Posted on 08/07/2003 9:54:39 PM PDT by Pro-Bush
Excerpts From Rice's Remarks to NABJ
Excerpts from remarks Thursday by Condoleezza Rice, the national security adviser, before the National Association of Black Journalists in Dallas:
- IRAQ:
Confronting Saddam Hussein's Iraq was also essential. Let me be very clear about why we went to war against Saddam Hussein. Saddam Hussein's regime posed a threat to the security of the United States and the world. This was a regime that had pursued, had used and possessed weapons of mass destruction. The regime had links to terror, had twice invaded other nations, defied the international community and 17 United Nations resolutions for 12 years, and gave every indication that it would never disarm and never comply with the just demands of the world. That threat could not be allowed to remain.
Now that that regime is gone, the people of Iraq are more free, and people everywhere need no longer fear his weapons, his aggression and his cruelty. The war on terror will be greatly served by the removal of a source of instability in the world's most volatile region. And, ironically, Saddam Hussein's removal will provide new opportunities for a better Middle East.
But if that different future for the Middle East is to be realized, the United States and its longtime allies must make a generational commitment to helping the people of the Middle East transform their region. This has been the president's clear and consistent message.
- RACE, AMERICA AND IRAQ:
But knowing what we know about the difficulties of our own history, knowing what we know about how hard it is to build democracy, we need to be humble in singing freedom's praises.
But we should not let our voice waver in speaking out on the side of people who are seeking freedom. And we must never, ever indulge in the condescending voices who allege that some people in Africa or in the Middle East are just not interested in freedom, they're culturally just not ready for freedom or they just aren't ready for freedom's responsibilities.
We've heard that argument before, and we, more than any, as a people, should be ready to reject it. The view was wrong in 1963 in Birmingham, and it is wrong in 2003 in Baghdad and in the rest of the Middle East.
- NORTH KOREA:
What North Korea really exemplifies is what happens when you let a threat go too long. The North Koreans have been trying to get a nuclear weapon well back into the beginning of the 1970s, and possibly even the end of the 1960s. Nobody was ever able to do anything about the North Korean nuclear threat. And it has multiplied and gotten worse over a long period of time, till the point that we are now, where it is indeed a threat, but where fortunately we have the regional powers arrayed in a way that they're prepared to take on that threat together.
What North Korea says about Iraq is, ``Don't let it get to that point.'' And what the president was saying about Iraq is that we knew that we had a threat; it was time to deal with it before it became a threat in which you had very few options.
On North Korea we are making progress. The Chinese, who probably have more influence than anybody else on this issue, are very deeply engaged. We're about to have six-party talks. The only way to convince the North Koreans that they're going to have to give up their ambitions, as well as their weapons programs, is to have all of the regional powers prepare to tell them that.
- A SECOND TERM:
I, like Colin Powell, serve at the pleasure of the president, and we serve each day at the pleasure of the president. I don't think any of us are thinking beyond the tremendous challenges that we have right now, every day, of trying to deal with the war on terror, of trying to be involved in the Middle Eastern issues that I've been talking about and Africa. We have our plates full. And none of us are spending any time thinking about what the next step is going to be.
- POLITICAL AMBITIONS:
I don't think I'm of the particular breed, that - those people are a kind of special breed, I think, who run for office. We put them through an awful lot. And it's a little difficult for me to imagine doing it.
I'm not a very good long-term planner. I really don't say never to anything. But it is not on my radar screen to run for elective office.
Mono a mono! (Or however you spell it! ;-)
BRING IT ON, DEMS!
We've heard that argument before, and we, more than any, as a people, should be ready to reject it. The view was wrong in 1963 in Birmingham, and it is wrong in 2003 in Baghdad and in the rest of the Middle East.
Think they'll "hear" her? Or will they close their ears, and follow their Democrat masters who've kept them imprisoned in housing complexes for the last 40 years?
Awesome!
| irony |
When Condi is speaking to some heavy left association, or any such, she is slopping hogs with caviar. Mark my words, they [the heavy left vermin] are beyond persuasion. Condi and her boss, Dubya, truly believe in the power of freedom and as long as their focus is on people rather than the quisling media they will prevail, Praise the Lord. Maybe someday before the Lord calls me home I will get to hear Condi do the Grieg concerto - would not that be something - Condi, are you listening to this old Marine?
These democrats are basing every claim against this Administration on a pack of lies. To listen to Al Gore today was an eye opening experience. here we have a man who claims he is not interested in running for the Presidency and yet he still bases his whole speech on several bald face lies.
He claimed that President Bush denied us the opportunity to have a healthy debate before going to war...That is so completely false that it makes me wonder if Al Gore hasn't been in some kind of Coma since 9/11. Shortly after 9/11 President Bush told the world that if you support a terrorist, you're at terrorist. If you harbour a terrorist you're a terrorist. What part of Saddam Hussein sending $25,000.00 checks to the families of suicide bombers exempts him from the "Must be Removed From Power" list ?
The notion that Saddam was a peaceful man who had nothing to hide since 1998 is beyond laughable. Just like we should believe Kim jong Ill gave up his quest for Nuclear weapons, because WJC and Jimma Kotta struck a deal with N. Korea in 1994 that cost us billions while Kim Jong Ill never intended to live up to his end of the bargain.
These kind of mistakes will never happen while Condi Rice can help it. IMHO she is terrific.
Al Gore claimed GWB said Iraq was an immenent threat, That's a lie as well, GWB said from day one that this would be a long war, and he said that Iraq would require a long tern committment in order to democracy to Iraq. The lies these people are telling will come back to huant them BIG TIME
Remember who he was speaking to .. Moveon.org and you funds them.
The Dems are losing a lot of money because folks associated with moveon.org are sending their checks to Dean
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