Transcript for May 21

MR. TIM RUSSERT: Our issues this Sunday: a new prime minister and a new government in Iraq, more threats from Iran, and the continuing debate over privacy vs. national security. With us: the secretary of state, Condoleezza Rice.

Then, big differences within the Republican Party over what to do with 11 million illegal immigrants—undertake a mass deportation or begin a path to citizenship? Republican Senator Lindsey Graham of South Carolina squares off with Republican Congressman Charlie Norwood of Georgia.

But first, yesterday, Nouri al-Maliki was sworn in as the new prime minister of Iraq. Here to talk about that and more is the secretary of state, Condoleezza Rice.

Welcome back.

DR. CONDOLEEZZA RICE: Good morning, Tim.

MR. RUSSERT: A new government in Iraq, a new prime minister, and yet no minister of defense, of interior or national security. Does that concern you?

DR. RICE: Well, first of all, I think this is a real step forward, a big day, really, for the Iraqi people. You have the first elected government that is there to govern, not just to prepare elections or to prepare constitutions, but to govern permanently. Our understanding with Prime Minister Maliki is that he wants to get it right about Defense and Interior. They’re going to take a little bit longer. They are doing interviews, they’ve vetted people. They want to make certain that they make the right choices there.

When I was in Iraq with Secretary Rumsfeld, Prime Minister Maliki was very focused on the need particularly to have an Interior Ministry in which people had confidence and that could build police in which people had confidence. And so I’m not surprised that it’s taking them a little bit longer to make sure that these are people in whom the prime minister has confidence.

MR. RUSSERT: It’s a pivotal position.

DR. RICE: It’s absolutely pivotal, and it needs to be truly a national unity position. It needs to be a position in which there’s someone who’s not just competent, but somebody of integrity. And I think it actually shows some maturity that they were able to go ahead with the formation of the government so that they can start working, but that they can take a little bit longer.

And I talked this morning to Ambassador Khalilzad in Baghdad. He told me that already the prime minister has had meetings today on infrastructure security. He is saying that he’s determined to use maximum force if necessary to stop the terrorists and to, and to make certain that they can disarm militias and other unauthorized armed groups. So he’s focused on the right things, and this government, I think, has a really good chance to work, and work effectively.

MR. RUSSERT: The New York Times reports that one of the leading candidates to be the minister of the interior is Ahmed Chalabi...

DR. RICE: Mm-hmm.

MR. RUSSERT: ...one of the Iranian—Iraqi exiles who encouraged the U.S. to go in there in the first place. Would that be acceptable to you?

DR. RICE: Well, we are going to work with Prime Minister Maliki, and these are his choices, but I wouldn’t jump to any conclusions about names here. They’re are a lot, a lot of politics going on in Iraq right now. Democracy’s broken out, people talk, people engage in politics. But he’s looking at names that I think really will show that this is going to be a position of integrity and a position of competence.

MR. RUSSERT: Is Chalabi on the list?

DR. RICE: I’m not going to discuss his choices. I think as a prime minister...

MR. RUSSERT: Is he up to—is he up to the job?

DR. RICE: It’s for Prime Minister Maliki to decide who’s up to this job.

MR. RUSSERT: Congressman John Murtha, Democrat who had voted for the war and now sees things a lot differently, had this to say, “Six months after first calling for a withdrawal of U.S. troops, Congressman Murtha said that the military situation in Iraq had only gotten worse. ... Murtha contended ... that by most every military and economic measure, the situation in Iraq had deteriorated. He said oil production, a key ingredient for Iraqi prosperity, had not reached prewar levels; much of the country gets only nine to 11 hours of electricity a day. In Baghdad the average is 2.9 hours.

“The president insists that our military needs to stay the course, but there’s no plan for progress. Every convoy’s attacked, improvised explosive devices exploding all around, being shot at every day. [American troops] are in constant and severe stress. The only people who can settle this are the Iraqis.”

DR. RICE: Well, I would certainly agree with the last line, that the people who will settle is Iraqis, and that’s why the creation of this new government of national unity that has such great focus and that is already beginning to work on behalf of the Iraqi people is so important. But I do think that the United States and other coalition—and indeed, the international community—can support them in that work. We are going to sit with the new Iraqi prime minister and his team and look at the security situation, both in terms of what remains to be done and who should do it.

When I was there, Prime Minister Maliki told me that he wanted to see an acceleration of even the training of Iraqi forces, and certainly Iraqi forces stepping up more to take their security responsibilities. They are stepping up. They’re taking large parts of territory that they now control. That notorious highway between the airport and the international zone is now controlled by Iraqis. And in fact, has been much more peaceful since they’ve taken control of it. So they are taking their responsibilities. They are taking losses on behalf of their own country.

And I want to say something also about the political leadership in Iraq. I have met with Iraqi leaders who have lost family members to hard-core insurgents who don’t want particularly Sunnis to be part of the political process. And at every turn, when they lose a brother or they lose a sister, they say, “The way that we honor that memory is to form a government of national unity and to make Iraq a stable democracy.” These people are sacrificing, they are committed, and we need to be there to, to help them succeed. But it is true, they are the ones that must succeed.

MR. RUSSERT: With this new prime minister, this new government, will there now be significant reductions of American troops by this fall?

DR. RICE: Well, we are going to sit with the prime minister and his team and make a determination on how the security situation is going to best be addressed. But clearly larger numbers of Iraqis are being trained, clearly they’re taking on more security responsibility. And it has always been the plan that as they take these responsibilities, we will have less to do. I think it’s already the case that we spend a great deal more of our time on training, but there are still some difficult places to deal with, and we want to make sure that we have the forces there that are needed. That’s why the president talks about conditioned-based withdrawals.

MR. RUSSERT: But you’re optimistic we’ll be able to have some withdrawals by this year?

DR. RICE: Well, I’m, I’m optimistic that the Iraqis are taking more security responsibility and are better trained. I, I think it would be premature before we’ve had a chance to talk with the new Iraqi government to start talking about precisely what’s going to happen in terms of our own forces.

MR. RUSSERT: But Madam Secretary, you know the numbers as well as I do: 2,448 dead Americans, 18,088 wounded or injured. And look at these numbers in terms of support for the war, the president’s handling of Iraq. When the war began in March of ‘03, it was 70 percent approval. It’s now down to 32. Less than one in three Americans support the president’s handling of the war in Iraq. What happened?

DR. RICE: I understand that Americans see on their screens violence. They continue to see Americans killed, and we mourn every death. These are very hard things to do. But I would ask that people remember why we are there. We are there because we are trying to—having overthrown a brutal dictator who was a destabilizing force in the Middle East, we’re trying to help the Iraqis create a stable foundation for democracy and a stable foundation for peace. In a region in which our interests, and indeed our very security, has been so wrapped up with the Middle East, that is something worth doing. And nothing of value is ever won without sacrifice. I understand that it’s hard, it’s also hard—harder to see the quiet progress on the political front, the coming together of Iraqis, Sunnis, Shia, Kurds, to build their political future. And so I, I understand that Americans want us to succeed and that the question is, “Can we succeed?” And I just want to say we can.

MR. RUSSERT: But it’s more than just seeing violence on the screen. Would you not agree—accept the notion that Americans, who only 32 percent approve of the president’s handling, have seen some misjudgments: no weapons of mass destruction, a misreading of the level, intensity of the insurrection, whether we’d be greeted as liberators, sectarian violence, cost of the war? There were a lot of misjudgments made that the American people also witnessed.

DR. RICE: Undoubtedly, Tim, there are many things that could have been done differently, and I’m certain could have been done better. But when you’re involved in an enterprise this big and this complicated, there are going to be misjudgments. The real question is, do you adjust when you see a different situation on the ground? And in numerous circumstances, we have had to make adjustments.

I think those adjustments have been in the right direction, but there are also some misjudgments that were not made. There were those who said that it would be best just to overthrow Saddam Hussein and then put in an Iraqi strongman who could govern. That would have been a disaster for the progress of the Middle East as a whole and for a democratic foundation for, for the Middle East. There were those who said, “The Iraqis will, will really never be able to, to do this. Let’s go in with a huge footprint and do—leave nothing to the Iraqis.” What we’ve done is to steadily build Iraqi political capability and competence and confidence over this period of three years.

We are a long way, it’s, it’s—people forget, we’re a long way from the governing council that had a rotating president every month to the now inauguration of Prime Minister Maliki, the inauguration of an Iraqi government that is capable and competent and committed and the inclusion of large numbers of Sunnis through authentic political leadership that we believe can give people a place in the political system and give less reason for a violent insurgency among the Sunnis.

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