For Immediate Release
Office of the Press Secretary
November 8, 2001
National Security Advisor Briefs the Press
Press Briefing By National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice
The James S. Brady Press Briefing Room
11:35 A.M. EST
DR. RICE: Good morning, everyone. I would
like to talk to you about the President's schedule in New York and give
you a brief preview of his speech to the U.N., and then I will take you
through the President's schedule with President Putin next week, and
then I will be happy to take your questions.
On Saturday, the President will address the United Nations General
Assembly. He will take this opportunity to thank the United
Nations and its member states for the quick action and strong stand
against terrorism that was taken. He will reaffirm the U.S.
and Allied commitment to fighting terrorism and the regimes that harbor
it.
He will urge every U.N. member to live up to both the letter and
the spirit of U.N. resolutions against terror, and he will pledge U.S.
support for helping developing nations build capacity to fight terror
and address humanitarian cases. The President considers this
an opportunity to once again state the call to all civilized countries
to responsibly deal with terrorism within their own borders.
The President will also meet with the Secretary General on Saturday
and he will attend the Secretary General's lunch. On Sunday,
the President will attend an observance at the World Trade Center site,
with Secretary General Annan.
You probably already know that the President will meet with
President Musharraf of Pakistan and he will have a number of other
bilaterals with heads of state, and we can release a list of those
bilaterals to you a little bit later today.
The President will return to Washington on Sunday and, beginning on
Tuesday, he will host a series of meetings with Russian President Putin
in Washington and then, later on, in Crawford,
Texas. President and Mrs. Putin will arrive Monday
night. They are staying at Blair House.
President Bush will meet President Putin with members of their
national security teams on Tuesday morning. That will be
followed by a lunch with senior members of the President's
administration to discuss economic and business issues. The
Presidents will address the press at 1:45 p.m. in the East Room.
I understand that the afternoon is a program for President Putin,
in which he will make remarks to the congressional leadership and a
speech at the Russian embassy.
The next morning, Wednesday morning, President Putin will fly to
Houston, where he will meet with Mayor Brown of Houston and will be
greeted by former Secretary of State James Baker. And he is
going to deliver a speech at Rice University. He will have a
reception there with business leaders.
Then President and Mrs. Putin will fly to Waco, where they will be
welcomed. They will then go from Waco to
Crawford. President and Mrs. Putin will have Bush -- will
have dinner with the Bushes at the ranch. And on Thursday,
President and Mrs. Putin and President and Mrs. Bush will have
breakfast at the ranch; so they're going to have several meals,
clearly. (Laughter.) And later that day, the Putins will
fly to New York, where they will meet with Governor Pataki, Mayor
Giuliani, and visit Ground Zero in New York.
Now, I'm happy to take your questions.
Q Dr. Rice, what does President Bush hope to
get out of his meetings with President Putin, both on terrorism and
ABM? And since the President has decided on a nuclear
stockpile number, what is the expectation that Putin will accept it?
DR. RICE: First, to the second question, Ron, it's not a
question of an acceptable number on offensive forces to the
Russians. We've said several times, and the President said
all the way back in the campaign, that his desire to cut offensive
nuclear forces comes from his belief, which has now been confirmed by a
study by the Joint Chiefs of Staff, a nuclear strategy review, under
Secretary Rumsfeld's leadership, that the number of nuclear weapons in
the U.S. arsenal exceeds the number of nuclear weapons needed for
America's deterrent needs in this particular time. So that's
the -- Ron, I'm not going there -- (laughter) -- but that is the
President's belief, that this is something that the United States
should do in accordance with its own security concerns.
As to the relationship between the two Presidents, this, of course,
is the fourth in a series of meetings between the
Presidents. The relationship is building
steadily. I think everyone can see that the relationship has
gotten better and better. September 11th gave a kind of new
impetus to the relationship.
But it is a relationship that is very, very good, and also normal,
in that not every meeting has to be accompanied, like the old summits
were with the Soviet Union, by arms control agreements and by a series
of agreements, because this is now a normal relationship that's moving
forward progressively.
The two Presidents will have, I'm sure, an extensive discussion of
counterterrorism. They have continued to discuss this since
September 11th in several conversations, as have their defense
ministers and their foreign ministers. They will, of course,
continue to discuss issues about the new strategic framework and how to
move to a relationship that is more in accordance with their new
relationship, not something based on the 1972 ABM Treaty, but these are
discussions that are progressive.
I wouldn't expect any particular arrangements to come out of any
particular meeting.
Q Dr. Rice, the information coming from the
two Iraqi defectors who have been talking recently about a terrorist
training camp inside Iraq that was training Islamic fundamentalists, is
this giving the administration cause to change its thinking toward
Iraq, and go after Saddam and perhaps do it sooner than later?
DR. RICE: John, I can't comment on any specific
information here. Let me just say, the President's made very clear
that Iraq remains a threat to American interests, to interests in the
region and to Iraq's neighbors and its own people. That was
true before September 11th, that's true now.
The Iraqis have been trying to acquire weapons of mass
destruction. That's the only explanation for why Saddam Hussein does
not want inspectors in from the U.N. Iraq continues to be
unable to say that its neighbors have a right to exist, like
Kuwait. So there is plenty of reason to watch Iraq, there is
plenty of reason to make very clear to the Iraqis that the United
States does not intend to let the Iraqis threaten their own people,
threaten their neighbors, or threaten our interests by acquiring
weapons of mass destruction. So this is something that is
ongoing in the policy with Iraq.
Q So the disclosure of these terrorist
training camps just adds another piece to that?
DR. RICE: I think it surprises no one that Saddam
Hussein is engaged in all kinds of activities that are destabilizing.
Q Dr. Rice, in -- today, President Musharraf
is strongly urging the United States to halt its bombing of Afghanistan
during Ramadan. Since he has been such a valuable ally in
this campaign, is it possible to just ignore his wishes at this point?
DR. RICE: The important thing here is to complete the
mission, and to complete it in as timely a fashion as
possible. Let me just remind everybody that the United
States was attacked on September 11th. What we are engaged
in now is an act of self-defense to try to root out al Qaeda, to try to
deny them safe harbor. We are working with many, many
governments in the world to try to root out cells that are still
sitting out there planning attacks.
I think it's understandable that the pace of those operations has
to be dictated by getting to the end of the mission as quickly as
possible, having completed the mission. And it's the
completion of the mission that is at stake here.
Q Are you ruling it in or out?
DR. RICE: The President has made very clear, we've all
made very clear, that this mission is going to be completed, and that
the logic of the mission and the logic of military action is what will
dictate what we do over the next several weeks.
Q Does next week's visit essentially amount
to Russia's last chance to move beyond the ABM Treaty before we are
forced to essentially give the six-month notice that we've got to
withdraw?
DR. RICE: The President and President Putin are
continuing to look cooperatively for ways to move their relationship
forward. And I just want to emphasize, there is a lot of
talk about what we will or will not do on the security
front. But the President has been saying since he first
started that this is larger than the security
relationship. And so economic relations are important,
political relations are important. Common security threats like
counterterrorism are important.
The President has also made clear that he believes that the
acquisition of an effective missile defense system for the United
States and its allies is one of his highest priorities, that he
believes the only way to get there is a robust testing and evaluation
system, and that he is not prepared to permit the treaty to get in the
way of doing that robust testing.
So we will see about the timing here. I just want to
repeat what we've said several times: The President is
committed to a robust testing and evaluation program and eventually
deployment.
Q On that point, since we are now bumping up
against that, because of the constraints of the ABM Treaty, I am just
wondering if, indeed, again, this is sort of their last chance to get
on board with us before we have to pull out and say, look, six months
from now we are going to unilaterally withdraw?
DR. RICE: We are going to be talking with the Russians
through -- the two Presidents are speaking here at this
meeting. There will continue to be contacts with the
Russians. We are going to continue to work on the new
strategic framework. We will look at the timing of what we
need to do when, yes.
Q Dr. Rice, what is your current assessment
of the attitudes of the Afghani people themselves to the American
bombing and to the Taliban regime? There are some
indications that the bombing has been counter-productive in rallying
the Afghan people to liberate themselves. What is your assessment?
DR. RICE: Well, I don't know how to assess some of the
reports that we have seen. But I will say
this. The Taliban regime has been perhaps the most brutal in
the world and the most brutal against its own people. It's very hard
to imagine that the people of Afghanistan have forgotten that
suddenly. This is a regime that brutalizes its population,
that brutalizes women in particular, that executes its citizens
summarily in a stadium that was given to it by the United Nations for
sports games. This is a regime that was starving its own
people.
Let's remember that the humanitarian crisis in Afghanistan started
well before September 11th, with the systematic starvation of parts of
the country because the Taliban was unwilling to let U.N. workers work
there in a way that they could get humanitarian relief. So
it's very hard for me to believe that the Afghan people have forgotten
what this regime has been doing to them since its inception.
Q Can I just follow on that and ask one
other unrelated question? Do you feel though, following Terry's
question, that you are having difficulty getting that message out, that
in some way, the U.S. might be losing the information war with the
Taliban?
DR. RICE: We don't believe that we are "losing the
information war." We do believe that it is important to get the message
out, and we have been more aggressive certainly in recent weeks in
trying to make sure that message gets out.
There is no doubt that the United States has a very good story to
tell, that the coalition has a very good story to tell. On
humanitarian efforts, the United States was the largest donor to
Afghanistan before September 11th, $170 million in humanitarian
assistance. That amount now is over $300
million. That doesn't even count all that the rest of the
world is trying to do for the starving people of Afghanistan, or those
who need food.
The problem in getting food to the people of Afghanistan is the
Taliban tries to tax it, they threaten and harass and take away the
equipment of U.N. workers. They are a dangerous group when
it comes to humanitarian assistance.
So we do have a very good story to tell, and I think we have a good
story to tell about the potential future for Afghanistan and along --
through the United Nations and Mr. Brahimi who has the lead on this, I
think it is important to sketch out for the Afghan people that there is
a better future, they deserve a better future than this horrendous
regime under which they have lived for the last several years.
Q Dr. Rice, what is the thought of the
administration that last week President Bush said he wanted to speak to
the nation, he wanted to speak to America in reference to some of the
critics of homeland security and Tom Ridge, and tonight he is going to
do that, but many of the networks will not carry him. The
American public will not get a chance -- the full American public will
not get a chance to fully hear his hope for domestic security and his
confidence in Tom Ridge. What are your thoughts about that?
DR. RICE: Oh, there are outlets where he will be heard;
I'll leave it at that. (Laughter.) And so, the
President will, I think, talk to the American people about how life
both changes and goes on since September 11th, about the spirit of the
country, about some of the things that the government has been doing on
behalf of the American people to make us all safer.
He will make a very clear case that the government is on the case
in doing everything that it possibly can; but the American people need
to continue to be vigilant. And this is an important
progress report, and I certainly hope that the American people will use
those outlets that they have to see it. (Laughter.)
Q I want to ask you, I understand President
Bush is having at least two meetings with Latin American leaders,
President of Colombia Pastrana and President de la Rua from
Argentina. Are there more meetings with Latin American
leaders? And I want to ask you about
Argentina. The situation, their economic situation is really
very, very dire. Is the United States contemplating, will
President Bush have a message for President de la Rua on the economic
situation of Argentina?
DR. RICE: Well, the President just met with President
Cardoso of Brazil as well. So he has seen and is seeing a
couple of Latin American leaders.
The position on Argentina is, and remains, that we want to be
supportive of measures that Argentina can take internally to create a
more sustainable situation. Argentina has a zero deficit
plan that it really must carry out in order to make its situation
sustainable. Argentina is talking about some measures in
terms of restructuring of debt to try and make this situation
sustainable.
We are encouraging Argentina to work closely with the IMF, to
determine the best course towards sustainability. The
President will carry that message to President de la Rua, asking him
and continuing to talk to him about the importance of leadership in
doing the things internally that Argentina has to do to sustain
itself.
Q Any more meetings besides de La Rua and
Pastrana with Latin America leaders?
DR. RICE: We'll give you a full list. It's a
fairly lengthy list, and I didn't want to take up the time here.
Q On Russia, will there be any working
meetings in Crawford? And to put a finer point on the ABM
question that we all have, do you expect, out of these meetings, there
to be any kind of breakthrough agreement on missile tests -- missile
defense?
DR. RICE: As we've said, this has been a series of
meetings, I think, all the way back at Ljubljana, we said don't expect
any breakthrough at any particular meeting. This is a
process that we're involved in, not a single point in
time. And so, we will continue to discuss with the Russians
how to move forward on a new strategic framework, we will assess what
pieces of it are in place and what pieces of it still need to be
developed, and we'll see what comes out of the meetings.
Now, as to Crawford, I believe that the two Presidents intend to
have principally private time to get to know each other. I'm
sure the President is going to want to take President Putin on a tour
of his ranch and to get to know the ranch a little bit.
But, of course, they're going to continue to talk about building
U.S.-Russian relations and building the nature of the
relationship. But this is a different relationship than the
one that Leonid Brezhnev and Richard Nixon had, or even that George
Herbert Walker Bush and Gorbachev had. And those meetings,
the key moment was when the two sides signed an agreement that said we
don't want to destroy each other. And the whole world
breathed a sigh of relief, and they turned the atomic clock back from
midnight, because the only thing that we really had in common was our
desire not to annihilate one another.
This is a very different relationship now. It is a
relationship in which economic ties are growing. It is a
relationship in which I believe you will start to see the United States
and NATO talk to Russia about how NATO and Russia can better relate.
It is a relationship that got new impetus to shared cooperative
security issues concerning September 11th and
counterterrorism. There is a proliferation agenda that needs
to be discussed. So this is a broad agenda, and I think what
one should not expect is that one defining moment that you always
looked for on the steps of the Kremlin, it's not the way this is done.
Q On Russia again, what is wrong with an
agreement? Especially if your newly-found Russian friends
want it? (Laughter.) What is wrong with codifying
this relationship? Whatever you reach, whatever
understanding you reach on strategic weapons, or defensive
weapons? What's wrong with signing a formal agreement?
DR. RICE: We've said -- we have said that we are open as
to the form that a new strategic framework might take. But
we're going to be working on a new strategic framework for a number of
years, going forward, because it has many different elements that have
nothing to do with nuclear security.
I think we all have to try and get out of a particular frame of
mind about U.S.-Russian relations that just turns it into a newer
version of U.S.-Soviet relations; that's what we're
saying. And so when it comes to something like nuclear
offensive forces, we have no reason to need to match warhead for
warhead in the way that we did in old Soviet times.
Q Dr. Rice, what is -- on the U.N. meetings,
what does the President hope to accomplish beyond shoring up support
for the terrorism campaign?
DR. RICE: Well, the President will go there to continue
to rally the coalition. We think that the coalition is as
strong as it was the day that it started to come into
being. I think you heard Prime Minister Blair last night
talk about his meeting with European leaders. And out of
this discussion with European leaders, of course, and the work that
they have been doing with Central Command, you're starting to get more
and more offers of even military support from our European allies.
But this is a broad coalition in which people are contributing on
very different and very many fronts. The key to the broad
coalition is to remember that while everybody, understandably, wants to
focus on military contributions, this is not the Gulf
War. An equally important part of this war on terrorism is a
disruption of these terrorist cells abroad.
If you imagine that there are cells sitting out there in 60-plus
countries that could be continuing to plot, continuing to look for ways
to wreak havoc, the intelligence and law enforcement efforts that have
resulted in over 300 arrests of known and suspected al Qaeda
operatives, is as important to this war on terrorism and to trying to
avoid another attack, either on ourselves or on others, as is the war
in Afghanistan.
And so I think that's what the President will say to this
coalition: It's financial assets, it's intelligence and
information-sharing. That's the important point that he will
make.
Q President Putin believes that it's
possible to interpret the ABM Treaty to allow for U.S. missile defense
research. Is that a basis for proceeding with this strategic
framework? And, secondly, if you're not matching warhead for
warhead, are you still looking for Russia to announce some reductions
in its stockpile?
DR. RICE: What the President intends to do is to share
with President Putin the results of the nuclear review that he
initiated, and he has been promising to do that for some time and he
will do it. I would hope that President Putin will also
share with President Bush what they are thinking about in terms of
their offensive forces, and so I expect that they will have that
conversation.
In terms of the ABM Treaty, the President has made clear that there
are a couple of problems with the ABM Treaty. One is that it
limits our ability to explore fully the technologies that we
need. And, secondly, that we need to move beyond it because
it is not representative of the kind of relationship that we now have
with Russia; it comes from another era.
They are continuing the discussion of what the new strategic
framework might look like. There are clearly some elements
that are even more obvious today than they were the last time they
met. I would suspect that any strategic -- new strategic
framework would have a significant counter-terrorism
element. I would expect that it would have a significant
proliferation element. So the pieces of it are coming into
relief; but, again, I wouldn't expect any particular moment in which
you tie it all up with a red ribbon.
Q You would still like to see the ABM
scrapped, then?
DR. RICE: The ABM Treaty is a treaty that belongs to
another era, and I think that has not changed from the day that we have
been here.
Q Dr. Rice, is Yasser Arafat a terrorist
and, if so, is he in the cross hairs of this anti-terror
campaign? Or is he a statesman and a partner for
peace? And, if so, will the President be meeting with him at
the U.N. this weekend?
DR. RICE: The President has made very clear that
Chairman Arafat, who, in the peace process that is under way with
Israel or has been under way with Israel, is the representative of the
Palestinian people. We accept that. But there are
responsibilities that come with being the representative of the
Palestinian people.
And that means to make certain that you do everything that you can
to lower the level of violence, everything that you can to root out
terrorists, to arrest them, to make sure that the security situation in
the Palestinian Territories -- Area A, for instance -- is one from
which terror cannot spring. These are responsibilities that
we have asked Chairman Arafat to take, and to take
seriously. We still don't think that there has been enough
in this regard.
But just like with any leadership, it is extremely important to
separate yourself from international terrorists. You cannot
help us with al Qaeda and hug Hezbollah -- that's not acceptable -- or
Hamas. And so the President continues to make that clear to
Mr. Arafat, and there are no plans to meet with Mr. Arafat in New
York.
Q On information, you talk about getting the
message out. And I'm wondering why you think it is that it's
hard for so many in the Arab world, on the Arab street, why they don't
understand that the United States has gone to war to protect Muslims in
the past, and why that information doesn't reach the
people? And do you even blame friendly governments of the
United States for somehow being part of the problem and not part of the
solution?
DR. RICE: Well, I think everybody has to take a look
anew at what we do to get the message out to Arab populations around
the world.
Now, I want to caution: this notion that all the people
of every country in the Middle East is anti-American simply doesn't
prove out. Just look at the number of Muslims in the United
States who have relatives still in the Middle East. Look at
the number of students studying in American universities and still
wanting to come to study in American universities. Look at the number
of immigrants, still, from those countries that come to the United
States seeking what the United States can provide. So I
think sometimes we overstate the degree to which the Arab populations
are anti-American.
That said, we do believe that in some quarters there is a tendency
to allow the spewing of propaganda that most -- propaganda and
conspiracy theories -- that are not helpful and not
true. And everybody -- and that includes all of us in this
room -- have an obligation to make sure that when propaganda is out
there from, let's say, for instance, the Taliban, which has never been
known to be a regime that cared much about telling the truth, that it's
clear that the Taliban is a regime that's known not to tell the truth.
It's very well hidden from the international community for its
entire rule, the things that it's been doing to its population, it's
only been leaking out. So the Taliban is not a very good
source.
I think it was Chairman Arafat, himself, who said that Osama bin
Laden was essentially trying to hijack the Palestinian cause, where has
he been for 30 years. That's something that President
Mubarak of Egypt has also said about Osama bin Laden.
So it's not clear to me that this "hatred of the United States" is
as widespread. I think we do have to do a better job of
getting the message out, and everybody has to tell the truth about the
source of these conspiracies and lies.
Q When you said -- you said all the things
Arafat hadn't done. You said the President wrote him a
letter asking him to do those things about two-and-a-half weeks
ago. Last time I checked, there was no answer. I
wonder what you think of that and I wonder if what you want him to do
are the conditions for a meeting with the President?
By the way, his -- Nabil Shaath is saying he is not even sure
Arafat is coming to New York, he is not sure he's going to see
Powell. Would it help to see Secretary Powell, at least?
DR. RICE: Look, it's not up to me to try and determine
Chairman Arafat's travel schedule. All I can say is that the
United States has been tireless in its efforts to make clear to the
Palestinians, Chairman Arafat, what he needs to do. Also to
make clear to our Israeli friends that we support Israel, Israel is our
friend, we share values. There are things that Israel can do
to make the situation better. We've talked about the problem
of closures, for instance.
Now, the process that is out there in the future, if we can get
both sides to get through a period of time where the violence is down,
is one to which both sides are agreed, the Mitchell
process. And that gives us a roadmap that we can walk down.
So what our goal has been, and we've been absolutely tireless in
it, is to work with both sides to see if we can get on the road to
Mitchell.
Q On Afghanistan, can you tell us if you
think it would help or hurt at this moment to have a government in
exile basically formed and ready to move in? And on Russia,
can you say whether or not you have or are prepared to offer WTO
endorsement or entry into the WTO when President Putin comes?
DR. RICE: On the question of the Russians and WTO, we've
said that we think it would be a good thing if Russia is able to become
a member of the World Trade Organization. It would have good
effects in terms of Russian domestic reform, and Russia will hopefully
one day be a big economy and ought to be involved in the World Trade
Organization.
Obviously, there are steps that anyone applying for membership to
the WTO has to go through. The harmonization of domestic
laws is an important part of that. We have tried to help in
talking to the Russians about how some of that might get done.
But this is a process, and it's a process that has pretty clear
markers that have less to do with whether we want Russia to be in the
WTO -- which, of course, we do -- and more to do with getting Russian
domestic reforms and laws in line with WTO standards.
As to your first question about a future Afghan government, I
think, David, we are trying very hard to send the message this can't be
a made-in-America solution. This is something that the
Afghans themselves are going to have to take on. And I think
we are agnostic as to the form that takes.
But we are -- we do believe that it has to be a broad-based
government that is representative of the many ethnic groups that are
represented in Afghanistan, that it has to take those interests into
account, and when and how those get formulated, I think we will leave
at this point to the U.N. and to the members of the Afghan community
who are trying to get it done.
Thank you very much.
END 12:05 P.M. EST
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