with Saudi Arabia, with Jordan. And we all have, I think, a common vision of how the Middle East should look. It should be a Middle East in which there is a Palestinian state in which Palestinians can have their own aspirations met, one that is not corrupt, one that is democratic,” she said.
“It's not easy to get there because the Middle East is in the midst of huge historic changes. But the United States is going to remain committed to the president's vision of a more democratic and stable Middle East,” Rice said.
CAPTURING OSAMA BIN LADEN
Rice acknowledged that finding al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden has been difficult, but added: “Eventually, we will. The United States will stay on his trail until we get him.
“But al-Qaida,” she added, “is not one man and the terrorist threat to us is not one man.” She mentioned the capture of terrorist leaders like Abu Zubaydah and Khalid Shaikh Mohammed and bin al Shibh and others.
The United States, she said, has “a tremendous intelligence network working with other countries to try and break up terrorist plots before they are actually carried out.”
“[I]t's a tough job and it's not a fair fight,” she said. “And it's why the United States can't win this war on the defense. You have to stay on the offense.”
For more on U.S. policy in the region, see: Middle East and North Africa
(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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