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Excerpts From Rice's Remarks to NABJ[MUST READ]
AP ^ | 8/8/03 | AP Staff

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.


TOPICS: Breaking News; Culture/Society; Front Page News; Government; News/Current Events
KEYWORDS: condi; condoleezzarice; drcondoleezzarice; iraq; nabj; rice; transcript; wmd
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To: section9; jamaksin
There is plenty of evidence that suggests that Washington knew the Japanese were going to attack Pearl Harbor. Have you read Stinnett's Day of Deceit and Wilford's Pearl Harbor Redefined?
41 posted on 08/08/2003 1:02:31 PM PDT by aristeides
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To: section9
The entire thesis of his book is that there was Saudi funding for Bin Laden's organization.

That is the thesis of the second half of the Brisard-Dasquié book. Have you read the first 80 pages?

42 posted on 08/08/2003 1:05:10 PM PDT by aristeides
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To: Betty Jo
Well if the Liberal highjacked Dems had their way our military would be obsolite. I saw it first hand during the Clinton (shiver) Years. Total neglect and dismantlement.
43 posted on 08/08/2003 2:18:35 PM PDT by AirborneMedic
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To: mhking
Will do!
44 posted on 08/08/2003 2:37:47 PM PDT by JustPiper (Can you say Governor "Terminator" Arnold?)
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To: Pro-Bush
Nobody was ever able to do anything about the North Korean nuclear threat.

I think she meant that no one wanted to solve the problem. Being able is a whole nother matter.

45 posted on 08/08/2003 2:39:45 PM PDT by breakem
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To: Betty Jo

My use of a cartoon graphic is irrelevant to the question at hand. You have called Bush, Rice and virtually everyone else in the Administration liars and traitors on no basis save your own emotional investment in that belief. Your citation of the recently published 9-11 Report doesn't help your case.

No one in any position of authority, save the clueless Robert Graham (D-Century Villiage) chose to accuse the President and his staff of treason. Graham, in fact, simply spoke of impeachment for "misleading" the country about the Iraq campaign and its attendant costs. When Graham went on Brit Hume to make the same accusation, he was beaten like a wet mule.

I'm not a conspiracy theorist. I actually proceed from historical example. Your statement about the 9-11 report, that's about 9-11, not Pearl Harbor , betrays an enormous ignorance of history and its application to this situation. The exact same things happened at Pearl Harbor that happened on 9-11 almost six decades later. Brisard's quotation could describe the attitude of the War and Navy Departments in November of 1941.

Yes, I do need to read the 9-11 report, although the press reports have told me very little of what I didn't already know. We were caught with our pants down. But unlike you, I wasn't surprised, I wasn't shocked, and I didn't scream "treason". Only fools lose their heads like that.

I will be trusting my life to people like Bush and Rice. They wish to protect the country. They wish to attack the enemy and destroy them. You merely wish to tear people down. People who are far more capable and have far more responsibility than you ever will. They are helping the country. You are not.

Period.

Be Seeing You,

Chris

46 posted on 08/08/2003 9:27:21 PM PDT by section9 (Major Kusanagi is back from vacation, ready to kick the liberal ass....)
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To: aristeides

I do apologize. My terms were too sweeping. Brisard's volume goes into other matters besides Saudi funding. I guess what I was trying to say that it should have been no surprise to anyone that officials of the Saudi regime had ties to Bin Laden. He was one of their boys back in the Eighties when we asked them to look around for anti-Soviet commanders.

My suspicion is that went Binnie decided to go terrorist, the Saudis started paying protection.

Most of our direct contact was with Ahmad Shah Massoud, who was a very good investment.

Be Seeing You,

Chris

47 posted on 08/08/2003 9:32:11 PM PDT by section9 (Major Kusanagi is back from vacation, ready to kick the liberal ass....)
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To: aristeides

No, but I shall pick them up. I've heard of Day of Deceit, of course. I fairly certain that Richard Sorge of the NKVD had picked up intel about the attack and had cabled Stalin in advance when he was stationed in Tokyo. I am also aware that monitoring stations on the West Coast picked up the First Mobile Fleet as it moved on its due south leg towards Oahu. I am disposed to put such things down to the f*%&er factor in history, but I shall pick up Stinnett's volume, just the same.

Have not heard of Wilford's book, however. Can you tell me his thesis, in brief?

Thanks for the reply. I appreciate your suggestion.

Be Seeing You,

Chris

48 posted on 08/08/2003 9:37:31 PM PDT by section9 (Major Kusanagi is back from vacation, ready to kick the liberal ass....)
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To: section9; aristeides
Stinnett's paperback edition is the text I would recommend to you. It has an Afterword Section which has a copy of a TESTM (viz., RDF - Radio Direction Finding) report from August 1941. Stinnett includes that to demonstrate the level of sophistication the US Navy RDF network had at the time.

Wilford's text (also a paperback) is from his award-winning MA thesis in History from the University of Ottawa. His thesis advisor was Professor Brian Loring Villa. They have jointly published an article in the Northern Mariner on the Striking Force's run up to Pearl Harbor. Wilford discusses the SS LURLINE and the report that Radiomen Grogan and Asplund generated, which was countersigned by the SS LURLINE's captain and delivered to the US Navy a week before the Pearl Harbor attack. That report should have caused CinCPAC to be informed and a search North of Hawaii to be initiated - Admiral Kimmel was not told of the SS LURLINE report. FYI - that original report is grown legs and is now missing.

I would also suggest Howeth's tome on US Navy communications and its history - especially RDF and intra-fleet, simulataneous reception/re-broadcast [on separate frequencies], and high-speed equipment.

And Farago's paperback edition of the The Broken Seal - in particular its Postscript. There you will find the method the Striking Force used for bi-directional communication to/from Japan. Nothing magical there - the navies of the world had long used the same techniques.

Also, SRH-406 has an appendix of some pre-Pearl Harbor messages, note in those the distinction made between long-wave and short-wave transmissions, and the important communication responsibility of the Hiei [high superstructure for antenna height] had - to/from Japan and within the Striking Force itself.

Then find Prados Combined Fleet Decoded and the story of the recovery from the CA Nachi of the Striking Force's Operational Order No. 1 (from November 17, 1941). A copy of this document is in the MacArthur Archive in Norfolk, VA. Section F of that report - Communications - confirms that the Striking Force sailed under orders that mandated radio transmissions to acknowledge receipt of orders. [Simple command and control even then.]

Of course, there is the famous AKAGI message " ... heard on tactical circuits ..." - See Layton on her "ham-fisted" radio operator - who would have been left in home water if radio deception was being attempted.

In the Hewitt Inquiry you will find that the so-called "bi-lateral" RDF problem (even recited by Gannon recently) did not exist; also Rochefort's comment on radio deception or lack thereof.

So, strict or absolute radio silence (i.e., all frequencies at all times) is a myth. The US Navy knew it then and knows it now. Of course, those RDF reports, circa Pearl Harbor remain classified - very interesting that.

But, then when FDR got those Japanese messages and says "This means war." - and does not send a FLASH IMMEDIATE message to all commands ... bespeaks volumes itself.

Stay curious.

49 posted on 08/09/2003 4:37:52 AM PDT by jamaksin
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