Transcript for May 21

MR. RUSSERT: You’ve been deeply involved in the president’s foreign policy. The Economist, a highly regarded magazine from Great Britain, supported the president when he ran in 19--in 2000, wrote this this week, “That Mr. Bush has made big mistakes in foreign policy is not in doubt. He oversold the pre- war intelligence on Iraq, bungled the aftermath, [and] betrayed America’s own principles in Guantanamo and Abu Ghraib.” The U.N. committee has now said we should shut down the prison in Guantanamo, shut it down because it is wrong, and, and politically, many Americans believe, gives America a black eye around the world.

DR. RICE: No one would like to shut down Guantanamo more than this administration. We don’t want to be the world’s jailers. But I would ask people to answer the following question: Then what do we do with the hundreds of dangerous people there who were caught on the battlefield, who are known to have connections, who regularly say that if they’re released, they’re going to go back to killing Americans? Do you really want those people on the streets?

We have released hundreds of people from Guantanamo, we’ve released them to custody of, of their own governments when we can assure that they won’t be mistreated and when we can assure that they will be properly monitored and, and, and looked after so that they can’t commit crimes again. Yes, Guantanamo is a necessity because of the nature of the war on terror, but lots of changes have been made at Guantanamo. I only wish that Rapporteur had gone to Guantanamo and actually looked at what was going on there. It’s a little difficult to understand by remote control.

MR. RUSSERT: So, it will not be closed?

DR. RICE: In time, Tim, of course it will be closed. It’s my hope that it—that that time is coming. But we do have to recognize...

MR. RUSSERT: What’s the timetable...

DR. RICE: Well, I—I’m not going to talk in timetables. What we can talk about is what results we want, and we want a result in which we are certain that dangerous people are not going to be let back out onto the streets. Because the day that we are facing them again on the battlefield—and by the way, that has happened in a couple of cases of people released from Guantanamo—the question’s going to be quite a different one from you or from others, which is, “Why didn’t you make provisions to keep dangerous criminals, dangerous terrorists that you knew were terrorists out of America’s neighborhoods or London’s neighborhoods or the neighborhoods of Amman, Jordan?”

MR. RUSSERT: And Jim Hoagland says in today’s Washington Post that the president’s slipping poll ratings don’t stop at the water’s edge; they have consequences all around the world; Russian President Putin behaving differently, Iranian—the Iranians—when we said, “You will not build a nuclear bomb, and there may be sanctions against you if you do that,” this was the response from the Iranian president: “No U.N. Security Council resolution could make Iran give up its nuclear program. ... ‘The Iranian nation won’t give a damn about such useless resolutions.’”

DR. RICE: Well, it’s high talk, but I’ll say this, every time we get close to a vote in the U.N., there’s an Iranian diplomat in every capital trying to stop it. And so I assume that they do have concerns about the kind of isolation that the international community can bring on Iran. Now, we’re trying to show Iran that there are two courses, they can go down the course of pursuing a nuclear program in which the international community has no confidence they’re—that they’re not covering activities toward a nuclear bomb, or they can accept a course in which they have civil nuclear energy, acceptable program in the international community, and the benefits of integration into the international community.

But the Iranians know that the—that sanctions, that international action can, in fact, be quite damaging to them, and that’s why they work with all their might to avoid being referred—worked with all their might to avoid being referred to the Security Council. They failed in that. And now they’re trying to forestall sanctions. So I assume that the Iranian president is, is simply posturing on this, because I think the Iranians do know how devastating this could be.

MR. RUSSERT: Would the United States offer security guarantees, promise not to bring about a regime change in Iran if the current government agreed not to build a nuclear bomb?

DR. RICE: Well, first of all, I just want to set the record straight. I haven’t been asked by my colleagues if the United States will grant security guarantees to the Iranians. So the notion that there’s some split between the United States and Europe in this is simply wrong.

MR. RUSSERT: Well, will you?

DR. RICE: Secondly, it’s a little strange to talk about security guarantees when the question is Iranian behavior here. And yes, the nuclear issue’s important, but let’s remember this is a state that, that threatens to destroy Israel, that is a central banker of terrorism, that is engaged every day in supporting Hezbollah and rejectionist groups in the Palestinian territories, that has stirred up violence in the south of Iraq, including, we believe, in terms of technology that may be contributing to violence against our soldiers. It, it’s certainly strange to talk about security guarantees in that circumstance. And I would say one other thing. I’ve never quite understood it. If this is a civil nuclear program, and supposed to give energy, what’s, what is with security guarantees? I thought this was supposed to be a civil nuclear program.

MR. RUSSERT: But in, in reality if you’re asking someone to stop developing a nuclear bomb, and they in turn say—through other diplomats at the U.N.—guarantee you will not topple their government if they do that, you won’t do that?

DR. RICE: I thought the Iranian position was that they weren’t developing a nuclear bomb? I thought the Iranian position was that they wanted civil nuclear power? So, so...

MR. RUSSERT: Well, you say they are.

DR. RICE: So, well, let’s, let’s pursue the question of do they want civil nuclear power? But Tim, the United States is not, first, being asked about security guarantees, and secondly it makes no sense in a context in which Iran is a central banker of terrorism and a force for instability in a region of, of great interest to us.

MR. RUSSERT: The New York Times reports, however, that we’re going to have a negotiation with North Korea about a peace treaty, even though we said we wouldn’t negotiate as long as they had nuclear bombs.

DR. RICE: No, what the, the—I think The New York Times is referring to is there is an agreement between the six parties that not only will we insist on a nuclear-free Korean peninsula—that is that the North Koreans have to make a strategic choice, and—actually, a verifiable choice to dismantle their nuclear programs. And of course at some point in time it’s going to be very important to talk about the context on the Korean peninsula. That is, the state of war that exists between the parties to the Korean conflict in—out of 1953, and the North Korean state. But that’s a very different set of circumstances. Clearly, North Korea hasn’t made that strategic choice and they’re not at that table.

The Iranian situation, let’s just remember what we’re talking about: We’re talking about the international community’s demand that Iran change its course on the kind of nuclear program that it is pursuing, and that it can then have certain benefits in the international system. This is not about Iran and the United States. This is an issue between the international community and Iran. And to the degree that the Iranians try to make this a, a tussle between—a disagreement between the United States and, and Iran, they are really not going to find very fertile ground, because we are united with our allies in what needs to be done.

MR. RUSSERT: Would it be easier to deal with Iran and this issue if, in fact, we did not have the complication of Iraq? And the reason I’m asking that is, you went before the world and said, “Iraq has weapons of mass destruction. Our very best intelligence says that and that’s the rationale to go in.” And now the world and many in this country are saying, “What evidence do you have about Iran? And is—are you being distracted by Iraq? And are your options being limited in dealing with Iran because of the difficulties we have in Iraq?”

DR. RICE: Well, let’s remember, first of all, that the United States didn’t go and say Iraq is a, is a problem on the WMD side. There were resolutions within the U.N. Security Council that suggest everybody knew and believed there was a WMD problem with Iraq. But that aside, we are also in very good company in being concerned about what Iran is doing in terms of its nuclear program. This isn’t the United States alone that has concerns about the potential that the Iranians are using civil nuclear programs to cover military nuclear programs. That’s why the Russian structured their Bushehr civilian nuclear reactor with what’s called a fuel take-back provision, so that there wouldn’t be proliferation risk. It’s why the International Atomic Energy Agency is asking the questions of Iran that it is about its program. So I think we have pretty good unity on the concerns about the Iranian nuclear program.

MR. RUSSERT: And Iraq has not limited your options?

MORE FROM MEET THE PRESS

Meet the Press Section Front

Nov. 30: First Lady Laura Bush, Afghanistan's Ambassador Said Jawad, Ted Turner Nov. 23: James Baker, Bill Daley, Sen. Joe Lieberman, political roundtable Nov. 16: Sen. Carl Levin (D-MI), Sen. Richard Shelby (R-AL), T. Boone Pickens, Tom Friedman, Katty Kay, Andrea Mitchell, Tavis Smiley Nov. 9: Valerie Jarrett, Sen. Mel Martinez, R-Fla., Rep. James Clyburn, D-S.C., political roundtable Nov. 2: Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass., Fmr. Sen. Fred Thompson, R-Tenn., political roundtable Oct. 26: Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., Chuck Todd, Charlie Cook, Kelly O'Donnell Remembering Tim Russert   Images: The life of the political journalist   Slideshow: A look back at 60 years of 'Meet the Press' Find ‘Meet the Press’ in your area Meet the Press Section Front   Add Meet the Press headlines to your news reader: