Interview on KARN with Dave Elswick

QUESTION: And we are very lucky today. We're going to have a special guest with us. The Secretary of State Dr. Condoleezza Rice is going to join us. I understand that she is on the line right now.

SECRETARY RICE: I am.

QUESTION: And, Dr. Rice, thanks so much for joining us here in Little Rock today.

SECRETARY RICE: It's a pleasure to be with you.

QUESTION: I told my listeners what the first question I was going to ask you, and it's one I really -- I want to hear the answer to because I was disheartened, I know, at the beginning of this week because you got General Petraeus coming to Congress to give them this report, this update on what's happening over in Iraq, and yet there's congressmen and senators that are pooh-poohing it and saying, ah, it's just a bunch of poppycock and he's a liar and, you know, and things of that nature. And I'm -- when is the last time you heard a -- you know, a soldier sitting in front of the people who put him over in charge of something saying you're full of it?

SECRETARY RICE: Well, I think General Petraeus and Ambassador Crocker were so good in front of the Congress and in front of the American people. They showed themselves to be men of integrity. These are great public servants. These are professionals. They have made their careers in the Armed Forces and in the Foreign Service.

General Petraeus is a leader, the leader of our men and women in Iraq under the most difficult circumstances. He is somebody who has gone out into the streets of Iraq to walk with the foot soldiers, both Iraqi and American. And I don't think that anybody -- I hope nobody takes seriously the notion that he would somehow say something that he thought to be untrue. He's just trying to serve the country and do the best that he can by our men and women in uniform.

QUESTION: Well, you know, it was saddening to me that in the second paragraph of his report he had to say, look, nobody wrote this for me, I wrote it for myself. He shouldn't even have to say such a thing.

SECRETARY RICE: No, he shouldn't. But he did, and it was indeed the case. And I thought that -- you know, that will all pass. What was really important was that he came to say that there is a way forward here that can be successful; that, yes, it's hard work, but that the efforts, the really brilliant efforts of our men and women in uniform have created a better security situation in Iraq -- not a perfect one, not a peaceful one, but a better situation. Ambassador Crocker was there to say that the Iraqis are making some political progress, not in ways that we anticipated and certainly not as rapidly as we had wanted, but they both came to say that the United States of America will be badly served by withdrawing forces prematurely, by setting artificial deadlines and by not finishing the job that we went there to do.

QUESTION: Does the Republican Party seem to still be firmly behind the President on Iraq?

SECRETARY RICE: Well, I would hope that this wouldn't be a partisan matter. I think this really is an American matter because we have sacrificed a lot in Iraq. And I just want to say to all of our people and to the families of those who are still in Iraq or who have served in Iraq or certainly who have lost loved ones, we have sacrificed a lot. But nothing of value is ever won without sacrifice. And what is being done there is historic and it's tough, but it will make us safer because when we have an Iraq that is stable and that is an ally in the war on terror in the middle of the Middle East, the United States is going to be safer.

QUESTION: Do you feel that, you know, President Maliki and his group are truly starting -- I mean, you're working the political side of this. You're working with those folks. Do they seem to slowly pulling this all together?

SECRETARY RICE: I think the Iraqis are trying to pull it together. Look, what they're doing is very hard. Saddam Hussein destroyed the fabric of that society. Someone asked me, "Why is there no Nelson Mandela that, you know, a general, a huge figure who's appeared to unify Iraq?" Well, the truth of the matter is that Saddam Hussein killed people, a lot of the leadership of Iraq. He killed them and their families and their friends. And these are Iraqi patriots who are trying to lead their country. What they're trying to do is difficult.

But I would focus not just on Prime Minister Maliki, who I do think is doing -- trying to do the right thing, but also a lot of local leaders who are emerging who are closer to their people and who are going to be more capable of delivering goods and services for their people. We saw this -- we had a chance to see this out in Anbar. You'll remember that Anbar was a name of a province that was synonymous with violence, with a violent Sunni insurgency, with al-Qaeda, with great violence against our soldiers.

This is now a largely peaceful province where the local leaders have made common cause with us to drive al-Qaeda out of their cities, out of their streets, and to begin to rebuild -- and by the way to begin go make sure that their local -- their central government pays attention to the needs of their people. That's a positive political story. And if you had told me even six or seven months ago that the real progress was going to come in Anbar, where this insurgency was raging, I might not have believed you.

QUESTION: Dr. Condoleezza Rice is our guest here on the Dave Elswick Show. Is it a true story that I've heard that al-Qaeda members are cutting the fingers off of people because they don't believe you should smoke cigarettes?

SECRETARY RICE: Oh, al-Qaeda has just proven to be very unwelcome guests in places like Anbar. Not only are they violent in the way that you're talking about and, you know, beheading people and marrying off people's daughters without permission and insisting on the most draconian laws in these places, but they're showing themselves to be nothing but terrorists, nothing but bloody murderers. And that's what the people of Anbar reacted to and that's why with our help -- and let me underscore, they could not have done this without the help of our military, which has been hunting down al-Qaeda and capturing and killing these murderers and giving, together with the local people, the people of Anbar a chance to take back their province.

QUESTION: Dr. Condoleezza Rice is our guest. A final question for you, Doctor and that's this; as I remember after 9/11, Congress stood on the steps up on the Hill and sang God Bless America. They were all united. Will we ever see that happen again?

SECRETARY RICE: Well, I sure hope so. The American people need to know that their leaders are working together for the good of the American people. I know the President wants to see that day. I know that the President is reaching out to Democrats and Republicans because this is not a partisan issue, this is an American issue.

But we also have to realize that what the American people want us to be working toward is success in Iraq, is a success based on the best evaluation, the best assessment, the best work, of people like General Petraeus and Ambassador Crocker. They've given us a way, they've given us their assessment and they've told us what they think it will take to cement some of the successes that we've had over the last month and to push that success forward. And I hope that the Congress is prepared to listen to them.

QUESTION: Well, Dr. Rice, here in Arkansas we're going to send our bravest and best over again, and we'll do everything we can to make this a success.

SECRETARY RICE: Well, thank you. And I want to thank the people of Arkansas that are sending their sons and daughters to defend this country. It's a long line of Americans who have defended freedom, and it's a grateful nation.

QUESTION: All right. Thank you very much. Dr. Condoleezza Rice here on the Dave Elswick Show. We appreciate your time today.

SECRETARY RICE: Thank you.

QUESTION: Bye-bye.

SECRETARY RICE: Bye-bye.

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