U.S. DEPARTMENT OF STATE

For Immediate Release                                                                                    November 10, 2007

2007/990

 

Interview

 

Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice

With the Dallas Morning News Editorial Board

 

November 9, 2005

Dallas, Texas

 

 

MODERATOR:  You are meeting with the Editorial Board of the Dallas Morning News.  Around the table (inaudible).  We are pleased to have you here and very interested in your thoughts on developments around the world, both in the short term and in the long term.  I think we would probably be remiss -- oh, and I should also point out we have our international editor as well from the newsroom here.

 

QUESTION:  Hello.

 

MODERATOR:  I think we would be remiss if we didn't start out by perhaps asking you about Pakistan and the most recent developments there.  Certainly, General Musharraf has now set a date for the elections but violence continues, or the potential.  So what is your read of that situation at this point and what is the U.S. doing to (inaudible)?

 

SECRETARY RICE:  Yes.  Well, first, I thank you very much for having me here.  It's great to be in Dallas.  And I'm on my way to Crawford for the meeting with Angela Merkel.

 

But turning to Pakistan, it is -- obviously, the situation is very strained and I think we are concerned that everyone will act in a way that doesn't lead to greater violence or to more widespread activities under the state of emergency.  We've been focused on several things.  The first is that we really would like to see Pakistan end the state of emergency as quickly as possible, because that's going to give confidence that they can get back on a democratic path, a constitutional path.

 

Secondly, the announcement about holding elections no later than the 15th of February was a good announcement.  It needs to be accompanied by a clear indication from President Musharraf that he will take off his uniform, and when.

 

And third, they need to make very clear that opposition is obviously going to be permitted to have a voice, which to my mind means that the media restraints need to come off, they need to release people who have been arrested for political activity and so forth. 

 

So there's still some considerable steps ahead.  In terms of what we've been doing, we've been with our international partners, I think sending exactly the same, very strong message.  The Union and others have sent the same message.  Obviously, our Ambassador is in touch with Pakistani officials daily, hourly, and the President's phone call to President Musharraf underscored the points that I've just made.

 

And so this is a difficult time for Pakistan.  When you see a country that really had moved quite far along the path toward more democratic developments, civilian rule, veer off that path, the real key is to get it back on that path as quickly as possible. 

 

But we want to remain engaged with Pakistan.  We made the mistake a number of years ago after the Afghan war, after the Soviets had left Afghanistan, of disengaging from both Pakistan and Afghanistan.  And I think we paid with a failed state in Afghanistan and with a greater extremist presence in Pakistan.  And so we don't want to make that mistake again because this is not about President Musharraf or the Pakistani Government, even, it’s engagement with the Pakistani people so that, for instance, we have significant assistance programs to try and help them reform their educational system, get out of the business of madrasas that are essentially teaching hate.  We have programs in the Federally Administered Tribal Areas, which have never been governed frankly, to try to bring economic assistance, economic development, there.  We are pursuing what we call opportunity zones on that border between Pakistan and Afghanistan to try to use trade promotion to bring about a better atmosphere in which people can prosper and terrorism won't flourish. 

 

So the program of engagement, not to mention our counterterrorism engagement with Pakistan, needs to remain.  But obviously, this is a time when the Pakistani Government needs to react with restraint and it needs to quickly get back on the path of democratic development.

 

QUESTION:  And what odds do you give that of happening (inaudible)?

 

SECRETARY RICE:  Well, I thought that the decision to come out and talk about a date for elections was a very good one.  The Pakistanis claim that they never intended to delay elections, that this was a statement about what could be done under a state of emergency.  But be that as it may, it's good that they've now decided to come out and give a date for the elections.  

 

And we'll see.  I think the -- it's not really even Pakistan's Government reacting to us.  It's Pakistan's Government reacting to circumstances in Pakistan, because if they're going to return to a legitimate path and actually be able to govern the country, they're going to have to respond to these legitimate concerns of the opposition. 

 

QUESTION:  And are you persuaded that there is enough of a moderate majority on the other side of Mr. Musharraf that could step forward and govern if he is no longer a leader?

 

SECRETARY RICE:  Well, I don't want to speculate on what happens if there are changes there.  I do think that we've continued to encourage a moderate center, which is people like Mrs. Bhutto, former Prime Minister Bhutto, and the Pakistani leadership, and some -- also some elements in other parts outside of Islamabad -- to encourage them because they do need to unify their position and their message because there is a strong extremist element in Pakistan, organized and embedded.  And it's extremely important that that moderate center hold.

 

QUESTION:  Madame Secretary, we've given about $10 billion to General Musharraf.  Do you believe that the Administration has been taken advantage of by General Musharraf and do you think the Administration ought to have placed less emphasis on the person of the general and reached out more to other figures in the Pakistani military and political establishment?

 

SECRETARY RICE:  Well, in fact, most of that money has not gone to Musharraf.  I mean, it's gone to counterterrorism to help the Pakistanis fight the fight in counterterrorism; army training, equipment; trying to help them build forces that can actually take on the terrorist threat.  I don't consider that being to Musharraf.  I consider that --

 

QUESTION:  But he's been our guy.

 

SECRETARY RICE:  No, well, just a second.  I consider that having been to build a Pakistani military.  By the way, yes, we have very good relations throughout the Pakistani military.  Our military does.  Our civilians do.  And so the key here has been -- he's the head of the country, but the key is to help them build institutions that are going to work.  And so military institutions and intelligence organizations that can deal with the very real extremist threat, whether it's in the tribal areas or in and around the country, it seems to me a good expenditure of funding.

 

I mentioned the programs that we've had in terms of support for economic reform in Pakistan.  One of the unfortunate bi-products of what has happened is that I think less confidence in a Pakistani economy that, frankly, was making a lot of progress in terms of economic reform.  That's not to President Musharraf.  That's to the Pakistani people for (inaudible) in their lives.

 

I mentioned the education program.  I've met with several Pakistanis as they've come into office -- ministers of education -- and where the real key is to try to break up the monopoly on education, particularly for young boys in these madrasas, and reform of the educational system.  And as I said, trying to build trade ties.  We -- one of the most effective things we probably did in Pakistan was as a result of the earthquake -- the humanitarian assistance, which really I think had a very big impact on people who lived in these remote, very ultra-conservative regions of the country that have tended to have either support for or a wink and a nod at extremists among them.

 

So it's been a program of trying to move Pakistani society, political institutions, military institutions, to modernity.  That's what we've been focusing on.  And President Musharraf, that was his program as well.  This is -- this veers off of that course.

 

QUESTION:  Do you get any indication from him that he's willing to take off the uniform and run as a civilian?  And also, are you are -- do you remain concerned about the possibility of the state of emergency remaining in effect at the same time that this election campaign is going on?  What will be the effect of that?

 

SECRETARY RICE:  It's very hard to see how you could have free and fair elections with a state of emergency in place.  Now, I suppose theoretically, if you had media freedom and the right to assembly and all of the things that you're going to need for free elections under a state of emergency, maybe it works.  But it's hard to see how that works.  And it's one reason that we've been emphasizing not just the holding of free and fair elections, but the lifting of the state of emergency as well.

 

The -- I don't doubt that there is a problem with violence from terrorists.  I mean, we saw it in the Red Mosque.  We saw it in the bombings even outside of Musharraf's home.  Al-Qaida has tried to kill him twice, at least.  We saw it when Benazir Bhutto came back to Pakistan.  So there clearly is an extremist problem and a problem with violence.  But in order to get to elections I think you cannot be in the condition that you're in now.  That's why we're emphasizing lifting the state of emergency. 

 

And in the final analysis, Pakistan is going to be better served in terms of fighting extremism by the development of democratic institutions.  I think that's true throughout the Middle East and South Asia.  But I think it'll certainly be true in Pakistan.

 

QUESTION:  And the uniform?

 

SECRETARY RICE:  He's made public promises to do that and, you know, we take him at his word.  It would be good to have it happen as soon as possible.

 

QUESTION:  Can I follow up on this?  In your conversations with him or the President's conversation with him, do you get the impression that he understands this move really isn't in the best interest of fighting terrorism? 

 

SECRETARY RICE:  Well, I don't want to try to put words in his mouth.  You know, obviously, he did what he thought he needed to do.  And he says, you know, it has to do with, as he said publicly, with fighting terrorism.

 

In our discussions, I've emphasized with him that he's the one who actually took Pakistan after the coup in '99, and after -- really after 9-11-2001, who really took Pakistan on a different course.  The media was, until this state of emergency, freer in Pakistan I think than anywhere in the region except India, which is a great democracy, a functioning democracy.  A huge number of newspapers and private TV stations.  You know, that didn't happen without the government permitting it to happen, in fact encouraging it to happen.  I mentioned the education reform.  I remember very well President  Musharraf's speech, in December I think it was, of 2001, where he talked about the fact that modernity and extremism could not exist side by side.  So in fact, this was a program that he had launched the country on. 

 

And so when we talk to him, we talk about the fact that it's unfortunate that this path on which he had launched Pakistan, he's somehow decided that he needed to take this detour, and he needs to get back on as quickly as possible.

 

QUESTION:  What we've seen in the last few days seems to be a rejection of Musharraf and his approach by more moderate elements.  If he is losing the support of moderate elements in the country, can he continue to be an effective partner for the U.S. and for U.S. goals in the region?

 

SECRETARY RICE:  Well, as I said, we want moderate elements to unite.  I still think that Musharraf is someone who does not believe in extremism and believes that Pakistan needs to be brought back from extremism -- extremism, by the way, that clearly brewed after the end of the Soviet war in Afghanistan when, frankly, a lot of the people who had fought in Afghanistan transiting Pakistan came back to Pakistan and didn't leave.  So I think we have to recognize that there actually is a real extremist problem.

 

And he has been very devoted to trying to root out that extremism and, as I said, doing it through the forward march of more and more civil and democratic progress.  Now, I can't speculate; if he gets back on that path, is there still -- can he still help reform the moderate center?  Probably.  But the longer this goes on, the harder that will be.  I mean, that's another reason that the state of emergency needs to be removed pretty quickly.

 

And it is interesting to me and important that after several days they did finally come out and unequivocally promise to have the elections; and not a year from now, a few months from now.  That's an important thing.

 

QUESTION:  Madame Secretary, what kind of person are you dealing with with General Musharraf -- his approachability, his flexibility, his degree of trust?

 

SECRETARY RICE:  I've found him someone that -- first of all, he has a rock solid dedication to his country.  We think this was a bad decision.  Full stop.  A bad decision.  I don't have any doubt that he is somebody who tries to have the best interests of his country at heart.  I just think it was not a decision that is in the interest of his country. 

 

He is approachable.  He is someone with whom you can talk and reason.  He is someone who has tried to fight terrorism and has tried to unravel some of the extremist elements.  I think one of the most animated times I've seen him was the first minister of education that he appointed, a woman who was very active in trying to put together a nationwide curriculum so that they could get out because these -- some of these madrasas were pretty -- foreign-funded madrasas were pretty bad.  And you know, he was animated by that.  He had an economic government team that I think everybody thought was a very strong team.

 

And so this is a modern man in that sense.  But this was a bad decision and this isn't the first time that we tried to talk him out of it.  And the last time worked; this time didn't.  But I really do -- when we speak now, it's to appeal to what he has said he wants for Pakistan, but it is also clear that that's what Pakistanis want for themselves and it's what Pakistanis are going to demand for themselves.  And the more quickly the government reacts to what Pakistanis are demanding for themselves, the better this is going -- that it's going to be.

 

QUESTION:  You've mentioned a couple times that the moderate elements need to unite.  What can the U.S. do to make that happen?  It seems like actually the state of emergency is making them unite, ironically. 

 

SECRETARY RICE:  Well, it comes down really to talking to them all, to trying to get them to think through what kind of program they want to unite around.  Ultimately, this is not -- I mean, this is not an immature political society.  I mean, it's a place where somebody like Benazir Bhutto -- Bhutto has been prime minister before twice, and so it's not as if you're trying to help her think through politics.  She understands politics.

 

But it's being encouraging and it's suggesting that our support is, in fact, for the Pakistani people and for Pakistani institutions, and that that's how the United States will react and will respond to how Pakistan is developing.  And they're good conversations.  She's also someone who is popular and has a lot of clout.  But they need to come together around a program that really gets the state of emergency over and then have an electoral program that can actually appeal to the Pakistani people.

 

QUESTION:  What's the biggest thing dividing them, preventing that?

 

SECRETARY RICE:  History.  History and prior circumstances and prior difficulties with one another.  It's not unlike that kind of problem in any society. 

 

QUESTION:  (Inaudible) personal and historical than issue-driven?

 

SECRETARY RICE:  It seems to me not so much issue-driven.  I think that these moderates all really want to fight extremism.  They know that this is a bad thing that happened to the country.  They, I think, all want to establish an economy that can really provide for the Pakistani people, that part of the problem is they've had very good macroeconomic progress over the last several years that hasn't really filtered down to progress for some of the poorest in the society.  I think they all know that the Federally Administered Tribal Regions are a particular problem.  And they all know that they have critically important relations with both India and Afghanistan to try to get right.

 

So I'm sure that there are, as in any political system, shades of difference about how you go about that, but I think in many ways they need to overcome a lot of the past.  This doesn't help.  And it draws up kind of some of the worst images of what has happened to Pakistan repeatedly, which is states of emergency and military coups and the like.  But I think if they get through this, there is actually a lot for moderates to unit around.

 

 

Thank you.