Condoleezza Rice on Iraq, Lebanon and Cuba

In an exclusive interview to air tonight on "Hardball with Chris Matthews," NBC's David Gregory speaks with Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice about the war in Iraq, the crisis in the Middle East, and the current situation in Cuba.

In reaction to Sen. Hillary Clinton's comments about United States policy in Iraq, she says, "I do not believe it's failing." Secretary Rice also tells Gregory that Iraq is not sliding towards a civil war.

The following is a transcript of the interview, which will air tonight on MSNBC's "Hardball with Chris Matthews" at 5 and 7 p.m. (ET).

DAVID GREGORY, HARDBALL: Secretary Rice, let me start on the topic of Iraq. Yesterday, on Capitol Hill, Senator Hillary Clinton called -- after the testimony of Defense chief Rumsfeld, Defense Secretary Rumsfeld -- for his resignation and said, in effect, it was time to choose a new team that could come up with a new strategy to deal with Iraq. How did you react to that?

CONDOLEEZZA RICE, SECRETARY OF STATE: Well, I reacted that the president of the United States has great confidence in Don Rumsfeld and so do his colleagues. And we are the team that has been involved in Iraq since the very beginning. I believe that we've made progress.

Everybody knows that this is a very, very difficult situation, that what the Iraqis are trying to do is really unprecedented in the whole region. It's certainly unprecedented in Iraq, but it's unprecedented in the whole region, and that is to take a political culture that has largely either been run through oppression or through violence and to put in place democratic political institutions that are going to help people deal with their differences.

That's hard, it's turbulent, but it's very, important to the future of the Middle East and, indeed, important to our future security.

GREGORY: Was it striking to you, however, that Senator Clinton -- obviously, a Democrat, but has not joined other Democrats in calling for a withdrawal of troops, she has not joined other Democrats in calling for Rumsfeld's resignation -- would do so at this point?

RICE: I can't speak for Senator Clinton. Obviously, she's a senator. She has the right to say whatever she pleases. And I heard some of the testimony yesterday. I heard Generals Abizaid and General Pace, as well. I heard them talk about the challenges in Iraq, and I also heard them express confidence that they believe they have the right forces and the right structure in place to deal with those challenges.

GREGORY: Is this is a failed policy, as Senator Clinton alleged?

RICE: The policy in Iraq is under way to produce in Iraq the first real democracy in this entire region. And, David, it's going to be hard. This is a huge historic change. Historic change doesn't come without difficulty and without turbulence.

But we somehow seem to think back on an Iraq that was a pristine Iraq, where the Iraqi people were somehow thriving. That wasn't the Iraq that we found. We were dealing with an Iraq with a brutal dictator, with 300,000 people in mass graves, who had used weapons of mass destruction, who'd attacked his neighbors, against whom we'd gone to war in 1991 and again in 1998 to try to control his power.

So when we look at the Iraq of today, we have to remember the Iraq that we were dealing with. And what the Iraqi people have done is quite

extraordinary: They've put in place a political process that gives them a chance to learn to deal with their differences in a political way.

But, yes, it's hard.

And I know that, when people see the terrible scenes of violence on television, when we mourn the death of each and every American man and woman in uniform or a civilian that's killed in Iraq, that it's hard to see the progress that's being made and it's hard to believe that this is all going to come out for the better.

GREGORY: But the question is, is it failing or is it succeeding?

RICE: No, I do not believe that it's failing. I believe that, in fact, we are in the midst of this huge historic change. And when you're in the midst of it, sometimes it's hard to see what's at the end of the process. And at the end of the process, I believe Iraqis, who are going to control their own future, who are going to control their own security forces, they're going through an extraordinarily difficult time. But what they don't need is to have doubt that America is committed to them in this struggle in which they find themselves.

GREGORY: Is it a civil war in Iraq now?

RICE: The Iraqis have sectarian differences; there's no doubt about that.

GREGORY: A little bit more than sectarian differences, isn't it?

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