Condoleezza Rice on Iraq, Lebanon and Cuba

RICE: No, they have sectarian differences, and some of those are violent. But everything that Iraqi leaders and the Iraqi people -- not the people who are trying to cause failure there -- what the Iraqi people and their leaders are trying to do is to build a unified Iraq.

It's not civil war when 12.5 million people go out and vote for a government that bridges all of the sectarian groups. It's not civil war when the Iraqis are able to then, on the basis of that vote, form a unity government that is now trying to work both toward reconstruction and reconciliation. It's not civil war when you have a prime minister of Iraq, who is himself a Shia, who sits with the defense minister, who is a Sunni, with an interior minister who's a Shia, with a president who is Kurdish. That's not civil war.

GREGORY: So the commanders on the ground who say the sectarian violence is worse than it's ever been and, if unchecked, will lead to a civil war, they don't have it right?

RICE: Well, I read those statements. And what General Abizaid said is that he had confidence that, in fact, we could help the Iraqis to arrest what could be a slide toward civil war. He did not say that there is a civil war going on there, and it would be wrong to quote him as saying so.

We know that the dangers of sectarian violence, of spinning out of control, it's on everybody's mind, of course. But the Iraqis have a lot of institutions and, by the way, a lot of commitment to not having that happen. And what we need to do is to support them in this process that they're involved in that really is unique to the region.

GREGORY: If it's not a civil war, then what is it we're in the middle of?

RICE: What we're in the middle of is the transformation of a society that has handled its politics through repression to a society that will handle its politics through democratic institutions.

I was with our ambassador, Zal Khalilzad, not too long ago, and the way that he explained it is that these are people who are learning to relate to each other, not to depend on a strong man to just hold in check their differences, but to literally relate to each other through institutions that are brand new. It's very difficult; it's hard.

But they're doing this. We need to remain committed to them, to help them build security forces that can help to secure them, to help them reconstruct the country, and to help this political process move ahead.

GREGORY: But, Secretary Rice, isn't it striking that the administration is now taking a tone where there is more acknowledgement of Iraq sliding toward civil war when it was just months ago when the administration, from the president and other top officials, was accusing the news media and others of misrepresenting success there?

RICE: David, I think it's extremely important to get the tense right here. I didn't say "sliding towards civil war." I said that we all believe that there are great dangers inherent in sectarian violence of this kind, but the Iraqis themselves, first of all, don't want civil war. That's very clear.

Civil war usually starts when somebody is determined to start one.

The Iraqis...

GREGORY: What evidence is there they don't want it?

RICE: Well, the unity government that they've formed; the armed forces that continue to fight; the people who continue to show up to serve in the police forces or in the army, despite the violence that is being done against them; the fact that their neighbors are rallying around them; the fact that you have a prime minister who sits with a national unity government to make policy every day.

Those are very strong indications that these are people who want to live together. They've had plenty of opportunity to say, "No, we would rather like as Kurds, and Shia, and Sunni." That's not what they've done. In fact, the Kurds, who everybody accused of being just ready to secede any moment, the president of Iraq is a Kurd. He's one of the founding fathers, if you will, of a new Iraq.

And so, yes, it's very, very difficult, but I really think that we do not do them justice, many of them who have lost family and friends as a result of this steadfastness about the need for a unified Iraq, when we tell them they're sliding into civil war.

GREGORY: You talk about the desire for democracy, the desire to avoid civil war. This was a government that we helped put into place, helped to organize, and it is led by a prime minister who has sharply criticized Israel. And in the streets of Baghdad, there have been demonstrations, pro-Hezbollah demonstrations, a group which we've talked a lot about recently calling for the destruction of Israel. Is this the Iraq that the administration promised us?

RICE: There is -- well, first of all, what the administration promised was that we would help to build a democratic Iraq, in which Iraqis could express themselves and in which Iraqis could have control of their own future.

We're not going to agree with everything that every Iraqi says or every Iraqi leader says. Those are democratic choices. But I can tell you that this is an Iraq that is going to be at peace with its neighbors, that's going to fight terrorism, that is not going to do the sorts of things that Saddam Hussein has done, and is, therefore, going to be a pillar in a different kind of Middle East which will, indeed, have room for a resolution of the Israeli-Arab conflict.

That is the kind of Iraq that this is going to be. Now, I know that it's a deeply emotional time, David, in the Middle East, very emotional time and, of course, there are going to be demonstrations and there are going to be people who will say things with which we don't agree.

But we have to keep our eye on what kind of Middle East is going to prevent these spasms of violence, what kind of Middle East is going to create a circumstance in which Israel and Palestine can live side-by-side and a two-state solution that the president has proposed.

And it was never going to be that kind of Middle East with Saddam Hussein in power.

It has a very good chance of being that kind of Middle East in the future, with an Iraqi government that is committed to a unified and democratic Iraq.

GREGORY: You talk about being hopeful for the future of Iraq. But it's also clear, isn't it, that you don't really know how it's going to turn out?

RICE: Well, David, if you always knew how things were going to turn out, if you could be certain that things were going to turn out in a particular way, that would, of course, be better. But I think it actually goes without saying that one never knows precisely how things are going to turn out.

What we can do and what we are doing is to help the Iraqis create institutions that give them a very good chance of succeeding. I don't think anybody would have believed, by the way, 50 years ago, that France and Germany were never going to fight again either. They don't.

So things as seen impossible one day suddenly seem inevitable many days later. And so I would suggest that we not try and take a snapshot in what is the huge historical circumstance to assume that this has a bad outcome.

GREGORY: Is the news media misrepresenting the story there?

RICE: Well, I think the problem is that everybody takes a snapshot every day of how we're doing in what is a huge and historical transformation. It's natural that that is the case.

But I would be surprised, if you look back on the other big historical transformations that the world has been through, that people didn't do the same thing. I think they probably took snapshots that now, in retrospect, when you look back on them, look pretty shortsighted.

GREGORY: More with Secretary Condoleezza Rice, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, right after this break. A lot more ground to cover.

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