Transcript for March 26

MR. TIM RUSSERT: Our issues this Sunday: the war in Iraq, tensions with Iran and the future of this woman. Our guest: the secretary of state, Condoleezza Rice.

Then, will there be a White House staff shake-up? And what is at stake in the 2006 midterm elections? Insights and analysis from David Broder of The Washington Post; Elisabeth Bumiller, White House correspondent for The New York Times; Charlie Cook of the National Journal, and John Harwood of The Wall Street Journal and CNBC.

But first, as we begin the fourth year of the war in Iraq, we are joined by the secretary of state.

Welcome back, Madame Secretary.

SEC’Y CONDOLEEZZA RICE: Good morning. Nice to be with you, Tim.

MR. RUSSERT: Very disturbing headlines in the papers yesterday. The Russians helping Iraq and this is how it was captured in the paper: “Russian officials collected intelligence on U.S. troop movements and attack plans from inside the American military command leading the 2003 invasion of Iraq and passed that information on to Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein, according to a U.S. military study. The intelligence reports, which the study said were provided to Hussein through the Russian ambassador in Baghdad at the height of the U.S. assault, warned accurately that American formations intended to bypass Iraqi cities on their thrust towards Baghdad. The reports provided some specific numbers on U.S. troop units, locations, according to Iraqi documents dated March and April 2003 and later captured by the United States.” Have you told the Russians, “What is going on?”

SEC’Y RICE: Well, we’re trying first to make sure we understand fully what the documents say. These are documents that were found, an Iraqi source. And obviously, Tim, we would take very seriously any suggestion that this may have been done maybe to the detriment of the American forces. And so we will certainly raise it with the Russian government. We want to take a real hard look at the documents and then raise it with the Russian government.

MR. RUSSERT: But these are U.S. documents.

SEC’Y RICE: Yes.

MR. RUSSERT: A U.S. report. You believe the report?

SEC’Y RICE: Oh, I, I certainly think there is a lot to this report. But we really haven’t much had a chance to look at the documents in detail, intend to do that and then to raise it with the Russian government. I would hope the Russian government would take it seriously.

MR. RUSSERT: Will there be an investigation as to who leaked the information to the Russians?

SEC’Y RICE: Well, I, we’ll just have to see. I, I don’t want to get ahead of us, but obviously we take very seriously any suggestion that this may have been done at the beginning of the war.

MR. RUSSERT: Was it...

SEC’Y RICE: That would be a quite serious charge.

MR. RUSSERT: Could it have been deliberate misinformation?

SEC’Y RICE: I don’t know. I think we really have to take a look at the documents. We’re finding thousands and thousands and thousands of documents. And we’re going to find some, some important and surprising things in these documents. I think we have to step back, take a hard look at the documents, but I—definitely we will raise it with the Russian government.

MR. RUSSERT: When we first went into Iraq, we had some unexpected encounters with Fedayeen and we lost dozens of American men. The Russians may have been responsible for American deaths.

SEC’Y RICE: Well, I don’t want to try hypothetically to, to know what impact this might have had. I think the first thing we need to do is take a good, hard look at the documents and then we definitely want to raise it with the Russian government. And again, I would hope that the Russian government would, would take it seriously and, and give us a serious answer on what they find.

MR. RUSSERT: Back in June of 2001, the president said he looked Vladimir Putin in the eye, he got a sense of his soul, found him to be very straightforward and very trustworthy. Does the president still believe that President Putin is straightforward and trustworthy?

SEC’Y RICE: I really do think that the Russians have generally done what they said they would do. They said they were going to oppose the Iraq war and they did, and they told us that from the very beginning. So I don’t have an argument there. And I don’t want to jump to the conclusion that this was something that was ordered out of the Kremlin. We have to look at the documents, we have to go to the Russian government, but I would hope that the Russian government would take seriously any suggestion that they may have passed data to the Iraqis at the advent of the war.

MR. RUSSERT: But the Russian ambassador is the source. How could Putin not have known? And how could it be straightforward and honest for the Russians to help Saddam Hussein?

SEC’Y RICE: Tim, we have to get to the bottom of the facts of this. We will most certainly raise it with the Russian government. I’ve, I’ve said several times, it’s a serious matter. But I don’t want to jump out ahead and start making accusations about what the Russians may or may not have known. This is something in the relationship that we have with the Russians that really is candid and where we do talk about difficult things all the time, where I think we’ll be able to talk about this and talk about it honestly.

MR. RUSSERT: Why won’t the Russians help us get sanctions in the United Nations against Iran and try to stop them from developing nuclear weapons?

SEC’Y RICE: Well, we’re not yet at the stage where we’re seeking sanctions. What we’re doing now is we’re seeking a presidential statement that would make clear to Iran the international community’s determination that it live up to the obligations that everyone thinks that Iran has. We’re working through it. We have the same strategy here, we have the same view of the problem. The Russians do not want a nuclear weapon in Iran either. It’s been very clear in everything that they have tried to do, in the way that they set up the civil nuclear cooperation with Bushehr, in what they offered the Iranians that the Russians also do not believe that there should be enrichment and reprocessing capability on Iranian soil. And enrichment and reprocessing capability is the core here. If you’re able to enrich and reprocess, then the ability to build a bomb is, is there.

And so we and the Russians, the Chinese, and certainly the Europeans, have the same view of what is, what is to be prevented. Yes, we’ve had some tactical differences on how to get there, but I talked with my Russian counterpart on Friday, we agreed that our people would go back and work very hard this weekend, and we’ll see where we are on Monday. We’re considering whether it might be a good idea to get, after we have a presidential statement, get ministries together again with the, the P5, the permanent five of the Security Council, plus Germany, to talk about charting a course forward, because everybody takes very seriously Iran’s intransigence and Iran’s unwillingness to do what the international community is, is determined that it will do.

MR. RUSSERT: It is the policy of our government that Iran will not be allowed to develop a nuclear weapon?

SEC’Y RICE: Tim, Iran cannot be allowed to develop a nuclear weapon. That is the view of the international community, not just the United States.

MR. RUSSERT: This article is in The New York Times, “The reality is that most of us think the Iranians are probably going to get a weapon, or the technology to make one, sooner or later, an administration official acknowledged a few weeks ago, refusing to talk on the record because such an admission amounts to a concession that dragging Iran in front of the United Nations Security Council may prove an exercise in futility. The optimists around here,” about the White House, “just hope we can delay the day by 10 or 20 years, and that by that time we’ll have a different relationship with a different Iranian government.”

That seems like a much different policy.

SEC’Y RICE: Well, I—since I don’t know who this anonymous person is, I can’t tell you what, what relationship it may have to the policy. I’ll tell you who doesn’t think that, I don’t believe that, I don’t believe that the president believes that, because we’re doing everything that we can to send a strong signal to the Iranians that they have no choice. If they wish to be a part of the international community, they have no choice but to give up ambitions that could lead to the technologies that would lead to a nuclear weapon.

If the international community stays really solid here, Iran cannot stand the kind of isolation from the international community that, for instance, North Korea endures almost by choice. We really do have a chance to solve this diplomatically. But, Tim, I would be the first to say we can’t afford to waste time. That’s why we need our, our people in, in New York to really work toward this first phase. We need to see if that has an effect on the Iranians, and if it does not have an effect on the Iranians, we need to move to the next phase.

MR. RUSSERT: Which is?

SEC’Y RICE: The next phase is to look to further options in the Security Council, for instance, perhaps the Chapter 7 resolution.

MR. RUSSERT: Which is?

SEC’Y RICE: Chapter 7 resolution essentially gives the U.N., or the Security Council, the ability to compel a state to act. It can say that there would be consequences if actions are not taken.

MR. RUSSERT: Including military?

SEC’Y RICE: Well, no one ever takes anything off the table, but I believe we’re a long way from, from that. We have the possibilities of financial measures that could be taken, bans against travel. There, there are a lot of options once you’re in the Security Council. That’s why it was very important to get this dossier, Iranian dossier, to the Security Council and why the diplomacy that we’ve been working over the last couple of years to get the Europeans and the United States on the same page and to now bring the Russians and the Chinese along has been so important.

MR. RUSSERT: Do you believe if the president chose to embark on military action with Iran, he would go to Congress for authorization first?

SEC’Y RICE: I’m not going to speculate on that. The president is clear that he keeps all of his options on the table. But, Tim, I think speculating about how we might set up military action isn’t helpful at a time when we really are concentrating on the diplomacy. But I want to be very clear...

MR. RUSSERT: But you wouldn’t go to Congress?

SEC’Y RICE: Well, Tim, of course the administration went to Congress the last time. And I would just ask people to look at the history of how this president has, has acted; he has taken Congress as a full partner in these matters. But I’m not going to get into a discussion of what the president may or may not do constitutionally.

MR. RUSSERT: Let me turn back to Iraq. The war is now in its fourth year, and these are the grim statistics: U.S. troops killed, 2,316; wounded/injured 17,271; Iraqis killed, an estimated, estimated number of 30,000; 130,000 American troops on the ground. When you were planning the war some three and a half years ago, did you have any idea that three years into the war those are the numbers that you would be confronting?

SEC’Y RICE: Well, I certainly thought that it would be difficult. I don’t think anyone knew precisely what we would be facing in terms of numbers. And look, every one of those deaths is, is mourned by people in the administration because these are families that have lost husbands and wives and daughters and sons. But we also know that nothing of value is ever won without sacrifice.

We’re in Iraq because the United States of America faces a different kind of enemy in a different kind of war. And we have to have a different kind of Middle East if we’re ever going to resolve the, the, the problems of an ideology of hatred that was so great that people flew airplanes into buildings. Iraq was—Saddam Hussein’s Iraq was a threat. Now that the...

MR. RUSSERT: But, but Saddam was not related to flying airplanes into buildings.

SEC’Y RICE: No, and we have never said that Saddam—Saddam was not related to the events of 9/11. But if you really believe that the only thing that happened on 9/11 was people flew airplanes into buildings, I think you have a very narrow view of what we faced on 9/11. We faced the, the outcome of an ideology of hatred throughout the Middle East that had to be dealt with. Saddam Hussein was a part of that old Middle East. The new Iraq will be a part of a new Middle East, and we will all be safer.

MR. RUSSERT: But Madame Secretary, weapons of mass destruction was the primary rationale given to go into Iraq. Lisa Myers of NBC News broke a story last week that the Iraqi foreign minister, Mr. Sabri, became a spy for the French and, and the CIA. And this is how it was reported: “Saddam Hussein’s last foreign minister, Naji Sabri, was a paid spy for French intelligence, which later turned him over to the CIA to supply information about Iraq, its chemical, biological and nuclear weapons programs more than six months before the war began in March 2003, according to former senior intelligence officials. ...

“The sources said, he provided information that the Iraqi dictator had ambitions for a nuclear program but that it was not active, and that no biological weapons were being produced or stockpiled, although research was under way.” That’s a far cry from what the American people were told.

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