t3 b11 eop produced documents vol iii fdr- 8-6-02 ron fournier-ap interview of rice 004

8/14/2019 T3 B11 EOP Produced Documents Vol III Fdr- 8-6-02 Ron Fournier-AP Interview of Rice 004

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THE WHITE HOUSE

O ff i c e of the Press Secretary

In te rna l Transcr ip t Augus t 6, 2002

R E C E I V E DNTERVIEW OF NATIONAL SECURITY ADVISORCONDOLEEZZA RICE BY RON FOURNIER

OF THE ASSOCIATED PRESS JUN 7 2003

EEOB Room 459 National Commission onTerrorist Attacks

2 : 0 0 P . M . EO T

Q Let ' s start where i t star ted, on the day that they hitus . You were head ing to a rou t ine 9:00 a .m. mee t ing , might havebeen in i t a l ready, when somebody said, a plane has hi t theWorld Trade Center.

DR. R I C E : I was s t a n d i n g at my desk ge t t ing ready to godown to a s t a ff mee t in g , and my execut ive as s i s tan t came in andhe sa id , a p l a n e h a s _ h i t the Wor ld Trade Cente r. And I thought ,what a s t r a n g e a c c i d e n t .

I c a l l e d the Pres iden t who was in F l o r i d a at an educa t ioneven t , and I said a plane had hi t the World Trade Center. But Ith ink we b o t h t h o u g h t at tha t moment maybe a twin engine plane~or s o m e t h i n g of that sor t . _And he s a i d , w e l l , keep in t o u c h .An d I went back down to my staff mee t in g. And a~note was. ha nd ed

to me a few m i n u t e s a f t e r we s t a r t e d , s a yi n g that a second p lanehad hit the World Trade Ce nter , and I thought , th i s i s aterror is t a t tack.

And I went then in to the S i t u a t i o n R o om to t ry to f ind theNat iona l Securi ty Counci l pr incipals . And I couldn't f ind DonRumsfe ld , and i t tu rned out a p l a n e had hi t the Pentagon . So i twas a very ha i ry few coupl e of hours .

0 What e lapsed f rom the t i m e you heard , p robably a round9:15 a . m . , 9 :2 0 a . m . , w he n the second p lane h i t , u n t i l - - i t

was qu i te a good d i s tan ce passed before the P e n t ag o n h i t . W h a twere you t ryin g to do that whole t ime? Were you t ry ing to f indwhere they were?

DR. RICE: I was t ry ing to f ind the Nat i ona l Secur i tyCounci l p r i n c i p a l s . C o l i n P o we l l w a s i n L a t i n A m e r i c a . A n d I

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t a l k e d to him in Latin America. And I a t first thought he wasin Colombia, and then I r e a l i z e d , no, he was in Peru. I hadt r i ed to f ind George Tenet. I wanted to get Dick Clark back,who was the counter-terrorism person from the National Security

Counc i l s t a f f . And it 's very i n t e r e s t i n g , because i t now seemstha t i t a l l went by in a matter of minutes, but i t must havebeen close to half an hour. And then I found out that the plane

had h i t the Pentagon.

Shortly after that, I was told by the Secret Service that Ihad to go to the bunker, because they thought a plane might beheaded to the White House.

Q And who was in the bunker with you?

DR. RICE: When I got there, I saw the Vice President, who

was already there, and Norm M i n e t a , the TransportationSecretary, was there because he was trying to bring -- trying

toground

c i v i laviation, and the two of them were

workingtail

numbers. Wha t's happened to Flight Number 767 United , what'shappened to American F l i g h t 16 -- i t was a really interestingm o m e n t .

Q Did you know before you walked into the bunker that

t h e r e w a s t h a t much concern abcrat other flights that were stillup there?

DR. RICE: We l l , I did know that they were going to t ry toground c i v i l aviation. I had, just before I left t he SituationRoom, I had t a l k e d to the President one more time in Florida,and he was already a t the airport and he was getting ready t oget on Air Force One and he said that he was coming back. Weto ld him t ha t he probably shouldn't come back because Washingtonwa s under a t t a c k .

And when I got down to the bunker and he was talking to theVi c e P r e s i d e n t , and I think he was saying he was coming back,a nd t he Vice President wa s t e l l i n g him the same thing, your e a l l y s h o u l d n ' t come back.

Q He was shopping around for

DR. RICE: I think he was shopping around to find a way to

ge t back, but everybody knew i t wasn ' t time.

Q Because of h i s safety, I assume?

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DR. RICE: Because of h is sa f e ty. At a t ime l ike t h a t , youworry about the c o n t i n u i t y of t he U n i t e d S t a t e s government. Andto have t he President and the Vice P residen t in the same placewould not h a v e been smar t .

Q Now, when y ou l e f t t he S i t u a t i o n R o o m, y ou l e f t behinda lot of f r iends an d co-workers wh o were no longer in thebunker, weren't as p r o t e c t e d as you and the Vice President were,for obvious reasons.

DR. RICE: Yes.

Q But as the manager of those people and a colleague ofthose people, what was going t hrough your mind , rea l iz ing y ouhad people who were up there doing some serious work but in avery dangerous place?

DR. RICE: I did ask on a couple of occasions if everybodywas all r ight . I t ' s an in teres t ing group of people that workfor the Natio nal Secur i ty Counci l . They ' re a combination ofmi l i t a ry people and Foreign Service and in t e l l ige nce people .And al l of t hem sa id , when we ta lked abou t t he dangers ofworking in t h i s environment shortly a f t e r 9/11, all of them saidtha t they ' re here t o . erve t he i r coun t ry. And I th ink t ha t ' show everybody fel t abou t i t . B u t , of cou rse, -you worry about

Q Is tha t someth ing tha t w e i g h e d on you w h i l e i t ' shappening? Or i t ' s g o i n g too quick and catches up wi_th youl a te r?

DR. RICE: It was all going so f a s t . And I don ' t think Iworried about my personal safe t y. You couldn ' t worry aboutthose t h i n g s at tha t moment . You just had to get through t hem u l t i p l e tasks t h a t had to be done -- between about 10:00 a.m.and about 1:00 p . m . , I can only remember looking at a clock atabout 1:00 p.m.

Q You to ld me before about t he t ime when i t really sunkin to you, you came home an d turned on the TV a couple daysl a te r. Tell me about t h a t .

DR. RICE: It was Thursday night . I had stayed at theW h i t e House on Tuesday n i g h t , on 9/11 i t s e l f , and then I wenthome on Wednesday n i g h t , but I went home very , very la t e . Infac t , I d i d n ' t t u rn on the t e l ev i s io n aga in a f t e r 9 /11 un t i lThursday nig ht when I went home. And I got home about m i d n i g h t ,

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md I f l ipped on the t e l e v i s i o n , and they were play ing theNat iona l Anthem a t Buckingh am Pa lace . And I broke down a t t h a tnoment . I t was f in a l ly a re lease fo r a l l tha t had happened ,

b e c au s e u n t i l t h a t t i m e , I jus t kep t go ing .

Q I t m a d e you cry to hear our a n t h e m p l a y e d in a n o t h e rcountry?

DR . RICE: I t d id make me cry to hear our an them p layed atBuckingham Palace. And there were so many expressions ofsupport and so many expressions of f r i e n d s h i p , and th i s wassomehow a very special one.

Q Were you crying for the count ry, for w h a t we'd beenth rough , o r was i t , you know, re l i e f tha t we had a l l i e s l i k ethis standing up with us? What were your emotions a t ~ t h e t ime?

DR. RICE: I 'm not sure what was d r i v i n g the emot ion . I twas probably a combinat ion of th ings . I t was a t e r r ib ly sadt i m e. A n d , i n f a c t , i t ' s n o t u n t i l a f t e r t h e s e r vi c e , t h eN a t i o n a l Prayer Service the next day, tha t I th ink I s t a r t e d tofee l tha t we rea l ly had a t a sk ahead of us . There was a periodof mourning

Q Wasn ' t the re a m o m e n t in the s e r v i c e t h a t k i n d ofturned i t around for you?

DR. RICE: For m e , the moment t ha t tu rned i t a l l around w asthe Battle~Hymn of the Republic^ Th e Pres iden t spoke soe loquen t ly, and th a t began to s h i f t t h e ~ s e r v i c e f r o m a k in d o fmourn ing to a sense of r e s o l u t i o n .

But when I ar r ived a t the c h u r c h , I n o t i c e d t ha t w e werenot s i n g i n g the N a t i o n a l A n t h e m . And I t h o u g h t , w e l l , why arewe no t s ing ing the Nat iona l Ant hem a t the end of th i s se rv ice?And when we d id sing the B a t t l e Hymn of the R e p u b l i c w i t h t h o s eg r e a t , s t i r r i n g p h ra s e s , and the g r e a t s t i r r i n g m u s i c , I couldf e el ev e ry b od y, i n c l u d i n g m y s e l f , s t i f f e n and sense t h a t w e wereready to -- ready to do w h a t e v e r had to be done .

Q No t being to o c o r n b a l l , was t h e r e a l i n e , was there a

l ine in tha t hymn t h a t r e a l l y h i t you?

DR. RICE: "As He d i e d to m a k e men h o l y, l e t us d ie t o _ m a k emen f ree . " And they used the o ld l i ne , w h i c h i t once s a i d ," l ive t o make m e n f r e e , " b ut they h a d r e p l a c e d i t w i t h t h eu l t i m a t e s a c r i f i c e . At t h a t m o m e n t , you had to recognize t h a t

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people had made the u l t im ate sacr i f ice and would cont i nue tomake sacrif ices. We were probably going to send people , youngmen and women abroad, military people. That was very important .

Q What ' s i t l ike having the responsib i l i ty you h ave ofplaying a big role in sending men and women overseas to their,death?

DR . RICE: You try very hard to just make certain that allthe information is there and everything is clear, beca use reallyth e President stands alone in that decision. I don't thinkanybody can quit e comprehend unti l you're s i t t ing next to ort a lk ing to the President of the Uni ted Sta tes , who is the onlyperson who has that responsibility. And you just try and makesure that he has what he-needs to make a good decision.

Q You spent a lot of years get t ing ready for this jo band for that day, but it changed al]_of us in one way or

another. How did it change you, personally?

DR. RICE: I t certainly changed al l of us. You can ' t h e l p ,when you go through something like 9/11, you are changed. Itgave me, the events, a new appreciat ion for the power ofdemocracy. We learned later that a part icul ar countr y, whic hshall remain name les s, had had a study done on why so muc hpat r io t i sm had sprung forth from 9/11 wi th out the U n i t e d S t a t e sgovernment having to order i t . And tha t says something about areally strong democracy, that people ral ly.

I can remember my cousin saying to me, I never knew howmuch I loved America unti l 9/11. This is somebody who issuccessful and does love America. But for al l of us, the factthat we were at tacked for who we are and for the va lues that wehave , and our openness and our tolerance, and i t d i d n ' t des t royus -- qu i t e to the contrary, it m a d e us stronger. And theacts of heroism, i t real ly did just rek ind le my pride in beingan America n in a very, very strong way.

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y Really? How has this changed the President , f i rs t ofal l as a man, and the head of a family, and a person?

DR. RICE: We ll , l ike anybody that you know pret ty wel l ,you see that what you knew was already there just getsheightened and real ly ampl if ie d by events l ike this . And I 'veheard lots of people say, oh, he was transformed, he rose to the

occasion, all of those things. That's not how I see it .

I just see that the values and the a t t r ibu tes and thecharac te r i s t i c s that I saw in George W. Bush when I was workingwith him all the way back in the campaign just got ampl i f ied , asense of purpose, a kind of resilienc y and toughness. An

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a b i l i t y , even under tough c i r cums tances , d i f f i c u l tc i rcumstances , t o focus on the essence of something.

The very f i r s t m e e t i n g a f t e r t h i s ha d happened when we wereon a te leconference , he was a l r e a d y s a y i n g, w e ' l l get them, t h i sis going t o be g l o b a l , t h i s w i l l have ma jo r r ami f i ca t ions forin t e rna t iona l p ol i t i c s , w e have t o b e ready to get those who did

this t o us . That k ind of c l a r i t y

Q Was he on the p lane?

DR. RICE: No, he was now at O f f u t t Air Force Base, when wef i n a l l y - h a d a t e l econfe rence of the Nat iona l Secur i ty Counc i lp r inc ipa l s . Bu t t ha t d i r ec tness a nd a b i l i t y to'go right t o t heessence of somethi ng was wha t I think Americans needed most.They didn ' t need a lot of words, didn' t need a lo t of c lu t ter.They needed someone who would speak clearly and compassionatelya nd w i t h st r e n g t h a nd r e so lve . And those a re c h a r a c t e r i s t i c s

t ha t were there before 9/11 a nd t h a t were ampl i f i ed b y 9/11.

Q Fol lowing up on t h a t , how abou t - - l i k e hi s f a i t h ,he's a l ways been a man of f a i t h . But I hear hi m t a l k a lo t now,he seems very genui ne a b o u t , I a p p r e c i a t e people pray ing for me.Has he become even a deeper man of f a i t h ? Is re l ig ion moreimpor t an t than i t was^a yea r ago?

DR. RICE: I t h ink t h a t -- I assume that for thePres ident , l i k e al l of us who are people of f a i t h , t ha t y ou drawmos ton your f a i t h i n t i m e s of t rouble . And I do know t h a t hei s deeply moved when someone wri t es him a note or says, I'mpray ing for you. And he a l w a y s sa y s i t ' s t he most impor tan tth ing you can do. He means i t .

Q Why do you t h i n k t h a t means something t o him?

DR. RICE: Becaus e, when you are a person of f a i t h , prayeri s t he m o st i m p o r t a n t t h i n g t h a t you can do and i t ' s t he mostimpor t an t t h ing someone can do for you. I t ' s t he u l t i m a t e a ctof love a nd support t o pray for someone.

Q Someone else who's very close to him and who agreesw i t h y ou t h a t i t ' s not a t r a n s f o r m a t i o n , i t ' s a heightening oft he t r a i t s we saw on a s m a l l e r l e v el i n Texas and in h is f i r s tfew m o n t h s i n o f f i c e , says t h a t the one t h i n g he did see more ofi s t he Pres iden t be ing , y ou know, more f a t a l i s t i c , espec ia l lywhen i t comes to his own p e r s o n a l s a f e t y. I f i t happens, i thappens. Do you agree wi t h t h a t ? Can you

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DR. RICE: Absolute l y. The Pres iden t has sa id on anynumber of occasions, we're going to provi de for the securi ty ofthe United States, we're going to provide for everything tofunct ion . But he -- he wi l l not be somehow cowed into beingfearful of these people or what they might try to do.

Q He started exercising a lo t more r ight a f ter theat tacks . Is that coincidental or not?

DR. RICE: I don ' t know. I t 's something you'd have to askhim. I know he asked me, was I exerc is ing , because I had not,fo r about three weeks after 9/11, exercised. And we both arepeople who love to exercise. And he sa id , Are you exercising?And I sa id , no, why? Am I especial ly grumpy or something?

Q What, looking out of shape to you?

DR. RICE: Exactly. (Laughter.) Three weeks isn ' t thatlong. And he sa id , you 've got to get back to i t . You've got toget back to i t .

Q Let ' s ta lk about a l i t t l e bit how it 's changed thepres idency, th is pres idenc y, how the a t t ack s have . Obvious ly

"you have the big focus on terrorism. Do you agree wi th him thatth is is what he wi l l be judged o n, is how we do in t his war?

DR. RICE: There are issues of war and peace and l i fe anddeath tha t coun t r i e s go througli from time to time_ Not everyPresident faces those issues in q u i t e the magni tude tha t thisPresident is now f ac ing them.

In many ways, this presidency now becomes a presidency l ikeRoosevelt or Lincol n, t ime s when the country is facingexis tent ia l t h r e a t s , not just the kind of dai ly threa ts ofexistence -- or da i ly th rea t s of i n t e rna t iona l po l i t i c s , butl i t e r a l l y threa ts to exis tence .

And so, yes, I do th ink i t is what th is presidency w i l l bejudged on, and what America wi l l be judged on. That and theleadership ro le that we ta ke in defend ing the peace . We are the

strongest country in the world , we do have a disproport ionateresponsibil i ty for defending peace .

But also what we do to make the world better at the samet ime. And i t ' s why the Pres ident has been very focused not juston the war on te r ro r i sm, but on increasing American

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contr ibut ions to development assistance, fo r instance, by 50percent ; on bringing Russia toward the West and solidifyingre la t ions with the great powers. These times of crisis have inthem both the possibility of danger and the opportunities. Andth e great Presidents have been able to do both.

Q 9/11, just to expand a l i t t l e bit what you just said9/11 accelerated the relationship with Russia. It was

already well on its way, its changing relationship, strengthenedrelationship in Central Asia. Has it also changed the way welook at Iraq, in this sense: We've had the policy since Clintonthat regime change is the proper course, Congress has passed it.But do we -- is there a greater focus on regime change thanthere would have been it not been for 9/11?

DR. RICE: Probably the -- what 9/11 has done is toremind us of the dangers of allowing someone to hit you beforeyou stop them, and recognizing that there are a lot of jsj:atesand a lot of actors in international politics who are notde te r rab le .

And in that sense

Q Now,-you guys knew that intellectua lly before thea t t acks .

DR. RICE: Of course you know i~ t i n t e l l e c t u a l l y. But ifyou think of the Cold_War, we were able to deter and contain theSovie t Union w i t h the threat of massive reta liat ion. When you

think about the world in which we live now, we're talking aboutt e r ro r i s t s or hostile regimes with weapons of mass destruction.And the thought that you would probably like to get them beforethey get you becomes even more central to your thinking.

The President maybe, perhaps, put it best in his State ofthe Union, when he talked about not sitting by while dangersga ther

Q Storm clouds.

DR. RICE: Storm clouds gather, because inaction is also agreat danger. And the President has been really a r t i c u l a t e andstrong in talking about that fact . He talked about it in theBundestag speech in Germany.

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DR. RICE: Everybody would like very much to bring Osamabin Laden to jus t ice , or jus t ice to him. But we're a pat ientcountry, and the goal here has always been to make sure that alQaeda is disrupted, broken up, and eliminated, so that it cannotdo the th ings to us aga-in that it did on 9/11, and the Cole, andthe embassy bombings. So the f i rs t priori ty is on breaking upthis network.

And while, there 's a lot of focus, sometimes, on Osama bi nLaden, we've captured - - several of the t-ep lieutenants haveeither been captured or ki l led . And that also disrupts andleads to the e l imina t i on of the network.

But the President said it best when he said that if he 'sdead, then we got him, and if he's not dead, then we will gethim.

Q Wha t 's your thought? Do you think he's dead or alive?

DR. RICE: I have no idea.

Q Tell me about -- we talked about this before, butfor the sake of our TV audience, tell me about the call fromPutin, and what that meant .

DR. RICE: I was just in the bunker for a few minutes whenI learned that Don Rumsfeld had of course asked, said that weneeded to change the defense condi t ion of American forces, whichmeans to put them on a higher s ta te of a ler t . And in the olddays in the Soviet Union, that would have provoked an alert by

the Soviet Union, and you get into what we called a spiral ofalerts.

And so it occurred to me, well , we should probably call theRussians. And as it turned out, the Russians were trying tocall us at the same t ime, Pres ident Put in was trying to reachPresident Bush, but he was on an a i rp lane . So I took the ca l l ,

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and he sa id , Pres ident Pu t in sa id , we know t h a t you are going toa higher s ta te of a le r t - - they can see i t , of course. Hesaid , that means w e' l l s tand down our forces which are onexerci ses.

And I was real l y s t ruck by t h a t , struck emotional ly by i t ,because this meant that the relat ionship really had changed. i t

had changed fund amental ly to one in which we now had commonsecuri ty threats , a common security agenda . The President andPresident Putin had talked about that at Ljubljana, thatterrorism and weapons of mass des t ruc t ion gave us a commonsecuri ty agenda . But here was the most vivid demonstrat ion ofthat I could imagine. -

Q And if I can, before you have to go, flesh out onemore anecdote. Do you happen to remember -- and in the jumbleof events, you might not - - an Oval Of f ice mee t ing where youand the President were briefed about NATO asking if we would go

aloncf with them in v o t i n g A r t i c l e 5 ?

DR. RICEf: Yes.

Q Who b r i e f e d , and how d id t ha t

DR. R I C E : We l l , i t s t a r t e d w i t h a cal~l to me from ourambassador, Nic k Burns, who -- I was in my off ice , and he said

i t was

Q This would have'been the very next morning.

DR . RICE: T he very next morn ing , Wednesday morni ng. A ndhe said, NATO i s g o i n g to v o t e , w a n t s to v o t e to invoke Ar t ic le5, which says an a t t a c k upon one is an a t t a c k u p o n a l l . And Iknew the his to ry, of course -- NATO had n e v e r, in i ts 50-yearh i s t o r y, i n vo k ed A r t i c l e 5 .

And so I walk ed down to the Oval and I said, Mr. Pres ident ,NATO wants to invoke Ar t i c le 5, and they want to know, I guess ,if i t ' s a l l r igh t . And he s a i d , w e l l , of course i t ' s a l l r i g h t .

And I went back and I ta lked to Nick . And t hat was anothert ime when I myself fe l t qui te emot iona l , because i t meant tha twe real ly had fr iends. And i t mean t , too, that NATO understood

t h a t i t r e a l l y was an a t t ack upon a l l , because i t could havebeen Pari s or London or Ber l i n , because they, too, are al lb a s t i o n s of f reedom.

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Q Do you know -- one more point somebody made abouthow the Presid ent 's changed. He's a lways been a g r e a tde lega tor, obviously knows how to get to the po in t, knows how towrap up a meet ing . I'm told that he's even bet ter now, that ifa meet ing 's scheduled 30, but i t ' s w i n d i ng down at 20, h e ' l l askthat cruestion tha t t a lks about - - he has a more h igher va lueon the t ime of a Presiden t , how Presidents should di vi de up

their time. Is that accurate to say?

DR. RICE: We l l , I think i t ' s accurate to say that thePresident doesn't waste t ime . And he never did, but even moreso now. We're dea l ing wi t h an awful lot on th i s p l a te . Thereare a lot of real ly cr i t ical issues. And he's very e ff ic ien twi th the use of his t ime .

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