Rice Offers Preview Of U.N. Talks
CBS News reporter Charles Wolfson is a former Tel Aviv bureau chief for CBS News, who now covers the State Department.
When Condoleezza Rice met with reporters, producers and executives of CBS News she was asked about some of the topics that will come up repeatedly during the next week — Iraq, Syria, North Korea — as she meets with presidents, prime ministers, foreign ministers and other diplomats in New York for the start of the United Nations General Assembly's annual session.
Most of Secretary Rice's meetings are in the normal course of diplomatic business but Rice is also making time for several editorial board meetings such as the one she had at CBS today.
Asked about the ongoing political process in Iraq, Rice said "politics had broken out in a really major way" and "that Iraqis seem to be enjoy it," although they do not always meet deadlines the Bush administration would like. As for the persistence of the insurgency, Rice admitted the insurgents can continue to cause havoc but she said the real question is "can they gain a political foothold that (poses) a political challenge." Rice added that "so far, the answer is no, they cannot."
Concluding her optimistic appraisal, Rice said, "I'm actually quite amazed at how they've stayed on political course." Rice left no question as to what is at stake in Iraq: "How Iraq turns out is the key to what kind of Middle East emerges."
One question that will come up again and again this week is how far the international community should push Iran, which the Bush administration accuses of not living up to an agreement it made with European negotiators over its nuclear programs. "They broke that. That's not OK," Rice told CBS News.
Rice sees Iran as a state "completely out of step with the Middle East." Iran's trends are going the wrong way, she said. "Whether it's nuclear, terrorism or human rights, Iran is a problem for the Middle East." Whether Rice and President Bush can convince Russia, China and India to pressure Iran with Security Council sanctions is still very much in doubt.
As for another troubling problem in the same region, Rice said Syria needs to cooperate with a U.N. investigation into the murder of former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri. "The Syrians need to account for how it is that high ranking Lebanese security officials with well known ties to Syrian security got entangled in the murder of Prime Minster Hariri." The Bush administration may push for Security Council sanctions against Syria if it fails to cooperate with the ongoing investigation.
As for Syria's lack of cooperation in dealing with foreign terrorists moving into Iraq from Syria, Rice was quite specific: "They come through Damascus airport," Rice said, before they slip across the border into Iraq.
With so-called six party talks about the future of North Korea's nuclear program scheduled to resume this week in Beijing, Rice said, "the question is how the North Koreans used the last month and we'll know that soon."
During the on again, off again talks, Rice said, there has been "a tendency for the goal posts to move."
From her meeting with CBS, Rice moved on to another editorial board session. Later today, she meets with Tanzania's foreign minister, then a group of ministers from Southeast Asian countries and a roundtable on women's empowerment. Rice speaks to the General Assembly on Saturday.
For the official State Department transcript of Dr. Rice's remarks, Click Here.
By Charles Wolfson