Interview on BBC News with Jonathan Beale

Secretary Condoleezza Rice
Washington, DC
July 7, 2005
http://www.state.gov/secretary/rm/2005/49018.htm
(10:00 a.m. EDT)

MR. BEALE: Thank you for this interview. First of all, can I get your
reaction to what's happened in London?

SECRETARY RICE: .... This is a worldwide war against ideals. If that is
indeed what has happened, if that is indeed who's behind this, we just have
to remember there's no separate peace to be made with terrorists[IMRA:
except Palestinian terrorists - they can be put on the payroll of the
security forces] The terrorists are after our way of life and we have to
defeat them [IMRA: Except Palestinian terrorists - they have to be co-opted
into the parliament]. There is no other way to deal with them than through
strength [IMRA: Except Palestinian terrorists: they have to be won over with
concessions and operations against them should be restricted out of concern
for the "process"].

...And that means that we're dealing with a region of the world, the Middle
East, that is not normal. It's not normal for people to strap suicide belts
on themselves and kill other innocent people[IMRA: though in polls a
substantial part of the "normal" Palestinian public may support it]. It's
not normal for people to fly airplanes into buildings.

We have to deal with the circumstances that are producing this ideology of
hatred and with the ideology itself, and that's the Middle East. And that is
the link to Iraq. Now, nobody suggests that Saddam Hussein was responsible
for 9/11, but it's a rather narrow definition of what caused 9/11. This
ideology of hatred has to be defeated. It has to be defeated by replacing it
with an ideology of hope. And a free and democratic Iraq is going to be an
important pillar of this new and different kind of Middle East.

.... These jihadists have been training for quite a long time. We have to
confront them. And the notion that somehow if you just leave them alone,
they'll go away, is just not right. We have to confront them. [IMRA: except
in the case of Palestinians - the US may not necessarily want the terrorists
to take over - but they can run for election and if they win - those are the
breaks.].

...you have to fight this war on the offense[IMRA: and retreat in Gaza].
That's why you have to take away territory from places like Afghanistan
[IMRA: and give it in northern Samaria]. That's why you have to fight in the
mountains of Pakistan. That's why it's important to have new and stable
democracies in the Middle East in places like Lebanon or Iraq. That's why
you have to fight this war on the offense and win against not just the
terrorists who perpetrate an attack on any given day, but the ideology of
hatred that spawns it.

... But in the longer run, our goal has to be to replace this ideology of
hopelessness and hatred in the Middle East with freedom and liberty, which
when people are living in freedom and liberty, they don't want to send their
children off to be suicide bombers [IMRA: But if the Palestinian leadership
praises their "martyr" suicide bombers...] .
...
2005/682

Released on July 7, 2005