Rice Defends Prisoner Tactics 

BARBARA SLAVIN / USA TODAY 29nov2005

WASHINGTON — Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice on Monday defended the indefinite detention of terrorist suspects as part of an unprecedented war to prevent massive attacks on civilians.

In an interview with USA TODAY, Rice neither confirmed nor disavowed the existence of secret CIA prisons abroad that The Washington Post reported this month. She said the Bush administration's policy of making arrests before crimes are committed benefits other nations as well as the United States.

"We have never fought a war like this before where ... you can't allow somebody to commit the crime before you detain them," she said. "Because if they commit the crime, thousands of innocent people die."

The European Union is investigating the prisons. Justice and Home Affairs Commissioner Franco Frattino said Monday that any EU member that operated one of the prisons could be ousted from the 25-member organization.

Rice said the potential withdrawal of U.S. troops from Iraq would depend on the wishes of the government to be elected next month and the Iraqis' ability to provide order. The Pentagon has said it hopes to reduce the number of U.S. troops, currently 160,000, by at least 20,000 after the Dec. 15 vote.

Iraqi forces are carrying more of the security load, she said. "The president will take from his commanders their assessment of what conditions permit."

On other issues, Rice:

• Acknowledged mistakes in U.S. policy in Iraq but rejected the idea that ousting Saddam Hussein had made the Middle East less stable. "I will be the first to say I am sure there were many things that could have been done better," in the U.S. invasion and occupation, she said. History will show "things that look like mistakes that will turn out to be great successes and things that look like great successes that will turn out to be mistakes."
  
  
• Denied any political ambitions and said she was looking forward to going back to Stanford University, where she served as provost. "When I go back to Stanford in 3½ years, I can guarantee you I will probably oversee dissertations that look at" what went wrong and right in Iraq.
  
  
• Confirmed that the United States supports a Russian proposal to allow Iran to convert uranium into a precursor for nuclear fuel so long as the final enrichment takes place in Russia. Critics, such as the American-Israel Public Affairs Lobby, warn that will increase the chance that Iran can develop nuclear weapons. "We'll see whether it works," she said of the Russian approach.
  
  
• Said that U.S. Ambassador to Iraq Zalmay Khalilzad may talk to Iranian diplomats about Iraq but that broader talks would "run the risk of granting legitimacy to a government that does not deserve" it.
  
  
• Said the administration was not "sitting still" on North Korea despite slow progress in multinational talks. She pointed to recent U.S. sanctions on a bank in Macau that handles North Korean finances.
  
  Asked about the possibility of inviting North Korean diplomats to New York City next month to discuss the sanctions, she said, "They don't need to have a bilateral on how to stop counterfeiting other people's money."

source: http://www.usatoday.com/news/washington/2005-11-28-rice_x.htm 29nov2005